PD servers are GARBAGE!!!!

[yzfmike]

A pic with Servers in it. Nice!
Those servers could be good for almost everything. You could write a book about all possibilities, but who has the time?

Those servers are for PD company employees only, not for GT5 MP. Kaz has fine wine stored in those servers for events etc etc. Now since PD has moved to another location, I am not sure what the Server room looks like now. That cool blue look was quite spiffy.

 

[Spliffy]

I found this quote...“The data centre was set up to handle 500,000 connections but the number of connections we received greatly exceeded that amount and there was a high chance of experiencing problems as a result.” Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi told Eurogamer.
What I'm getting from this is that Polyphony has recognized in the past that there is a problem with there servers. Maybe this is what's happening now, after all they just announced another million or so units sold to push them to over 7 million. That's a helluva lot more than 500,000.

those servers are for pd company employees only, not for gt5 mp. Kaz has fine wine stored in those servers for events etc etc. Now since pd has moved to another location, i am not sure what the server room looks like now. That cool blue look was quite spiffy.

lmfao!

 

[redlinezak]

Although i have not experienced a massive amount of problems as other have i am trying to make sure i have everything set up correctly.

I did a ping test last night as recommended or suggested by a couple of people and was hoping that someone could help me understand the results.

Firstly i did the test from the browser in the PS3 (old 60GB model) which is HARDWIRED to my ASUS RT-N76U router (my ISP is BT and i have the fiber optic infinity package).

I got a ping of around 55 with a jitter of 24 and my rating was B+. For some reason it determined that rotterdam was the best server to use?? even though that is in another country miles away from me (im southampton UK).

I redid the test using maidenhead and got similar results.

I then cleared my Cache on GT5, reset my clock on the PS3 as it was 2 minutes different from GT5 and rebooted the router.

I redid the Pingtest again using the PS3 browser and got a ping of 41 and jitter of 14 again using Rotterdam server.

I the did a pingtest on my Wireless laptop and got a Ping of 32 and jitter of 18 and a B rating.

I also tried it on my phone (Galaxy S2) and got a ping of 319 and jitter of 104!!!

Only the laptop was able to measure packet loss which was zero.

Can anyone explain to me why the results are so different accross different devices and also why the laptops results which to me appear better were given a lower overall rating.

Also if anyone can suggest how to improve anything that would be great.

I also checked my internet settings on the PS3 whilst i was at it.

Im NAT 2
DL 6.1
UL 804.8.


Thanks

Nathan

 

[W3H5]

PD servers are GARBAGE!!!!

.....Na, I don't see it....

 

[Famine]

Then can you explain what these Polyphony Digital Servers are for? https://www.gtplanet.net/?attachment_id=11097

There were servers for Prologue - which used client-host connection - which were shut down in September. There's "matchmaking" server function (well... kind of and not really, but you need to connect to PD's servers initially to create rooms and suchlike). There's also quite a large amount of computing power for... you know... making the games?

There's no servers for actual racing. The information is sent directly from your device to the other devices in your lobby - and from their devices to yours - along "shortest-distance" (from the point of view of information speed, not miles) without heading to Tokyo or Fukuoka first.

Sorry Doc, I'm not trying to be smart

Then you should probably drop the cute nicknames.

In some of your earlier post you said that a big problem is crappy connections. I believe that may be a part of (but entirely) the problem, otherwise when things were good(not getting disconnected), jumping into a room without any bars should have crapped out on me, but never, ever did.
What's happening is a new issue for me, nothing on my end has changed except for the update from PD.

Nothing that you know of. Your ISP may be throttling connections (and doing so at odd times) or packet-shaping. These things can change by the minute. There might be an infrastructure change between your socket and the nearest data routing centre - you may have even changed data routing centres.

But more importantly, it's Peer-to-Peer. To have the same experience every time you need to play the same people every time and even then, the changes above might affect one of the group and wholly change your experience.

It is the nature of P2P. It is the socialism of gaming - it allows those with weak connections to play undisadvantaged to those with strong connections, with the net result that the larger society suffers overall. You can avoid it by choosing your friends carefully or, in theory, playing public allowing the matchmaking servers to pair you with gamers with similar connections and nearby locations.

