ZDaemon - is this lag?

[NoXion]

There's this weird thing which keeps happening when I'm playing games online with ZDaemon. Basically, when I try to move through a level, my path keeps getting reversed and/or I get thrown around at warp speed in seemingly random directions. Because of this I usually end up getting killed by monsters or being thrown into a lava pit or something like that, and that's when the additional wrinkle comes in where it takes ages for me to respawn. Also, any chat messages I try to type when this happens fail to appear after I send them.

Now this looks a lot like simple lag to me, but the strangest thing is that this can happen even when my ping is below 100. I don't know an awful lot about network protocols or how Doom works over the internet so maybe somebody here can shed some light on what is happening, because it's really rather frustrating.

[Cupboard]

run a quick virus scan. use a wired internet connection instead of a wireless connection (it makes a world of difference for competitive gameplay). Get rid of all unessential processes. Is steam or other multiplayer programs running in the background and using internet protocol even though you aren't using them right now?

Try to slim down everything you possibly can and open up port 10666 on TCP/UDP protocol on your router.

Your complaints are not all that unusual. I experience dropped messages just about every month due to my special status. Just accept it and play to your strengths. ZDaemon is a huge community of servers and potential players, you can really reach farther than you might ever have expected.

[Ralphis]

It's packet loss. ZDaemon is not particularly great at dealing with it but even if it was, it's still going to be a problem no matter what. Packet loss can occur even at low pings and affects all games. However, the nature of Doom's high-speed gameplay makes it particularly jarring.

Basically, your client is a simulation of the world. The server that you are playing on determines where everything really is - your client is simply trying to guess and shows you what it thinks the server is doing. If you start dropping packets and not receiving/sending messages between the server, your client may think it is somewhere that it is actually not supposed to be. Eventually, you receive a packet from the server that tells you where you should be and your client corrects it. That is why you snap from the position your client thinks it was to where the client is now told that it should be.

What can be causing it? A number of things. It could be the server you're playing on, it could be some sort of software on your computer, it could be a bad wireless connection, your router could be flooding and causing problems (happens to me on occasion, I reset the router/modem), it could be a bad modem, it could be a random line in the middle of the country between you and the server. There are a ton of reasons it could happen. My suggestion is to reset your modem/router and see if it helps, then go from there in trying to solve the problem.

[VGA]

Yeah you need to play on servers with lower ping.

[Ralphis]

VGA said:

Yeah you need to play on servers with lower ping.

Please see my post

[Doomkid]

As the dude who always has 300+ ping, I can confirm it happens on all source ports :)

If you're using Win7, try disabling Wireless Zero Config. Helped me immensely. https://wincom.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/how-to-disable-wireless-zero-configuration-in-windows-7/