GT5's Game-Breaking Online Flaw (OP Updated: 11 Feb)

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nasanu
I don't understand how you think you are helping each other by discussing these idiotic theories. You will never work it out until you are able to listen to reason and logic.
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The logic is very simple here Nasanu.

I have witnessed this "slowing down" experience on my side for many times, but only when I run lobbies with my Croatian friends, in rooms with 12+ drivers and with Premium cars. We were very intrigued by it backthan and later we even discovered how running the Shuffle races - where majority of cars are Standard - hardly show this issue.

Second, I have optical FTTH internet with 5/5 - peaking at 10/10 - Mb connection, and I was almost always the victim of the issue. You have to take a notice how majority of my friends have much slower upload speeds - ranging from 512kbps down to poor 96kbps for one of our members.

Strangely, while I was having some *16 Premium cars in Lobby* races with worldwide guys over at Neogaf, I have never had such an issue. BUt those guys are all on high-speed internet, with decent upload.

You can call it *idiotic* and whatever you like, but I am just telling you what have I experienced many times.

Also, please try to understand how *slowdown* or *loss of grip* is just a vague way to describe how this particular issue is manifested on my side. After the very start of the race my car is significantly slower than other cars, acceleration is clearly lower and fight with the tire-grip is more pronounced.

Is is very difficult to explain it, but after all testing and experience I have, I am most certain that is really have to do with *something* occurring on the server side where something is affecting me as a player with high upload while playing with players with significantly slower upload than mine, especially because that issue doesn't exist when I play against players with more "normal" upload.
 
Sail IC
Speedy,

Any chance you can find out the connection speed of the drivers above. I know its asking a lot from you, so if you can't its fully understandable, but if you can it might lead us to the answer.
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I'll try and look it up or ask them to do a test on the PS3 again.

Also, as I mentioned before. Gooners (the presumably non-affected driver in the race) will run the same test as I did with the stopwatch on his replay of the race.
 
amar212
Same here.

Tech-savy member of our community explained us how the issue is almost certainly on the server-side, where server takes the bandwidth of the most *capable* members and starts distributing the packages through their upload.



He was very dedicated in explaining how GT5 networking uses method of "adjusting" the overall bandwidth for the players with slowest upload. But it seems how that method produces crazy results when discrepancy among players-upload is more pronounced.

I really do not have deep knowledge about networking but it sounds plausible really.
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For me its seems logical that GT5 devides the bandwith of the players .
Another fact is since the latest update of the game the problem is bigger then before .
I had before some grip problems at times that i could get better by restarting everyting again but now i notice for example when it happens that on Spa the first split time is about 4 seconds slower then normal while i know thats impossible (like also mentioned by others in this thread)

If i make a gamble my explanation is that PD in the latest update changed something and made the problem bigger .

Relating to that at times i see a black screen with a part of the map only while others are racing and a little popup with inside the strenght of my co-drivers (like b-spec integrated and those co-drivers have even names)

As a last remark we have also noticed that since the latest update the problem of not seeing everybody on the grid , black screens for some players at the start , loss of grip , times that are much slower then normal are much bigger then before .
 
amar212
The logic is very simple here Nasanu.

I have witnessed this "slowing down" experience on my side for many times, but only when I run lobbies with my Croatian friends, in rooms with 12+ drivers and with Premium cars. We were very intrigued by it backthan and later we even discovered how running the Shuffle races - where majority of cars are Standard - hardly show this issue.

Second, I have optical FTTH internet with 5/5 - peaking at 10/10 - Mb connection, and I was almost always the victim of the issue. You have to take a notice how majority of my friends have much slower upload speeds - ranging from 512kbps down to poor 96kbps for one of our members.

Strangely, while I was having some *16 Premium cars in Lobby* races with worldwide guys over at Neogaf, I have never had such an issue. BUt those guys are all on high-speed internet, with decent upload.

You can call it *idiotic* and whatever you like, but I am just telling you what have I experienced many times.

