Eradrain wrote...
Two things.
1. ehye_khandee, please stop advertising your server on this thread. This isn't an "I'm looking for a place to play" thread, nor is it a "Showcase your server!" thread. We're not in the Persistent World forum. Your first post was both in poor taste and borderline off-topic, your second post (feature rich, lag free!) is slightly more on-topic, but still blatant advertising.
I noticed it.  But it really doesn't bother me since I am the only person who will evaluate whether lag is an issue or not.  Advertisements have never influenced me beyond furnishing a link which I may sample at some future date. So no foul, no harm as far as I am concerned.  If it's information I can use, the format becomes secondary.
2. HipMaestro - Different servers use connections of differing strength. Some guys run servers out of their college dorm on a cable modem they share with everyone else in the building while simultaneously streaming porn and downloading pirated music. Servers like this will lag. Some people buy dedicated servers with fiber-optic lines, these will have next to no lag. Your nephews of course would not encounter lag running on a LAN because a LAN is not an internet connection - you've got a direct local line to all the other computers, it's the fastest, most lag-free form of gaming connectivity there is, that's why professional gaming tournaments are always LANs.
Very true.  I should have been more specific about the ways they coop together. They do make private games on Gamespy, however, so THAT wouldn't be considered running a LAN would it?  Regardless, they never have any lag issues when one of them servers the game. ÂÂ
People who are citing scripts or player counts are, I think, missing the most obvious point. Yes, those things effect lag, but not nearly as much as a server's basic connection to the internet and that, unfortunately, is not something you can control. Bandwidth and data transfer are the main bottlenecks here, much moreso than the game or any module.
I'm not sure about the script part of that statement, because even a single inefficient script could lag like crazy if it is called to fire often.  But the player count aspect is easy to identify.  And to be honest, I tend to stray away from the "popular" servers for that exact reason, too crowded.  I suppose my bias may be ill-founded because the server itself could be a very slick-operating one that would cause no latency for me.
The one suggestion that seems to have some real merit is running a traceroute just after connecting.  If my local  connection must negotiate a voyage through several repeaters to establish communication, the "mother" capacity/power of the server itself can still be rendering slow on my machine.  Now move that same server position to within 2 or 3 bounces and it should "miraculously" smooth out.  Nothing beats a T1 line. At least traceroute is an additional diagnostic that may come in handy. ÂÂ
There you go... if someone decides to design and market a utility called "NWN Lag Sniffer", sign me up!ÂÂ
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