Nin Online's Server Performance & why we can't "fix your server"


Ueda

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One of the most common complaints in Nin Online is lag. It's the same for any online game. Common complaints come with comparisons to other games and/or with insults in it - things like "fix your server" are also thrown about a lot.

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Why games like WoW and Runescape don't lag as much?

They do. The typical connection to a WoW Server is anywhere from 50ms to 500ms+ depending on what server you play on.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/724514-What-is-your-average-latency-in-WoW#:~:text=Average latency%3A ~20 ms.

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/what-is-the-maximum-acceptable-latency/276360/2

Isn't it because server application is poorly coded or spaghetti code?

This is how Nin Online runs when you connect from local host. As you can see, the ping fluctuates between 2-15ms. Near the theoretical limit. Nin Online's server is modern, lightweight, threaded and utilizes a very powerful low-level networking library. Most of the game's visuals run on the client which allow for instantaneous response times, for example in movement, and is then "validated" on the server and corrected if it was illegal (to prevent cheating).

Is it because you're running it on a cheap dedicated server?

It's an expensive, gigabit internet, unlimited bandwidth, 32gb Ram.

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With 75 players online the server application is only utilizing 1.7% of the server's CPU and 1gb/32gb of the dedicated server's memory.

So why do I lag?

The game's dedicated server is located in North America, near the border of Canada and the US. The reason it is, is due to the majority of the English speaking world being located around that area. The majority of the existing player base is also located in the US and Canada. This is a heat map of our paying userbase.

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Unfortunately, there are physical limitations of how optimized we can make the server. We could theoretically shave off another 10ms of ping with micro-optimizations, but the majority of what is being felt by people with the worst ping is due to...

Don't take my word for it, this is a video by NoPing, a company that uses dedicated servers to create a virtual tunnel, a more direct access to our game servers by bouncing packets between it's servers with good access to sea cable routes towards any location.

 
A lot of players tell me they use software like NoPing, ExitLag etc. to get better Ping, without understanding why it works. But once you understand how it works, you should come to the realization that the only way it could possibly work is if you don't actually have the best sea cable routes you could. How else would a VPN make things faster?

  • Distance between the server and you and the physical limitations of material sciences
    You can use tools such as https://wintelguy.com/wanlat.html to estimate how much latency you should feel across distances. This is not taking into consideration the quality of cables and how indirect the routes might be.
     

 

  • It's graphical lag, not Latency
    Lastly the a common complaint is people misunderstanding what they're experiencing. If the game is hanging visually for a second and no input can be made. It's graphical lag not Latency/ping/network lag.

I don't lag in X game and Y game

You're most likely talking about some game that has localized servers, or a different server architecture. Games like Minecraft and Fortnite. You might also be talking about games where there is no server authority.

https://doc.photonengine.com/en-us/bolt/current/troubleshooting/authoritative-server-faq

If you're talking about WoW or another MMORPG. Most likely those games aren't fast-paced combat games, they usually hide the clunkiness behind mechanics that don't reveal lag. Like standing still and casting for 3-4 seconds for a spell in WoW.

My connection to the server

Lastly, I'd like to say that my connection to the server is around 240ms
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Before we rewrote the server, it used to be around 500-800ms. So that's how far it's come. If we use the tool I mentioned earlier to calculate what latency I should have...

https://wintelguy.com/wanlat.html

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We only need to assume equipment latency of 49ms for it to be the theoretical speed limit. And that's assuming that I have the world's most direct sea cable path straight to the server. Most likely, my ISP is sending my network packets to some part of the US and then to Canada. And I'm from the country with the world's best Internet connection speeds.

What does this mean?

Not much, just means we really can't do much to make your connection better to Nin Online's server at this point. The next way we can do it is by localizing it to more regions, but that's a whole different topic.

I dare say at this point, Nin Online's server runs faster than server software developed by many AAA game companies in the 2000s, a lot of credit to just technological advancements.

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