• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EST 04:10
CET 10:10
KST 18:10
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
RSL Season 3 - Playoffs Preview0RSL Season 3 - RO16 Groups C & D Preview0RSL Season 3 - RO16 Groups A & B Preview2TL.net Map Contest #21: Winners12Intel X Team Liquid Seoul event: Showmatches and Meet the Pros10
Community News
RSL Season 3: RO16 results & RO8 bracket13Weekly Cups (Nov 10-16): Reynor, Solar lead Zerg surge1[TLMC] Fall/Winter 2025 Ladder Map Rotation14Weekly Cups (Nov 3-9): Clem Conquers in Canada4SC: Evo Complete - Ranked Ladder OPEN ALPHA12
StarCraft 2
General
RSL Season 3: RO16 results & RO8 bracket SC: Evo Complete - Ranked Ladder OPEN ALPHA RSL Season 3 - Playoffs Preview Mech is the composition that needs teleportation t GM / Master map hacker and general hacking and cheating thread
Tourneys
RSL Revival: Season 3 $5,000+ WardiTV 2025 Championship StarCraft Evolution League (SC Evo Biweekly) Constellation Cup - Main Event - Stellar Fest 2025 RSL Offline Finals Dates + Ticket Sales!
Strategy
Custom Maps
Map Editor closed ?
External Content
Mutation # 500 Fright night Mutation # 499 Chilling Adaptation Mutation # 498 Wheel of Misfortune|Cradle of Death Mutation # 497 Battle Haredened
Brood War
General
Data analysis on 70 million replays A cwal.gg Extension - Easily keep track of anyone soO on: FanTaSy's Potential Return to StarCraft [ASL20] Ask the mapmakers — Drop your questions FlaSh on: Biggest Problem With SnOw's Playstyle
Tourneys
[Megathread] Daily Proleagues Small VOD Thread 2.0 [BSL21] GosuLeague T1 Ro16 - Tue & Thu 22:00 CET [BSL21] RO16 Tie Breaker - Group B - Sun 21:00 CET
Strategy
Current Meta Game Theory for Starcraft How to stay on top of macro? PvZ map balance
Other Games
General Games
Clair Obscur - Expedition 33 Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread EVE Corporation Path of Exile [Game] Osu!
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
Mafia Game Mode Feedback/Ideas
Community
General
Russo-Ukrainian War Thread The Games Industry And ATVI US Politics Mega-thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine About SC2SEA.COM
Fan Clubs
White-Ra Fan Club The herO Fan Club!
Media & Entertainment
[Manga] One Piece Movie Discussion! Anime Discussion Thread Korean Music Discussion
Sports
2024 - 2026 Football Thread Formula 1 Discussion NBA General Discussion MLB/Baseball 2023 TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
The Health Impact of Joining…
TrAiDoS
Dyadica Evangelium — Chapt…
Hildegard
Saturation point
Uldridge
DnB/metal remix FFO Mick Go…
ImbaTosS
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 2302 users

Some notes regarding SC2 networking - Page 3

Forum Index > SC2 General
167 CommentsPost a Reply
Prev 1 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 Next All
UmmTheHobo
Profile Blog Joined April 2008
United States650 Posts
March 24 2010 23:10 GMT
#41
Mr. Jack gets hired by blizzard to do artwork; maybe R1CH gets hired to make SC2's netcode godly?
...
theqat
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
United States2856 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-03-24 23:34:02
March 24 2010 23:33 GMT
#42
On March 25 2010 06:33 mgj wrote:
Show nested quote +
R1CH: I have a program I made to analyze the benefit of nagling by tracking the amount of send calls vs bytes sent, I just played a game of SC2 and verified that SC2 does indeed disable nagling by itself.


Cool, had no idea. Disregard my link everyone.

Show nested quote +
Skaff I'm not sure you understand who R1CH is

R1CH is obviously a clever guy, but i really dont agree with this mentality. If you disagree with him, why hold back because of his status on the site? He seems like a reasonable guy, the worst thing that could happen is a good discussion where both parties end up understanding the issue better.

edit: Need to figure out how to include usernames in quotes =P


both you and r1ch responded saying you didn't like my attitude but neither of you found skaff's post worth responding to I wouldn't have made that comment if his post had seemed worthwhile
Zelniq
Profile Blog Joined August 2005
United States7166 Posts
March 24 2010 23:43 GMT
#43
R1CH you have no idea how happy you just made me..

the lag is the one thing that's kept me from getting full enjoyment out of the beta..
but your Latency improvement fix has made a huge difference..feels much faster now..almost like lan latency!!