I got a ping of around 55 with a jitter of 24

Oooh, that doesn't sound massively stable - Jitter is a measurement of how wobbly your connection is and the lower the better. A 55ms Ping is fine (little high for BT Infinity, to be honest), but your Jitter says that speed varies by 24ms - up to 79ms and down to 31ms. That's quite wobbly.

To draw a comparison, imagine you're driving through a 50mph limit zone with SPECS cameras. Only your speedometer wildly swings between 28mph and 72mph. That's jitter.

I redid the Pingtest again using the PS3 browser and got a ping of 41 and jitter of 14 again using Rotterdam server.

Again, that doesn't sound very stable.

Have you just had your BTIFO installed? It takes about a month to settle in and give you a consistent connection (which should be of the order of 25ms Ping and 1ms Jitter). If not, there's a potential fault but it'd be quite difficult to say whether it's in the house or outside. Ensure your BTI modem is at the master socket (which I'm fairly sure is where it will have been installed) - you can run as much ethernet cable as you want from your router to the modem. That's pretty much the limit of what you can do in the home.


To explain why your laptop gets a better Ping but a worse rating, check out what the proportion of the jitter-to-ping is. Your PC is reporting 24:55, which is 1:2.3. Your PS3 is reporting 14:41, which is 1:2.9. Your laptop is reporting 18:32, which is 1:1.8. The lower the ratio the more undesireable Jitter you have for your connection - to use the 50mph analogy again, your PC's speedo wildly varies between 28mph and 72mph, but your laptop's is sweeping between 22mph and 78mph. A much bigger variance and a relatively poorer connection in terms of stability. For reference, my connection runs a 49ms ping and 1ms jitter, which means my speedo at 50mph can read anywhere from 48.98 to 51.02mph...

Now largely it's not relevant to you. Even with the maximum Jitter added to your connection, you're well inside acceptable online gaming limits. Moreover, your Ping is only your Ping to a designated data routing centre. Your lobby isn't made up of just you and it's not sending data to your chosen data routing centre - it's made up of loads of people with all sorts of connections all over the world. The poorer their connections and the further away they are, the worse your experience will be. That's P2P for you.

 

[W3H5]

I do know for a fact that my bad connection is due to my ISP because of where I am. I can't comment on the servers, per se, but when I do get a quiet time (web traffic wise) my game isn't affected that badly.

 

[rumblina]

I play on AU hosts all the time and do not experience this random DC issue. I did a race league on a US host and had a little trouble, well before the latest patch. As soon as I go/went to a US or EU server, trouble kicks in so I have to side with Famine's argument.

 

[redlinezak]

Thanks very much for the reply Famine.
I have had my BT connection for quite some time now.
When i first had it i was using the supplied BT Homehub but upgraded to the ASUS as i wanted more than 1 gigabit connection (for PS3 and home networking NAS etc).
I remeber that when i first got it i used to check my speed a lot to check i was getting a good connection (using speedtest) and i always always always had a Ping of 15 with a DL speed of around 35meg.
Unfortunately i could not be sure if the change of routers has coincided with a slower ping etc (i didnt use pingtest on the old router) or whether something else has degraded since.
I also run a second router as a WAP for my older wireless B devices. The Asus is configured to only allow N connections wirelessly and had the PS3 hard wired.

Sorry if this is a lot of information but figure its better to over explain

EDIT - i have just read your reply again and noticed that you mention it should be around 25ms which is another number jogs my memory from when i used to check it when first installed.

 

[nasanu]

Hard to believe people can defend PD so much when it comes to their online experience. Seriously guys?

GT5 in comparison to almost ALL other console racers is a disaster online. How many issues have we had so far? I am lazy so I'll just keep to the issues that have not been patched.

Very common occurrences of blank names, people who can not race in the same room with each other, people who can not see other cars on the track, 999.999.9999999 sector times, blank screens at the beginning of races, random disconnects... Its madness. About a month ago I took a break from GT5 because I was disconnected from almost every room I entered (with no change in my network setup).

