GT5 in 'How Fair Is Online Gaming' Article

[Obli]

Digital Foundry at Eurogamer always do some interesting analysis of games and hardware performance. Their latest article looks at online gaming and latency (lag) across Xbox Live and Playstation Network, and include Gran Turismo 5 as one of the games in their article.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-the-lag-effect-psn-xbox-live-analysis

The GT5 coverage is brief, but I thought it might be of interest here. Taking their example scenario, a lobby of four GT5 players - a Russian gamer hosting, with two UK players and one Israeli player. Going by my experience with GT5 online, I wouldn't notice / feel any issue. It's interesting to consider a photo-finish scenario but I would have thought PD would have designed for this to ensure results are fair. Has anyone ever had a situation where the race results show a different order to what your thought?

It's a shame that the article doesn't look at the host options such as: connection type (fixed or not), race quality, voice chat quality (or off). There's also the five bar signal that appears in the lobby list.

 

[W3H5]

Has anyone ever had a situation where the race results show a different order to what your thought?

It's happened to me racing someone from a local area! I thought I was in the lead but it turns out I was over a minute behind. I can't explain why but it was the only time it had happened. Could be my lousy connection I suppose.

 

[HKS racer]

Has anyone ever had a situation where the race results show a different order to what your thought?

Yes and not only once, last time it happened about 3 weeks ago I was following P1 and for a weird reason at the finish line the game listed us as 2nd and 3rd, givin the win to someone else behind of 20 seconds.
And yes we were clearly listed as 1st and 2nd during the race.

 

[iamjajo]

I've seen GT5 display three different winners for one race as the host sync'd up all the players at the finish. Then there was another race where I saw a player cross the finish line right beside me and the game showed us tied for first with 0.00 time difference

But, as the article suggested, you aren't supposed to see the lag from any one player's perspective. It's only when you sync the video from 2 (or more) different clients that the difference in track position becomes apparent

However, try bump drafting another player around Daytona for 25 laps and you will see the game reset player positions several times. Usually by 'shooting' the lead car forward at incredible speed from time to time.

 

[Qxs-Storm]

Also with daytona/nascar, I've seen a close finish where the second place car is listed on the results with a negative time.... tbh I'm surprised the network code works as nicely as it does, since I've seen far worse with first person shooters over the years.

 

[Ed Nut]

in GT5 you can pick if you want a p2p connection or a client/host by choosing fixed host or not. (not fixed is p2p)

interesting note, if i use fixed host, my ps3 throws a fit if i get 14 or more people, because of all the lag.

 

[DJones]

There was one instance where I thought I had won, but then again we were six wide at daytona! Alllllll the way from the grass to the wall. It was amazing. Plus when I watch the relay hearing that many old v8's screaming across the finish is AMAZING!

 

[Eric W]

I've won races at Daytona just to be placed -0.030 behind 2nd giving 2nd place the win. It doesn't happen very often but for some strange reason it does happen.

 

[Bushby_23]

It's happened to me racing someone from a local area! I thought I was in the lead but it turns out I was over a minute behind. I can't explain why but it was the only time it had happened. Could be my lousy connection I suppose.

I've had that once. Other then that, nothing out of the ordinary to report. I've lost and won races over the tiniest gaps, and they've all seemed reasonably fair.

 

[slackboy72]

There was this one time I was doing donuts under this bridge and I was clearly in the lead and then with about ten laps to go it told me that some n00b from europe had finished even though it had told me I was first.

They were clearly cheating!

 

[Monosukoi]

Sometimes at the end of the race I see people out of position but it quickly corrects itself in the final results. I've never had a problem of thinking someone was somewhere only to find out at the end that they were a long way ahead/behind.

 

[trombone]

Sometimes at the end of the race I see people out of position but it quickly corrects itself in the final results. I've never had a problem of thinking someone was somewhere only to find out at the end that they were a long way ahead/behind.

This happens to me every race. I finish in 4th (for example), and it suddenly jumps me up to 1st or 2nd depending on how close the race was, then it quickly corrects me back to showing 4th.