Opponents with bad internet

[Phelyx2085]

So, it seems as though I am increasingly often in the situation where I cannot attempt to pass the person in front of me because their car is jerking around left and right due to their terrible internet connection.

There have been multiple races where I either unintentionally make contact because it looks like there is sufficient space to pass, but the car zips over at the last second and of course we bump. I suffer SR decrease, and the other person thinks I'm a dirty driver. At this point, I have stopped attempting to pass people with jerky internet.

Has anyone experienced this?

What could be a solution to this annoying problem?

 

[ASH32]

Nothing you can do about it, just one of those things, unless PD start to kick 1 bar connections or something like that. Also some low connections actually act fine on track whereas others bounce all over the place like you say, so the connection bar system isn't very accurate and to kick on that wouldn't be very fair.

Some idiots may also do this to their connection on purpose, to stop you getting past and to get free punts from the game, very sad indeed.

 

[inri]

it happens to everyone. they tend to either disconnect or their connection will improve slightly during the race so you can attempt a pass then as a workaround. normally i pit a lap earlier if someone with a slow connection is holding me back too

 

[Phelyx2085]

I wonder if the solution would be to have a sort of latency monitor/countdown, meaning that when you have a bad connection that the game will inform you of that and give you, say, 2-3 minutes to improve it or else you will be kicked.

 

[banckzy]

I find all South African players (which appear to be in the europe server?) have terrible connection and probably for that reason. they seem to jolt a lot...

not much you can do other than to just sit back and hope things improve.... or risk your whole race by trying to overtake lol

 

[ASH32]

I find all South African players (which appear to be in the europe server?) have terrible connection and probably for that reason. they seem to jolt a lot...

not much you can do other than to just sit back and hope things improve.... or risk your whole race by trying to overtake lol

Yes and most Russians, Saudis and other Arabic nations, the distance is too great, hence the poor connections. Not their fault they're on the EU servers and unless they have their own regional servers there is no fix, they'd be lagging like this on any of the three servers. The thing is there is likely not enough players from these areas to justify extra servers.

 

[JacksHerer]

It is annoying when this happens, I pray for the car behind me to either catch up or if it is already on me I let it pass, in the hope he will attempt to overtake the lagger and have contact - enabling me to pass them both

 

[ASH32]

It is annoying when this happens, I pray for the car behind me to either catch up or if it is already on me I let it pass, in the hope he will attempt to overtake the lagger and have contact - enabling me to pass them both

Yes that often does work. Also there is one thing worse than being right behind a red bar connection and that is right in front of one, as there is a good chance you'll get a phantom punt by them that only actually happens to you, the lagging driver does not actually see or feel this contact, so they'll get no penalty either.

 

[banckzy]

Yes that often does work. Also there is one thing worse than being right behind a red bar connection and that is right in front of one, as there is a good chance you'll get a phantom punt by them that only actually happens to you, the lagging driver does not actually see or feel this contact, so they'll get no penalty either.

So what does the lagging driver get then? he just cruises by as normal? I'm genuinely intrigued by this... if you get contact... who are you actually getting contact with then?

 

[ASH32]

So what does the lagging driver get then? he just cruises by as normal? I'm genuinely intrigued by this... if you get contact... who are you actually getting contact with then?

Yes he just cruises on by, likely not knowing he "hit" you. This happens because on his screen his car is not where it is on yours, on yours it hits you, on his it doesn't. That's why it's so hard to pass them too, their car doesn't actually jump about like you see, so you've got to guess where it really is.

Someone on here did post of video of one of their lag incidents and even said it was great the game punted others for them without them getting a penalty.

 

[BSDShoes]

Had an American driver in front of me last night that was warping left and right, it was uncomfortable for me to be behind.

 

[Phelyx2085]

It is annoying when this happens, I pray for the car behind me to either catch up or if it is already on me I let it pass, in the hope he will attempt to overtake the lagger and have contact - enabling me to pass them both

You, sir/madam, are brilliant.

 

[ASH32]

Had an American driver in front of me last night that was warping left and right, it was uncomfortable for me to be behind.

Yep it's awful and you need a bit of luck to avoid them at times. In extreme cases their car can go so far off track it'll hit the barriers and you'll even hear it and yet it's actually still on track, as you soon realise when it warps right back on still in front of you.

I should have added before that lagging cars don't just jump left and right, they can jump backwards and forwards too.