It is very easy to blame a users connection, but LIVE and most other PS3 games work without a hitch and quite a few of those games are also p2p based (yes even games on LIVE). You can either believe that somehow all the gamers in the world with the worst connections and routers are playing GT5 together, or GT5 is very poorly coded online. Even if a user does have a poor connection PDs code needs to be able to deal with it just like every other game or application does.

 

[Spliffy]

o.k., I hear what your saying Famine(apologies for the Doc thing, love Bugs bunny). I have looked around and found a site that explains P2P and other ways that online gaming works. But it still doesn't explain why other games that are P2P work flawlessly while there are a bunch of issues with GT5. I tend to agree with what nasanu said..."You can either believe that somehow all the gamers in the world with the worst connections and routers are playing GT5 together, or GT5 is very poorly coded online"...

I'm in the MST and I work until 2AM, when I get home there are not too any people up at that time through the whole continent online, let alone playing on a weeknight. From what I understand, throttling occurs when there's a massive amount of people online slowing the system down(which should be illegal as far as I'm concerned). When this problem first reared it's ugly head I tried to only locate rooms with full bars, didn't help. I also tried using the "recommended room" button and still the same thing.

From what you are saying "To have the same experience every time you need to play the same people every time"...I need to find certain people from the thousands that are online and then just stick with them once I do. That's just impossible, I would have to get a room and allow only one person in at a time and see what happens until I find enough guys/dolls to race with, that's just not practical.

I do believe that P2P probably is an issue because of the varying connection speeds, not to this extent. Also what you're saying is that by some odd coincident at the exact same time I installed the update my ISP started throttling me and I've had the bad luck of connecting to rooms with people who have bad internet speeds. It just doesn't add up. Like I said before, I had absolutely no issues until I installed the update. I can take the odd glitch here and there, I understand somewhat the dynamics of playing online but every single time I go online to race something arises(and I can't stress this enough, only with GT5) that doesn't allow me to play. There has to be some kind of issue with Polyphony as well, after all whether or not they use servers to host games(I know you said they don't and I believe you), we are using some kind server/network that Polyphony has control over that we have to use to connect to each other, no?

 

[Famine]

As a proportion of games played, I've been in far more MW2 and MW lobbies that have been fundamentally unplayable and eventually fallen over completely (disbanding the party in the process) than GT5 ones. MW/2 are also P2P games and rather than having to deal with up to 16 400mph cars - call it a 100mph track average to be kind - it only has to deal with 12 people running about a bit. Or, more commonly, 8 people running about a bit and 4 hiding in dark corners, waiting. It can, at times, be utterly shambolic, with one ten minute game played from start to finish over an hour's session.

My personal GT5 experience has been... fine. I've had a couple of games with cars not showing up (one battering a guy off the track through lag, unseen to me, resulting in a completely baffling spin right in front of me). I don't have a terrific connection, but it's fine for gaming.

we are using some kind server/network that Polyphony has control over that we have to use to connect to each other, no?

No. I reiterate the point about the UKGTP LAN, where ten machines played each other in my garage using GT5's Lobby system and my router recorded no increase in outbound traffic at all. The devices connected directly to each other, in my garage - though had to maintain a PSN connection to do so - through my cabling and my switch, and did not send to or receive from data an external "server/network".

 

[nasanu]

I'm in the MST and I work until 2AM, when I get home there are not too any people up at that time through the whole continent online, let alone playing on a weeknight. From what I understand, throttling occurs when there's a massive amount of people online slowing the system down(which should be illegal as far as I'm concerned). When this problem first reared it's ugly head I tried to only locate rooms with full bars, didn't help. I also tried using the "recommended room" button and still the same thing.

I have not read this whole thread, but who mentioned throttling? That has nothing at all to do with it. Throttling limits throughput, it does not effect ping times. Now throughput can technically cause lag but unless you are on dial up you have plenty of bandwidth for online gaming, even if throttled.

Ping times are what actually cause 99.9% of all lag and unless you are downloading something (even slow downloads trip up most routers and cause ping times to rise) there is nothing you can do about it. It is caused by distance is and a fact of life you have to live with.