you sir are a hero!!!!!!!
ModeratorBlame yourself or God
FrostedMiniWeet
Profile Joined July 2009
United States636 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-03-25 00:10:58
March 25 2010 00:09 GMT
#44
I think that the UDP latency benefits are mostly negligible with todays broadband connections, but the biggest benefit that TCP has over UDP is congestion control and flow control. You mention how TCP has to resend data if it gets dropped, but a UDP solution would have to do the same, since this isn't a video stream where if we lose packets it doesn't really matter. UDP solutions will lose more packets than TCP solutions under network congestion because it doesn't throttle sending to account for it like TCP. I wrote a networked multiplayer asteroids-like game a few years ago, and we chose TCP for these reasons.
lynx.oblige
Profile Joined August 2009
Sierra Leone2268 Posts
March 25 2010 00:11 GMT
#45
Thanks for filling us in, R1CH.
Everyone needs a nemesis.
Razamataz
Profile Joined October 2007
Canada135 Posts
March 25 2010 00:26 GMT
#46
Thank you very much for this thread! Very useful information!
Skaff
Profile Joined February 2010
United States240 Posts
March 25 2010 00:27 GMT
#47
On March 25 2010 09:09 FrostedMiniWeet wrote:
I think that the UDP latency benefits are mostly negligible with todays broadband connections, but the biggest benefit that TCP has over UDP is congestion control and flow control. You mention how TCP has to resend data if it gets dropped, but a UDP solution would have to do the same, since this isn't a video stream where if we lose packets it doesn't really matter. UDP solutions will lose more packets than TCP solutions under network congestion because it doesn't throttle sending to account for it like TCP. I wrote a networked multiplayer asteroids-like game a few years ago, and we chose TCP for these reasons.


Thats kind of the assumption I was on as well. But then again (being since I have done no heavy network code myself) you can push some extra juice out of getting the both out of both worlds.

As far far as the "not knowing R1CH" comment.. I have no issues if I can bring up a point and have it get shot down (as long as I have some kind of angle with my point). I am far from all knowing (sadly). Heck I might learn a thing or two from him as well!
cowsrule
Profile Joined February 2010
United States80 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-03-25 00:35:45
March 25 2010 00:35 GMT
#48
The point of UDP vs TCP is that with UDP, you can write your own code on top of UDP to make it reliable, and since you know exactly the kinds of data that you are sending over the wire and since each packet does not have to be processed in order, you don't have to wait for out of order chunks to arrive before continuing to process incoming packets. Yes, the overall overhead of the TCP headers is almost negligible on todays broadband, but using your own reliable UDP helps prevent spikes in the case of dropped/missing TCP chunks.

Edit: Woo run-on sentence, if that's not clear let me know and I'll rephrase .
Beardfish
Profile Blog Joined January 2006
United States525 Posts
March 25 2010 00:37 GMT
#49
Very informative thread, I hope to see updates in the future as more discoveries are made regarding sc2's netcode. Thanks!
McCain
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
United States187 Posts
March 25 2010 00:45 GMT
#50
On March 25 2010 05:00 R1CH wrote:

Architecture
Stacraft 2 games run using a server, similar to HoN - not peer to peer as the original BW does. This means that Blizzard is the one hosting the games, not you (note: custom games were not tested).

Highly doubt this. Blizzard has never hosted games for a free service (WoW's pay to play obviously) because it'd cost them a ton of money to maintain, for no real reason. Can't see why they'd be hosting the games this time around.
Ruthless
Profile Joined August 2008
United States492 Posts
March 25 2010 00:47 GMT
#51
how do you check your ping in game?
Spawkuring
Profile Joined July 2008
United States755 Posts
March 25 2010 00:50 GMT
#52
On March 25 2010 09:45 McCain wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 25 2010 05:00 R1CH wrote:

Architecture
Stacraft 2 games run using a server, similar to HoN - not peer to peer as the original BW does. This means that Blizzard is the one hosting the games, not you (note: custom games were not tested).

Highly doubt this. Blizzard has never hosted games for a free service (WoW's pay to play obviously) because it'd cost them a ton of money to maintain, for no real reason. Can't see why they'd be hosting the games this time around.


Just because it's hosted server-wide doesn't mean that it must have a monthly fee. WoW costs a lot because it's a persistent world and MMOs tend to be extremely demanding. Just look at this link for a glance at what WoW requires.

http://www.worldofraids.com/topic/14011-austin-game-developers-conference-the-universe-behind-world-of-warcraft/

SC2 is unlikely to have a monthly fee because it would look very bad for Blizzard compared to the competition. All MMOs have monthly fees, but not all RTSs do. It's going to be a lot harder to sell a game that asks for $15 a month when there's many other games in the same genre that don't have such fees. Heroes of Newerth in particular isn't even going to cost a full $50.
FrostedMiniWeet
Profile Joined July 2009
United States636 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-03-25 00:58:53
March 25 2010 00:53 GMT
#53
The point of UDP vs TCP is that with UDP, you can write your own code on top of UDP to make it reliable, and since you know exactly the kinds of data that you are sending over the wire and since each packet does not have to be processed in order, you don't have to wait for out of order chunks to arrive before continuing to process incoming packets. Yes, the overall overhead of the TCP headers is almost negligible on todays broadband, but using your own reliable UDP helps prevent spikes in the case of dropped/missing TCP chunks.