 

[Veinz]

It’s just one of those things in racing games. You can’t really do much about it.

 

[prescription7]

Is there a way to see your connection before you enter a Sport Race?
I wish it would show you how many bars you have while you're qualifying or while you're on the Sport Mode menu screen. As far as I know, people with a bad connection are unaware until they enter a race, and then their options are to hope it improves, or a face a huge points hit from quitting early.

Sometimes my connection is bad, and I'll quickly disconnect my main computer from the Wifi and that will usually help free some bandwidth, and the bars will improve during the race.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

It happens a lot and I wish PD would improve the algorithm to soften the effect of lag. Now it simply extrapolates the latest known data which means that a laggy car behind you, although braking on time, will bump you on your console. A laggy car on the inside while continuously break out to the outside making cornering side by side suicide. And ofcourse when a laggy car in front of you suddenly breaks earlier for whatever reason, you won't see it until it's too late and you hit them.

For the first and second case the algorithm should assume a recommended driving line when extrapolating last known data, that should make the laggy car brake on time and stay within a more regular racing line. Also it should assume that the laggy car is trying to avoid other cars and adjust that way. The last case is tricky though, any unexpected behavior that you can't see in time.

As it is now a 1 bar connection is often nothing more than a battering ram and you better stay clear. Yellow connections are bad enough in GR.1 and so distracting to drive behind.

 

[John Crellin]

Now it simply extrapolates the latest known data

I dont think thats the full story. What explains the cars that reverse backwards than rocket back to the front? or the floating pirouettes? im pretty sure i drove under a car once lol

 

[kilesa4568]

Is there a way to see your connection before you enter a Sport Race?
I wish it would show you how many bars you have while you're qualifying or while you're on the Sport Mode menu screen. As far as I know, people with a bad connection are unaware until they enter a race, and then their options are to hope it improves, or a face a huge points hit from quitting early.

Sometimes my connection is bad, and I'll quickly disconnect my main computer from the Wifi and that will usually help free some bandwidth, and the bars will improve during the race.

Have you tried looking for a less congested wifi channel? Nirsoft's WifiInfoView is a good free windows app to see if interference is the problem. Easy to change it if it is.

It's easy to see the strength of a local connection (command prompt and pinging a server) but with no real way of pinging the Sony servers, kinda pointless.

I used to play counterstrike back in the 90's and hpb's were a nightmare. So much so, I used to put a ping limit on my server. The only way of a decent QoS but a bit too radical for PD. They need to spend a shed load of cash and get a lot more localised servers out there.

 

[ASH32]

I dont think thats the full story. What explains the cars that reverse backwards than rocket back to the front? or the floating pirouettes? im pretty sure i drove under a car once lol

Yes that's not what it does or not the full story anyway as you say. Since laggy cars don't just go straight on at corners, cars can spin off track on the outside and end up hitting barriers on the inside, having never actually been off track. As you notice when suddenly they are back in front of you a few seconds later. I've also seen laggy cars bounce back into me whilst going full throttle on a straight, it's just chaos.

 

[user3392345]

Laggy connection + pad steering = worst case scenario
This destroys my immersion all the time. Nothing sucks more then driving behind a player who are connectet from other side of our planet.
Optional ping limit for private rooms and better region lock for sportsmode(eu+australia is stupid).

 

[prescription7]

Have you tried looking for a less congested wifi channel? Nirsoft's WifiInfoView is a good free windows app to see if interference is the problem. Easy to change it if it is.

It's easy to see the strength of a local connection (command prompt and pinging a server) but with no real way of pinging the Sony servers, kinda pointless.

I used to play counterstrike back in the 90's and hpb's were a nightmare. So much so, I used to put a ping limit on my server. The only way of a decent QoS but a bit too radical for PD. They need to spend a shed load of cash and get a lot more localised servers out there.

I don't use Windows, but the issue is mostly that I'm temporarily in a house that isn't my own (Hurricane Harvey) and am not in charge if the router, etc, and there might be someone else doing something bandwidth-heavy in another part of the house. Thankfully it's temporary.

 

[kilesa4568]

Ah. That advice definitely doesn't apply to you then.

Sorry to hear you were affected by the hurricane and I hope everything gets back to normal for you soon.

 

[prescription7]

Thank you! And I meant to say thank you for your well-thought out advice in the earlier post, even though it can't fix my problem I'm sure it will be helpful to someone reading this thread.