The issues GT5 is plagued with aren't really caused by a lack of bandwidth or lag, they are to do with the network structure and PDs code. Their handling of ports seems like a huge issue. GT5 is the first game in a decade and a half of online gaming that has repeatedly told me that 'I can not connect due to network incompatibility with the host'. That is total BS. If I sent a UDP packet it would certainly reach him. The issue is that GT5 needs everything to be exactly as it expects, if it is not then it breaks. Not good enough.

As a proportion of games played, I've been in far more MW2 and MW lobbies that have been fundamentally unplayable and eventually fallen over completely (disbanding the party in the process) than GT5 ones. MW/2 are also P2P games and rather than having to deal with up to 16 400mph cars - call it a 100mph track average to be kind - it only has to deal with 12 people running about a bit. Or, more commonly, 8 people running about a bit and 4 hiding in dark corners, waiting. It can, at times, be utterly shambolic, with one ten minute game played from start to finish over an hour's session.

Lets just skip over the fact that bullets also require tracking just like players and that tracking has to be spot on for an enjoyable game. Lets just also not even get into games like MAG supporting 256 players.

 

[CSLACR]

I found this quote...“The data centre was set up to handle 500,000 connections but the number of connections we received greatly exceeded that amount and there was a high chance of experiencing problems as a result.” Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi told Eurogamer.
What I'm getting from this is that Polyphony has recognized in the past that there is a problem with there servers. Maybe this is what's happening now, after all they just announced another million or so units sold to push them to over 7 million. That's a helluva lot more than 500,000.



lmfao!

Since it wasn't pointed out, I figured I'd pop in to tell you those 1 million sales are the total from all of 2011, at the time the figures were released.
I'm sure some sales picked up a bit around Christmas, but I'd be surprised to learn more then 200,000 were sold in the last 2-3 months of 2011.

 

[Ealirendur]

If I sent a UDP packet it would certainly reach him.

Funny. I LOL'ed.

"I've got a UDP joke, but you might not get it".

No need to ACK, really.

 

[Famine]

The issue is that GT5 needs everything to be exactly as it expects, if it is not then it breaks. Not good enough.

It was like that for GT3's iLink and GT4's LAN too. It was nearly a dark art getting a GT4 LAN going. We even sacrificed a small VEXD. GT5 is much improved in this regard.

Lets just skip over the fact that bullets also require tracking just like players and that tracking has to be spot on for an enjoyable game.

You'd think, wouldn't you? Turns out that "spot on" can often mean "two feet each way". I've seen more killcams (game winning - hardcore only) of a guy being shot dead in the wall above and the the left of his head than I've had GT5 online races...

Lets just also not even get into games like MAG supporting 256 players.

Not quite the same online mechanism though. MW, MW2 and GT5 are all P2P, Zipper use dedicated servers for MAG - where the better your connection is, the better your experience is.

At least they have servers that can be "garbage" though.

 

[CSLACR]

Wouldn't it be more reasonable to compare GT5's online with other racing games online?

I haven't played many, or in much detail, so I don't know for sure how it rates against other racing games. It just seems more apples to apples to me.
I do find GT5 entirely to much like work at times to get good racing action, blame who you will, it's driven me to near quitting several times.

But then nasanu paints pictures as he sees them, with little influence allowed.

 

[AllinWitJT]

You guys are really still stuck on the title?
It's an attention getter. That's it. This thread is at the top right? Good. Thanks. Carry on.

 

[adyspadey]

I love GT5 but the extent that the PD defenders on this site go to ignore or reflect criticism is disturbing. Its absurd to tell somebody who is having legitimate issues with this game to stop playing, get out, accept inferior game play without complaint, and request having the thread locked.

JT has a right to be upset and a public forum pertaining to GT5 and its issue are a good place to post his thoughts. To post a comment mocking or dismissing his issues are not helpful and only serve to bring these forums down. If you disagree with his statements, how about you write an intelligent discourse to his problems after analyzing his situation or just ignore the thread and go to a thread where you can participate positively and will have more fun.


well said djchon661 I've said it here before be careful what you say because any negativity about GT5 will only get you chastised and ridiculed here. Heaven forbid someone has issues and wants constructive feedback.....