Also, please try to understand how *slowdown* or *loss of grip* is just a vague way to describe how this particular issue is manifested on my side. After the very start of the race my car is significantly slower than other cars, acceleration is clearly lower and fight with the tire-grip is more pronounced.

Is is very difficult to explain it, but after all testing and experience I have, I am most certain that is really have to do with *something* occurring on the server side where something is affecting me as a player with high upload while playing with players with significantly slower upload than mine, especially because that issue doesn't exist when I play against players with more "normal" upload.
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I totally agree with amar and we have the same kind of problems

@ Nasanu
Maybe for you its idiotic and without meaning but for me and i am sure some other users of this forum its a way of communicating with eachother what kind of problems we all are noticing
 
amar212
The logic is very simple here Nasanu.

I have witnessed this "slowing down" experience on my side for many times, but only when I run lobbies with my Croatian friends, in rooms with 12+ drivers and with Premium cars. We were very intrigued by it backthan and later we even discovered how running the Shuffle races - where majority of cars are Standard - hardly show this issue.

Second, I have optical FTTH internet with 5/5 - peaking at 10/10 - Mb connection, and I was almost always the victim of the issue. You have to take a notice how majority of my friends have much slower upload speeds - ranging from 512kbps down to poor 96kbps for one of our members.

Strangely, while I was having some *16 Premium cars in Lobby* races with worldwide guys over at Neogaf, I have never had such an issue. BUt those guys are all on high-speed internet, with decent upload.

You can call it *idiotic* and whatever you like, but I am just telling you what have I experienced many times.

Also, please try to understand how *slowdown* or *loss of grip* is just a vague way to describe how this particular issue is manifested on my side. After the very start of the race my car is significantly slower than other cars, acceleration is clearly lower and fight with the tire-grip is more pronounced.

Is is very difficult to explain it, but after all testing and experience I have, I am most certain that is really have to do with *something* occurring on the server side where something is affecting me as a player with high upload while playing with players with significantly slower upload than mine, especially because that issue doesn't exist when I play against players with more "normal" upload.
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What I referred to as idiotic is not what you are talking about, you are talking about real things. Before this I was being attacked when I refuted claims of the graphics or system clocks etc being the cause. Such things can in no way be responsible, may as well blame aliens.

I have an upload speed of 110KB/s which is on the high side of average for Australia, but nothing compared to many others. Maybe this is why I've never been effected. Either way though for the upload theory to be correct there needs to be a proven link between the cars physics model and the network data. There needs to be some communication between them but nothing that should effect the handling.


Each console has an identical track thus track information is not shared across the network*1. Each console takes in the movement data of other drivers. The draws them on the track calculates any collisions*2. Each console then sends their own batch of data. Apart from what I will write below, I can not see why network traffic would effect the handling of a car.


*1, Not entirely true. If a track has weather turned on then this information needs to be shared with all players at the same time. Also things like side marks and smoke need to be synced with all players.

*2, The only point in which network data comes into play is in calculating the motion of OTHER players. This will only effect you if you collide with them, or draft them.
 
windmill
As a last remark we have also noticed that since the latest update the problem of not seeing everybody on the grid , black screens for some players at the start , loss of grip , times that are much slower then normal are much bigger then before .
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Black screens and missing opponents have existed for a long time. I suspect the other problems have existed too, but have just become exaggerated with the latest update.
 
nasanu
What I referred to as idiotic is not what you are talking about, you are talking about real things. Before this I was being attacked when I refuted claims of the graphics or system clocks etc being the cause. Such things can in no way be responsible, may as well blame aliens.
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No competent programmer would make such bold dismissals. You have not refuted anything by argument, only by shouting and not listening. Please stop.
 
Try and keep it friendly in here guys.
Both sides...

Edit:
If you don't believe in this thread, then don't bother being in here.
If you can't handle some posts of some people, ignore them.
 
cicua
No competent programmer would make such bold dismissals. You have not refuted anything by argument, only by shouting and not listening. Please stop.
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Pretty much this. Unless you're one of the developers, or have access to the source there's no way of knowing how they've tied everything together.