Edit: Woo run-on sentence, if that's not clear let me know and I'll rephrase .


I totally understand that logic, but under good network conditions, even a custom reliable UDP implementation has negligible performance benefits when there is a constant steady flow of traffic between endpoints. re-transmission rates are very low under decent conditions, and with a constant flow of data between endpoints (which starcraft has) acks are essentially free because they ride on the backs of data that's being sent anyway. Starcraft has no need of the bursty benefits of UDP, and under poor network conditions, unless a custom reliable UDP solution also implemented flow and congestion control (which would effectively make it a TCP implementation), then network performance goes to hell very quickly. The flow and congestion control of TCP give it a graceful and steady degradation of gameplay in accordance with network degradation, without sacrificing much to UDP under good conditions. The best custom UDP implementation will be only slightly better in good network conditions, but TCP will be far superior under bad conditions. TCP is becoming more and more common in games nowadays, and its just so much easier to deal with also.
R1CH
Profile Blog Joined May 2007
Netherlands10341 Posts
March 25 2010 01:00 GMT
#54
On March 25 2010 09:45 McCain wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 25 2010 05:00 R1CH wrote:

Architecture
Stacraft 2 games run using a server, similar to HoN - not peer to peer as the original BW does. This means that Blizzard is the one hosting the games, not you (note: custom games were not tested).

Highly doubt this. Blizzard has never hosted games for a free service (WoW's pay to play obviously) because it'd cost them a ton of money to maintain, for no real reason. Can't see why they'd be hosting the games this time around.

Diablo 2?
AdministratorTwitter: @R1CH_TL
TL+ Member
TerranUp16
Profile Joined March 2010
United States88 Posts
March 25 2010 01:12 GMT
#55
Just a little bit of feedback.

I'm a college student living on campus at the moment, and that sounds bad at first but we actually have pretty insane internet that is pretty consistently around 17mb/s down (sometimes ridiculously more) and 5mb/s up. Downloads are almost instant, pings are always low, and everything really just works great.

Until the StarCraft 2 Beta. Between ~2pm and ~2am EST I just get insane amounts of lag on Bnet 2.0, as does my roommate and my friend (whom many of you may know) Whiplash who lives in the same tower as myself and my roommate, just a few floors up. SC2 Beta seems to be the only game that causes problems as (don't cringe at the list of games I'm about to reel off xD) Dawn of War 2 and by extension Games for Windows Live work perfectly fine during that period, server-based FPS games (I wouldn't happen to know if P2P crap like Modern Failfare 2 and such work as I try to avoid those), Demigod (uses some proxy servers hence why I bother mentioning it), Brood War's Bnet, ICCUP, WC3 Bnet, etc... all work fine during that time and all others.

Long story short, myself, my roommate, and Whiplash tried the recommended tweaking of Acks and found no improvement in the crippling lag and disconnects. I'm not really sure if it got worse as although we were getting worse, choppier lag, it was also later in the day (seems to get worse up until like 11pm and then it gets better).

Not really asking for help as technically our internet is filtered through the campus network and so ostensibly there could be something funky going on there (would be weird considering that literally nothing else has such an issue with that) and/or it's some odd issue on Blizzard's end, just figured I'd report on the results of attempting to use the suggested solution in the hopes it might be useful somehow (shrug).
Orders, Sir! Ready to roll out!
Mystlord *
Profile Blog Joined July 2008
United States10264 Posts
March 25 2010 01:16 GMT
#56
Nice writeup R1CH! Your posts always remind me how little I actually know, but in a good way.
It is impossible to be a citizen if you don't make an effort to understand the most basic activities of your government. It is very difficult to thrive in an increasingly competitive world if you're a nation of doods.
sword_siege
Profile Joined September 2002
United States624 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-03-25 01:20:31
March 25 2010 01:19 GMT
#57
On March 25 2010 09:47 _rdm_ wrote:
how do you check your ping in game?


Hello RDM,

I'm not sure how the pros would do it but any packet sniffer would do. Personally, I would use WireShark but this isn't my area of expertise.

Edit - forgot to pay my respects to R1CH. Fantastic write up. You have a knack for taking complex problems and presenting them in plain English.
Zanno
Profile Blog Joined February 2007
United States1484 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-03-25 01:26:41
March 25 2010 01:26 GMT
#58
On March 25 2010 10:00 R1CH wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 25 2010 09:45 McCain wrote:
On March 25 2010 05:00 R1CH wrote:

Architecture
Stacraft 2 games run using a server, similar to HoN - not peer to peer as the original BW does. This means that Blizzard is the one hosting the games, not you (note: custom games were not tested).

