Corner lag\bug

[individual]

Somebody seems to have found some kind of issue with MW2's netcode, because there's a specific type of lag that seems to occur when getting shot at and trying to strafe around a corner.

I have a good connection in America usually with 3-4 bars and this still happens to me a lot. I used to think it was just random penetration kills, but after seeing this video, now I actually see what's happening:

Take a look:

[toysrme]

now i get my fair share of lag deaths, but not like that.

[individual]

In a thread about this, a community mod described this:

The problem is the OP described is not Lag , it's what IW uses to try and conteract the effects of lag. It's called Anti-Lag..

Anyways what happens, is the hit box for yourself or the enemy is in respect lagging. Thus when someone else is effected by lag, when they shoot an enemy they still hit them.

In effect to the OP you would have died anyways if you were playing in a LAN, it just more annoying this way.

What seems to happen is: If you get shot by a laggy player, your connection suddenly basically freezes and if you strafe, while you're appearing to strafe on your screen on their screen you're completely still.

[Protolisk]

I wish they had made anti lag so that you could die at the same time

[infininja]

I never see such extreme cases when I'm playing, but the basic principles happen all the time.

[chyros]

Yes, this happens a lot to me. It also happens when I'm on rooftops, get shot at, retreat or lie down so they shouldn't be able to see me anymore, but mysteriously they still can when I do.

[mannon]

Lag compensation simply means that you can shot what you see instead of having to try to lead your targets due to lag. Lag compensation makes it so that even if your target has moved but that data hasn't gotten to you yet, you can still shoot at the target you see on your end. It does not induce more lag when you get shot by a laggy player.

The gist of what is going down is that anytime you shoot someone that data only has to make it to the Host before it goes into effect. But your movement in and out of cover whether it's changing stances or actually moving has to go to the Host and then to the other player, which takes a lot of time. The other player can and will shoot you before they get that data.

Sure it sucks, but by the same token you can use it to your advantage. It hurts you on going from vulnerable to cover. But if you are going from cover to vulnerable in order to shoot your opponent then the lag actually helps you kill him before he even has a chance to react.

This is not a bug or a glitch, it's simply a fact of life given the facts of internet gaming and about the only thing IW can do is see to it that packets are being sent as quickly and efficiently as possible and tweak the prediction some, which has probably already been done, though I get the impression that the game could send more packets per second, though perhaps it is capped to keep the Host from getting clogged up.

Lag compensation came in way back when Valve introduced it in the HL1 engine (possibly before, but seems to be when it hit the FPS community.) People complained about this effect then too, but overall the game is much better with it so it's worth the tradeoff.

[mannon]

BTW You will also see this in virtually all modern online games, it is not limited to MW2. High movement speeds and high lethality of the weapons make it more apparent.

[snakex]

Dec 26, 2009 9:30:28 GMT -5 mannon said:

BTW You will also see this in virtually all modern online games, it is not limited to MW2. High movement speeds and high lethality of the weapons make it more apparent.

but in MW2 it´s terrible

[revolution]

this happens to me alot, I hate it...

[Aphoristic]

It really is terrible, the lag in this game. I play on 360 and that's nearly always the reason I die. Commando is overpowered because of it, attempting to run from bullets is nearly impossible. Seriously, I can shoot at a guy, pause a bit and shoot again and he will not have moved at all on my screen (but I bet he was running/ducking on his), and this is probably the reason I get most of my deaths.

[Aphoristic]

Oh and that's also the reason why the host gets such a huge advantage every match.

[mannon]

Yes it does give the host a big advantage, which is why I think the host should have simulated latency equal to his opponent with the lowest ping, to even the field. Though I'd much prefer dedicated servers.

If it's bad in MW2 it's due more to the nature of the game than anything horrendous in the netcode, but it would be nice if we could increase the rate that we are sending packets at least. Other than that they could possibly tweak the prediction, but that will only help in limited cases, and doesn't seem to be that bad in MW2.

About the only other thing I can think of to help is they could impose more input lag on everyone before you can fire your weapon to even things up a bit, but I rather suspect we'd all hate that even more.

As is the best you can do is simply be aware of it and try not to leave yourself open. Or improve your internet connection.

Dedicated servers could possibly help, especially if we were allowed to increase the server updates along with that. Of course it won't help consoles unless IW or MS/Sony decided to host dedicated servers for us... (yeah right).

It's frustrating and may be responsible for a lot of your deaths, but it's also responsible for a lot of your kills whether you realize it or not, so it's a factor that more or less evens out across the player base.

[toad]

I've had this alot, drives me nutty.

Mannon - Remember we discussed this the other day? It's happened a lot since. You even see in the replay that the enemy is shooting where I was, thin air, yet I still get killed. In general, I would say there's about .75 to 1.0 seconds of this 'lag' Doesn't sound much, but it's enough to drive you potty!

[spifnar]

Trusting the client (you can look up the Zeroping mod from UT to see the evolution of this strategy of lag correction) is kinda ass IMO. They gotta use it for the distributed server model, but a dedicated server never should. It lowers a person's incentive to get a good net connection:

With no lag correction, Player A am penalized for having a bad connection to the server

With MW2's lag correction, Player A is rewarded for having a bad connection when moving/shooting people. Helping him kill Player B. Player A is still penalized in a bunch of other situations.

For playability, unless you're the server, always leave a server where a bunch of people have a poor connection. Even if you have a good connection.