 

[kilttraeger]

well said djchon661 I've said it here before be careful what you say because any negativity about GT5 will only get you chastised and ridiculed here. Heaven forbid someone has issues and wants constructive feedback.....

Ahem. Just putting things into perspective by quoting the OP:

PD, get 16 cars in a room trouble free and I'll think about purchasing from you in the future. Otherwise your servers are complete garbage. GT5 and PD, you lose!

Clearly asking for constructive feedback.

Funny. I LOL'ed.

"I've got a UDP joke, but you might not get it".

No need to ACK, really.

Quite brilliant, although I doubt many understood it

 

[AllinWitJT]

Ahem. Just putting things into perspective by quoting the OP:

Clearly asking for constructive feedback.

Quite brilliant, although I doubt many understood it

Really? A bed of roses on PD's doorstep will not get the needed attention. Your here because of the lure of smack talk right? Your even joining in. Wonderful.

 

[Griffith500]

Really? A bed of roses on PD's doorstep will not get the needed attention. Your here because of the lure of smack talk right? Your even joining in. Wonderful.

It's interesting. There are different kinds of attention. I presume you sent a copy of your OP to PD themselves? GTPlanet isn't PD's doorstep. The GTPlanet community cannot "fix" PD's "servers". Or improve their connection handling code / logic / schema etc. We can bitch and moan about it, sure. Maybe Sony / PD might see it. Maybe they'll see "PD servers are GARBAGE!!!!"; read the OP and realise that you had no idea what you were talking about. Then assign it as a non-issue; blame your ISP. Possibly.

 

[Spliffy]

My personal GT5 experience has been... fine.

If my experience was fine I'd be happy too but it's not and I'm not. I came in here looking for answers to fix my problem, whether or not it has to do with me(i.e. internet, router, ISP's, how far my PS3 is from the T.V.) or whatever. I don't care! I just want it working properly like it was BEFORE THE UPDATE.
I paid Polyphony Digital what they asked for, for their game, on the premise that I could race online. I didn't haggle, I didn't barter, I didn't say that it was too much money for a game, hell, I would have paid $200 for this game because they told me that I could race other drivers around the world, not to race AI's!

"I've had a couple of games with cars not showing up (one battering a guy off the track through lag, unseen to me, resulting in a completely baffling spin right in front of me). I don't have a terrific connection, but it's fine for gaming."

My problem is not lag, that's to be expected.
90-95% of the time(SINCE THE UPDATE) I cannot even get just one race in,
3-4% (SINCE THE UPDATE)I might get in a couple of races
and in the final
1-2% (SINCE THE UPDATE)I might get in 4 or 5 hours and then it will kick me out.


I'm not an unreasonable person but those percentages are certainly unreasonable to me and should be for everyone else, especially PD.
I didn't come in here expecting someone to tell me that "that's the way it is". I was hoping to find or get some kind of feedback on what I could do to try and fix these issues.

I've tried;
port forwarding,
making my IP static,
clearing the catche,
rebooting the router,
rebooting the PS3,
turning the power off,
PS3 is hardwired (always),
using the "recommended button",
sticking with US rooms,
going to rooms with 4 or 5 bars,
going to rooms with less than 10 drivers,

does anybody else have any ideas to try?

 

[Famine]

BEFORE THE UPDATE (SINCE THE UPDATE) (SINCE THE UPDATE) (SINCE THE UPDATE)

Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy ("After this, therefore because of this"). That's not to say you're wrong, just that the assumption the update broke it is unsafe - particularly as with 7 million copies out there, you'd expect an update that broke your identical-to-everyone-else files to have broken all theirs too.

That said, if you're convinced the update is at fault, you have a solution. Wait for the next update (2.03, this month).


Personally, I avoid public lobbies entirely. Just as your SINCE THE UPDATE experiences with GT5, I've found public lobbies on MW/MW2 to be patchy at best with frequent drops, bootings and lockups, but private ones that people don't dip in and out of to be much more stable.