Highly doubt this. Blizzard has never hosted games for a free service (WoW's pay to play obviously) because it'd cost them a ton of money to maintain, for no real reason. Can't see why they'd be hosting the games this time around.

Diablo 2?
Diablo 2 doesn't have a persistent world like WoW does, so most of the network code is offloaded on the players. It's much easier to keep track of inventories than it does to run a few thousand mobs.
aaaaa
R1CH
Profile Blog Joined May 2007
Netherlands10341 Posts
March 25 2010 01:46 GMT
#59
On March 25 2010 10:26 Zanno wrote:
Diablo 2 doesn't have a persistent world like WoW does, so most of the network code is offloaded on the players. It's much easier to keep track of inventories than it does to run a few thousand mobs.

By your own argument, SC2 has even less to keep track of - no persistent state to consider. None of the D2 netcode is "offloaded", all players connect to the Diablo 2 game server - it isn't a routed P2P system. Teleporting through several levels in Hell in D2 will generate more units than a typical SC2 game.
AdministratorTwitter: @R1CH_TL
TL+ Member
MasterReY
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
Germany2708 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-03-25 02:24:08
March 25 2010 02:23 GMT
#60
I have one question:

Is there any way to check my latency ingame, so i can check if its better after r1ch's help? :D

Awesome thread r1ch btw !
Your great !!!!
https://www.twitch.tv/MasterReY/ ~ Biggest Reach fan on TL.net (Don't even dare to mention LR now) ~ R.I.P Violet ~ Developer of SCRChart
TL+ Member
Prev 1 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 Next All
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
RSL Revival
07:30
Playoffs
Classic vs MaxPax
SHIN vs ReynorLIVE!
herO vs Maru
Crank 1201
Tasteless939
IndyStarCraft 145
Rex105
3DClanTV 81
CranKy Ducklings76
LiquipediaDiscussion
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
Crank 1201
Tasteless 939
IndyStarCraft 145
Rex 105
StarCraft: Brood War
Sea 16394
PianO 1105
Larva 594
firebathero 438
Killer 353
HiyA 76
sorry 53
Hm[arnc] 23
Bale 9
Dota 2
monkeys_forever337
XcaliburYe251
NeuroSwarm97
League of Legends
JimRising 500
Heroes of the Storm
Khaldor144
Other Games
summit1g19438
Happy403
C9.Mang0348
Fuzer 119
Trikslyr32
Dewaltoss24
Organizations
Dota 2
PGL Dota 2 - Main Stream10393
Other Games
gamesdonequick593
StarCraft: Brood War
UltimateBattle 91
lovetv 9
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 13 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• Berry_CruncH269
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
League of Legends
• Lourlo1536
• Stunt313
Upcoming Events
WardiTV Korean Royale
2h 50m
SC Evo League
3h 20m
IPSL
7h 50m
Julia vs Artosis
JDConan vs DragOn
OSC
7h 50m
BSL 21
10h 50m
TerrOr vs Aeternum
HBO vs Kyrie
RSL Revival
22h 20m
Wardi Open
1d 4h
IPSL
1d 10h
StRyKeR vs OldBoy
Sziky vs Tarson
BSL 21
1d 10h
StRyKeR vs Artosis
OyAji vs KameZerg
OSC
1d 13h
[ Show More ]
OSC
1d 23h
Monday Night Weeklies
2 days
OSC
2 days
Wardi Open
3 days
Replay Cast
3 days
Wardi Open
4 days
Tenacious Turtle Tussle
4 days
The PondCast
5 days
Replay Cast
5 days
LAN Event
6 days
Replay Cast
6 days
Replay Cast
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Proleague 2025-11-16
Stellar Fest: Constellation Cup
Eternal Conflict S1

Ongoing

C-Race Season 1
IPSL Winter 2025-26
KCM Race Survival 2025 Season 4
SOOP Univ League 2025
YSL S2
BSL Season 21
CSCL: Masked Kings S3
SLON Tour Season 2
RSL Revival: Season 3
META Madness #9
BLAST Rivals Fall 2025
IEM Chengdu 2025
PGL Masters Bucharest 2025
Thunderpick World Champ.
CS Asia Championships 2025
ESL Pro League S22
StarSeries Fall 2025
FISSURE Playground #2

Upcoming

BSL 21 Non-Korean Championship
Acropolis #4
IPSL Spring 2026
HSC XXVIII
RSL Offline Finals
WardiTV 2025
IEM Kraków 2026
BLAST Bounty Winter 2026
BLAST Bounty Winter 2026: Closed Qualifier
eXTREMESLAND 2025
ESL Impact League Season 8
SL Budapest Major 2025
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2025 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.