Your complaint is a common one. If you look at the Technical Issues & Bugs Forum you will find this same question asked at least once per page.
It usually is your computer. Although the game specs are pretty low, like most modern games in order to fully take advantage of all that they have to offer, the computer needs to be fairly up to date.
Lag or more accurately, Latency, is caused when the computer can not keep up with the information that is presented to it. This can be from a number of things. First is the amount of RAM in your computer. Secondly the graphics card, and lastly the CPU itself. It also can be from the internet connection itself, but that is a whole other discussion.
The amount of RAM dictates how much of the program that you can have cached and available for the CPU and graphics card. The more RAM you have, the better the performance is going to be. RAM is comparatively cheap and easy to install usually. The kicker is that if you have a 32 bit operating system such as XP, 3Gig of RAM is about as much as will ever be used. More is better, but there isn't much need to go over 6-8Gig for most people.
The graphics card can make a huge difference as well. The longer it takes to get the images to the screen the more perceived latency is. Putting a faster graphics card in can make a huge improvement in the game as well. Plus it is extremely easy to do. The hard part is making sure that you get the correct slot type (AGP, PCI, PCI x16, etc)
Lastly is the CPU. Not a lot that can be done here except for getting basically a whole new setup. If your CPU is at the low ed of the spectrum, it's probably time for a whole new computer.
With all this being said there are Task/Strike Forces that cause everyone's frame rates to fall. The ITF mission where you kill the General's along with Requiem and Romulus is the most notorious. It is a known issue and one that there is nothing that can be done with it other than completely redoing the entire mission map. The problem is that it has too many polygons to render in any sort of suitable time frame. This is why the Devs now have a tool that calculates the number of Polygons in a map so that they have a reasonable idea as to how many is too much.
I understand your frustration, but it really is very likely on your end. I got a new computer this year and I have virtually no latency at all now. But then again my new computer is made specifically for gaming. your mileage may vary.
Tech Support Rule #1 - They will lie to you. Usually intentionally.
Quote:
Actually the lag you get on ITF is server-side and has to do with a lot of complicated scripts running at once. At least that's how castle explained it. But anyway, if the lag is things like skills looking reset when they really aren't, and everyone on the team is experiencing the exact same thing at the same time, then that's a good sign that the problem is on the server and not the client.|
Originally Posted by Ura Hero
With all this being said there are Task/Strike Forces that cause everyone's frame rates to fall. The ITF mission where you kill the General's along with Requiem and Romulus is the most notorious. It is a known issue and one that there is nothing that can be done with it other than completely redoing the entire mission map. The problem is that it has too many polygons to render in any sort of suitable time frame. This is why the Devs now have a tool that calculates the number of Polygons in a map so that they have a reasonable idea as to how many is too much.
|
Off the top of my head, the last two missions of ITF and the boomtown missions in kahn/cuda are the most notorious missions for server lag. Twoheadedboy, if you're getting really bad lag on every TF then it's most likely a computer problem. If you'd like you can post your processor speed, RAM, and video card here and maybe we could figure out exactly what the issue is.
Hey everyone,
I just recently started playing on teams and my computer is not great to say the least. I usually do okay, but when running ITF's and other large teams I've noticed a literally unbearable amount of lag. I know it's not just my computer though because I've talked to other players who experience lag in these situations also.. I'm sort of wondering why the missions are lagging. I mean, people are paying to play this game.. I'm not insinuating that I plan on quitting or anything because it's not THAT big of a deal, but the missions shouldn't be lagging to epic proportions. It's really just a nuisance.