Lag problems and speed setting

[unmerged(3859)]

Sometimes the game gets really laggy (lag from 1-4 mins!!!) really fast and doesnt recover until the host hit's pause and waits a minute.
then we just lower the speed a notch (say to slow from below normal) and the lag goes away and it feels "instant" again.

We started playing on "normal" but had to switch to "below normal" and now sometimes even to "slow". Anyone knows a remedy for this?

 

[TheArchduke]

The Cpu needs to catch up prolly, is it a problem for real?

 

[unmerged(26482)]

Huge problem

It is a very big problem. If there is lag your games will become so far apart one of the game machines will eventually crash. My friend and I have been playing at Below Normal setting for long periods of time and there is no lag. Anything faster one of our machines crashes. Also if there is net congestion you may have to go to Slow to avoid the crash. We have developed a habit of having "lag checks" where the non-host pauses and if the days keep passing after pause we know we have too much log and adjust the speed of the game to a lower setting.

Yours,

hradek

 

[HVC]

In my MP (i'm the host) it sometimes happens. The cause seems to be that one of the players is either sharing a connection with someone else who is using up bandwidth or the player themselves is using up bandwidth for something else (usually a P2P). It starts off with one player being slow and over time drags the others back. one obvious method to stop this is to tell people to turn off bandwidth "stealing" programs or beat up their roomie . If it's just a slowish computer a good band aid is setting autosaves every 5 months, the period that it takes to save usually puts everyone in sync. Also, a date check a month or so after every save/autosave helps to make sure everyone is in sync so that bugs (minor like trade changes don't take effect, mobilization doesn't take effect, etc) and CTD's don't occur.


Oh, i run our MP at below normal, and slow when people are at war.