 

[NCRthree]

I race in JT's AWIJT mixed class series and can concur with the lap time/grip inconsistencies. It's one thing to hit some pub lobbies and deal w/ connection snags and another to race in a series, practice for hours all week, then have an endurance race be ruined with some frustrating issue. The same guys have raced week after week just fine and then in the last few months, its gotten very inconsistent. Every racer's Ping is a B. Dropped the race lineup from 16 to 12. It's gotten so an issue is the norm not the anomaly. From communicating with other race groups, we know we're not alone.

So last night was our last race. At Spa 28 laps. From my race viewpoint, it ran very well. Nothing to complain about. It was staged in an Open Lobby w/ Fixed Host (same host as always), NO mics. This time we turned OFF Visual Damage and Damage. Maybe that's the key, no damage settings. I don't know. Haven't heard from anyone else in the race but no one complained right after the finish.

Thanks to the tech guys for their input. From Famine's posts, I've surmised the #1 variable is Ping. Just having the minimal race settings on and 12 drivers might have to be the norm now as well.

 

[AllinWitJT]

It's interesting. There are different kinds of attention. I presume you sent a copy of your OP to PD themselves? GTPlanet isn't PD's doorstep. The GTPlanet community cannot "fix" PD's "servers". Or improve their connection handling code / logic / schema etc. We can bitch and moan about it, sure. Maybe Sony / PD might see it. Maybe they'll see "PD servers are GARBAGE!!!!"; read the OP and realise that you had no idea what you were talking about. Then assign it as a non-issue; blame your ISP. Possibly.

Sure. Believe that. PD has no interest in what is said about their product on this forum. The OP caused you to read. Thanks.

 

[tfed]

PD has no interest in what is said about their product on this forum. The OP caused you to read. Thanks.

That is so not true

 

[nasanu]

Funny. I LOL'ed.

"I've got a UDP joke, but you might not get it".

No need to ACK, really.

Your criticism is a little ironic as the unreliability of UDP is exactly why it is chosen for games. The lack of error checking reduces overhead and improves speed.

What I meant by my comment was that is would certainly be possible to get UDP data to everyone. The issue is that GT5 simply can not establish a connection, not a that packet here and there might get dropped.

 

[Griffith500]

Sure. Believe that. PD has no interest in what is said about their product on this forum. The OP caused you to read. Thanks.

I never said that. Just that their initial response to your post might be exactly what Famine said: "it's peer-to-peer". Your assumptions were entirely wrong (which is quite humourous given the attendant attitude), and there is no fix, save to "fix" the entire internet. As such, I'm not sure you really achieved what you claim you set out to (to get the issue fixed by way of exposure), unless you were really only trying to craft an opportunity to write a series of curt responses.

I read this thread because I thought it would be about the menu hangs (some of which are due to PD's servers, one way or another), not online racing.

 

[AllinWitJT]

That is so not true

I was being sarcastic. Again.

I never said that. Just that their initial response to your post might be exactly what Famine said: "it's peer-to-peer". Your assumptions were entirely wrong (which is quite humourous given the attendant attitude), and there is no fix, save to "fix" the entire internet. As such, I'm not sure you really achieved what you claim you set out to (to get the issue fixed by way of exposure), unless you were really only trying to craft an opportunity to write a series of curt responses.

I read this thread because I thought it would be about the menu hangs (some of which are due to PD's servers, one way or another), not online racing.

Hey, if you want this problem in GT6 good for you. I don't. I apologize.

 

[nasanu]

I never said that. Just that their initial response to your post might be exactly what Famine said: "it's peer-to-peer". Your assumptions were entirely wrong (which is quite humourous given the attendant attitude), and there is no fix, save to "fix" the entire internet. As such, I'm not sure you really achieved what you claim you set out to (to get the issue fixed by way of exposure), unless you were really only trying to craft an opportunity to write a series of curt responses.

I read this thread because I thought it would be about the menu hangs (some of which are due to PD's servers, one way or another), not online racing.

Saying it is p2p so PD is not to blame is a huge leap. Sure the OP might not have the best networking knowledge and blamed the wrong aspect, but p2p or not it is PDs code that runs it all. PDs code is what is stopping people from entering rooms, it is their code that is dropping people out of races, their code that shows blank names, their code that allows invisible cars etc.

Without code there is no p2p, it all has to bet setup and managed.