Nasanu, logically you are right, but we've not seen much evidence of logic recently with PD. FWIW, I'm not a games programmer but I am a programmer by trade, and while I understand where you're coming from you're arguing your point the wrong way. And from experiencing this problem first hand, I can tell you something for certain, whatever is causing this isn't a logical cause.
 
Nasanu, please do me a favor.
Get in your car of choice, do some laps on let's say Laguna Seca offline in practice mode with tyre wear and track set to "real".
Then go online, create a room with same conditions if you want or join an existing one. When you match your offline times please do come back to this thread. If your driving is as good as your programming skills I'm sure that will be a breeze.
 
The title still reads "wheel", are you kidding ... can someone please change the title, it's misleading.


At amar ( and everyone else ) I know what you talking about the upload speeds, that's something I noticed on other games too, psn ( live too, but not as bad ) seems to punish players with high bandwidth regularly. Some more, some less. I used to have slow dsl ( 1,5 MB ) and had almost no issues regarding "lag", but now I have 40 MB cable / 2 MB upload ( i think ) and it just gets worse gradually, sometimes reset everything helps, usually not tho.

However, anyone care to explain to me how this thread can be taken seriously, if the issue at hand has obviously nothing to do with the input device?

.
 
H20HYBRID_GT
However, anyone care to explain to me how this thread can be taken seriously, if the issue at hand has obviously nothing to do with the input device?
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In the race mentioned in this post there was an obvious/weird difference between wheel users and controller users.
If you go over to that particular post you will see, in the results, GTP_Gooners and GTP_MadMax86 both had a remarkable outcome at the end of the race. They were both on controllers that race.
I'm not saying they are bad drivers, on the contrary, just that this was very remarkable/weird.

I and some others were experiencing lack of grip compared to the qualifying session just before this race...
 
H20HYBRID_GT
However, anyone care to explain to me how this thread can be taken seriously, if the issue at hand has obviously nothing to do with the input device?
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Haha yes the "Steering Wheel" part of the title could be removed, but OP seems to have gone away, and I am not even sure it has been completely refuted (that only wheel users can get the problem).
 
Speedy6543
In the race mentioned in this post there was an obvious/weird difference between wheel users and controller users.
If you go over to that particular post you will see, in the results, GTP_Gooners and GTP_MadMax86 both had a remarkable outcome at the end of the race. They were both on controllers that race.
I'm not saying they are bad drivers, on the contrary, just that this was very remarkable/weird.

I and some others were experiencing lack of grip compared to the qualifying session just before this race...
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Like wise, this thread would also indicate that wheel users are more prone to it than pad users, which leads us back to the conclusion it's a processing rather than network issue as logically the wheels would use more of the playstations 'brain'.

YMMV of course.
 
rsergio007
Nasanu, please do me a favor.
Get in your car of choice, do some laps on let's say Laguna Seca offline in practice mode with tyre wear and track set to "real".
Then go online, create a room with same conditions if you want or join an existing one. When you match your offline times please do come back to this thread. If your driving is as good as your programming skills I'm sure that will be a breeze.
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Which is repeatable and happens whether there are other players or not. That proves it has nothing to do with network data.

jon-
Like wise, this thread would also indicate that wheel users are more prone to it than pad users, which leads us back to the conclusion it's a processing rather than network issue as logically the wheels would use more of the playstations 'brain'.

YMMV of course.
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Actually it is not clear cut which would use more. They both produce feedback events (the wheel might have its own, might share) but the controller certainly has extra coding smoothing out the input. But I can not see either one using even 0.1 of a percent of the PS3's ability.
 
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Some interesting points brought up while I was napping.

I have always run at home on fast 25/25 fiber optic, and that's where I have had the issues. At the moment, I'm visiting family and they have pretty slow DSL. (5/1 I think)

I'll log in on the PS3 here and try out some open lobby races. I know these results won't be concrete evidence one way or another, but I'm interested to see if I can run at the front of the pack here. (I can almost NEVER get my car around in the amount of time that it should take based on free run times.)

