Drop outs in MP?

[Majorball]

Posting on behalf of the Aussie group who are experiencing a large number of restarts caused by disconnects recently. The host who has always been host drops out everyone at the same time but does not lose connection to the Net.
Normally an individual player is responsible and we are usually left in the game when we get a message that someone has left the game.
Any ideas to what would be causing the host to drop everyone?

We currently are playing the latest 1.3 patch....

 

[jpd]

what is the exact sequence of events, and are you, the host, or other players using a NAT enabled router?

For example, does everyone drop when the game is paused?

 

[Majorball]

The last couple of times we noticed that the host dropped before the other 5 of us as the host did not see our last messages which everyone else could see. I am not the host but I have had a problem myself of my ADSL dropping out recently...unrelated to the game. The game doesnt not crash and the host is able to get a save but we all seem to drop out of the game together where up on the screen it lists all the players have left the game. I cant be 100% sure that it happens everytime when we pause although it does sometimes. The host is in the same area as myself and has hosted all our games for the past 2 years without a problem.
Usually the first time we get a sign the host is gone is when I attempt to adjust my productions sliders and they just keep going back to the same spot...within 5 -10 seconds you can be guaranteed to be disconencted from the game.
It is quite annoying and just cant think of anything that could be causing it other than a dodgy telephone exchange interferring with our ADSL connections(1500/256)

 

[jpd]

Well, the reason I asked specifically about the NAT enabled routers and the game being paused, is that there are low level communications issues in DirectX under these circumstances.

When host and remotes are behind a NAT enabled router, the game is paused and at least the host does nothing for 30 seconds or so, the communication layer in DirectX for some reason looses it's game related com link. The symptoms are:

- greatly reduced communications activity on your router (if you have the indicator leds for this you can see it)
- host gets messages about other players leaving the game
- after a short period after this, remote players see a message that the host dropped

Does this profile match your experience?

 

[Castellon]

All MP related issues should be in the MP forum.
*Moved

 

[Majorball]

Yes I think it does match with our circumstances....What can we do to correct it?

 

[jpd]

Unfortunately, not much. Instead of pausing, consider slowing down the pace of the game. Or, if you must pause, keep the interface busy by clicking in provinces, units, production folder, etc.

It's a weird combination issue between DirectX, the game and the NAT enabled routers. For some yet unexplained reason DirectX stops with carrying game related data between the various player PC's after some 30 or seconds of the game engine being paused (which means the engine itself stops sending regular updates as there are none )

Testing has shown this issue only happens when players are behind NAT enabled routers (which means their PC's have IP numbers not directly visible to the outside world).

 

[Majorball]

Well this may help thanks....

 

[Majorball]

Well it appears that our problems have been come so bad as to make the game unplayable in MP. Our next step is to try a host who has a cable conenction. At this stage we have periods where we drop out of the game every 10 minutes. We use to play with 10 players no problem at all for hours and hours. It would be good if someone could take some notice of this and actually correct what maybe causing these issues as the Aussie group has nearly given up on MP gaming.

 

[cmr_hiker]

Well it appears that our problems have been come so bad as to make the game unplayable in MP. Our next step is to try a host who has a cable conenction. At this stage we have periods where we drop out of the game every 10 minutes. We use to play with 10 players no problem at all for hours and hours. It would be good if someone could take some notice of this and actually correct what maybe causing these issues as the Aussie group has nearly given up on MP gaming.

i hate to say this ball,

you need to check your game for cheating. you need to look at Factories/Tech teams etc. we had very similar problems as you are describing and it was because a player/host was cheating the game and causing the CTD

hate to make suspicious but it was true in our case.

http://xsorbit25.com/users5/hoiplayers/index.php?topic=889.0

 

[unmerged(14249)]

Well it appears that our problems have been come so bad as to make the game unplayable in MP.

When did this start and what changed? Is it since version 1.3? Perhaps the extra load imposed by the AI events is causing performance problems for the host? You might try the SMEP mod which disables some of the worst ones.

But it could be any number of things. I was getting regular BSOD crashes until I figured out that these were caused by my USB hub. I now configure to play without it and the crashes are gone.

Andrew

 

[Majorball]

Been happenign since version 1.2... I am not sure if it is a game problem. The have been upgrading a lot of ADSL lines for the roll out of ADSL 2 here. Our host has since reconfigured his modem and we are yet to try since. My problems are caused by a dodgy line but maybe that is causing problems for our host also. Will let you know how we go...