UDP vs. TCP distribution [was: Re: [e2e] Can feedback be generated...]

[Eric A. Hall]

> Do you have any data/stats to support these figures?

Word-of-mouth, casual research. IE, asking the guy that killed me what his
ping is. Also, lots of player forums (newsgroups, message boards, etc). I
would agree that 200ms RTT seems to be about the max for combat.

> design for 200-300ms delays at http://www.gamasutra.com/features/19970905/
> ng_01.htm.

Interesting read. Thanks.

> OTOH, there are plenty of usenet postings from people playing with RTTs
> of 300-1000ms, e.g.

Well, not all of them are telling the truth. I'm not sure I'd believe the
boastings of nine-year olds in public forums.

But there is a lot of skill involved. There are people with 5ms RTT that
can't win no matter what, and there are people with 300ms RTT that win all
of the time.

Another issue here is that not all of the games are shooters. UO in
particular has a lot of social elements, and it doesn't require any combat
at all. A lot of the high-ping players naturally gravitate more towards
the role-playing or social elements instead of combat, particularly after
getting their clock cleaned consistently by low-pingers. I'm not saying
low RTTs are not important, I am saying that there are games which embrace
high-RTT players by offering non-combat activities, and this will likely
become more important over time.

> Alas, games seem to have been neglected by the networking research
> community, but hopefully that is changing.

It has gone both ways. Developers of new Internet-specific apps are not
coming here, either. But I agree that there is a growing separation
between the current Internet and the research community in general.

-- 
Eric A. Hall                                        http://www.ehsco.com/
Internet Core Protocols          http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/coreprot/