I would also like to add that this is not an "all the time" problem for me. I've also been in pretty full rooms where my car seemed to have an almost inexplicable amount of grip. I've only had this happen a couple times, but once that I remember specifically. Was in room with much faster cars, in a tuned Amuse 380RS. Ran a 6'47.xxx standing start 1 lap race and came in 2nd or 3rd. At first, I felt like I was just in the zone, but no matter how hard I pushed the car, it always responded with more grip. Even as the tires (RS) wore down, I simply couldn't out-drive the capability of the car.

Nonetheless, these issues have basically caused me to cease running in open lobby races at all. It's just not worth the hassle until it gets fixed. :(

windmill
Relating to that at times i see a black screen with a part of the map only while others are racing and a little popup with inside the strenght of my co-drivers (like b-spec integrated and those co-drivers have even names)
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Are their names "Damon" by any chance? :sly:
 
Thank you VERY much for making this thread. I have been trying to explain it to people for Months! Very Annoying Glitch. Ruined MANY of my races...
 
I have found an improvement for this (and many other issues) by playing in rooms set to FIXED HOST (with a host that has a good connection).

The nature of p2p is that one bad seed can hurt the entire room, by having the connections go through one person with a good connection (fixed host) you can reduce (though propably not eliminate completely) many issues.

More Fixed Host rooms in the lobby!! :)
 
Inspired by posts from jon- and Sail IC is decided to stopwatch my replays that I referenced earlier. The lap time difference speaks for itself:

uhgDR.jpg
 
We should discuss how to gather some data. While denying the issue exists is stupid, our crazy Aussie is right that we need some data to isolate what factors are having an effect.
Ultimately, when this is hopefully brought to PD's attention, data gathered could be useful in arguing our point.
Say, a questionnaire on surveymonkey. Ask about perceived frequency of occurrence, some controls (like DS3 users, NAT type, bandwidth etc) and some sample controls (GTP WRS division, member of online leagues/clubs etc). Exact questions should be discussed and then, with help of some moderators, ask for the survey to be featured in the news. Statistically we'll have a major issue of people quitting GT5 because of the issue we're investigating, but in no way this makes the whole exercise worthless.
 
nasanu
Which is repeatable and happens whether there are other players or not. That proves it has nothing to do with network data.
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Actually it just proves there is a difference between online and offline. Which has been there since the beginning I might add (and much worse than it is now). Now if the time's you're getting vary as more people with different connections speeds join the room you can then narrow it down.

The problem is we can never know if it's network traffic or ps3 load or anything else for that matter as none of us have a scooby doo about how PD have coded this game. We don't even know if it is truly peer to peer as claimed; most games (COD for example) that claim to use peer to peer technology for multiplayer do nothing of the sort and are actually picking 1 player as the "server".

All we can do on this matter is speculate and try to recreate the conditions that cause this effect but we will never know the root cause in the code as we have no idea what's in the code. Being a programmer, as I am, you should know this.

I'm not saying I'm an expert but I have a background in physics and computer science and to me the timing discrepancy is the most appealing theory at the moment, although it still needs to be established whether the timing difference occurs during the race or just the replay or if it manifests itself as dropped frames during the race (minute skips in the timing perhaps?). Timing is inextricably linked to any physics calculations in any real-time simulation, any programmer who has attempted a real-time simulation of anything can tell you this.
 
MGR
Inspired by posts from jon- and Sail IC is decided to stopwatch my replays that I referenced earlier. The lap time difference speaks for itself:

uhgDR.jpg
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It's not necessarily the difference that counts. I think it's more the coefficient that hangs there. Being 1 real time second was 1.14 GT5 seconds in my earlier post.

Yours are for the first race shown with 14 people
lap1:1.034
lap2: 1.039
lap3: 1.032
lap4: 1.044
lap5: 1.042
lap6: 1.041
lap7: 1.042
Seems like it swirls a bit.

The second race with 15 people mostly gave 1.001 except for the first lap which was 1.018. This could be because everybody is still packed up right after the start. So this could be a communication bug I think.
Thoughts on this anyone...
 

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