UKGPL Season 21 (2011) Specs - Goodwood (Circuit) - May 13

[EvilClive]

I think Jason is quite correct in saying that we need to identify ( if possible) why we appear to be suffering more discos than we have in the past, because it is the disco problem that it as the root of this discussion...without discos there would be no dispute here.

If Paul and anyone else who has the necessary knowledge and understanding of ho this "should" work can show where the problem lies, then maybe we can find a way to reduce or remove the problem.

I think it would be a relatively simple and worthwhile move to compare the same circuits/disco ratios on different servers over the last few seasons, as there have been comments that we are suffering discos on tracks that were previously considered "safe".....so is there a commom denominator?

Is it always the same drivers  ( or group of drivers?) that are disco'd? or is it completely random?

Are there any unaffected drivers?   Personally, I rarely suffer a disco and in fact cannot recall more than 1 or maybe 2 over the last few seasons, but maybe my memory is being kind to me?

I ask this question as a total dunce as far as the technology involved is concerned, but with the apparent ever present threat of cyber attack ( virus's etc) is there a possibility that although our servers are not actually infected, they are "repelling" an attempt to gain access when these disco's occur? much the same as client problems when the dreaded "windows update" decides to kick in mid race?

There have always been discos and black screens in GPL for as far back as I can remember, but mostly that was individuals and rarely multiples as we are getting recently
Some tracks have known trouble spots. Spa has ( had? I am not sure if it has been fixed) an issue as you pass the start of the pits on the 1st lap with about 50% of drivers getting a black screen or disco, but others passing untouched.

[Hristo Itchov]

As Vos said in his post, Billy had to make the call on what to do and that's not an easy thing. Whatever he chose to do would have pleased some and upset others. Having read everyone's posts so far I think I would have made a different decision but I dare say I would still be getting flak for it!
A more important issue here is the increasing number of problems that we need to track down to their source issues!

I support Billy and he's been doing a great job since he's been running the division, but I don't agree how the aftermath of Race 1 was handled. We were all in chat, many of us gave ideas what could be done, but it appeared to me Billy set his mind on running a different track and never even considered the proposals. Then he quickly decided we should run Monza in non-spec, we all agreed (what else?) and we had a proper race. And now he comes and tells us we have to rerun it... why? And don't tell me it's because Monza was no according to the division rules, because you already knew that when it was decided before Race 2.

And what I still don't understand is how can you claim Sky retired at the same time as the other 6 when RA says something else. Do you mean he visually disappears when you watch the replay? That is hardly an evidence, as replays are often not showing all cars all the time.

As for freezes, the only thing I can think of is going back to unpatched/unmoded GPL and try to have a few test races on these same tracks which cause us problems (but not on tracks which are 100% known to cause freezes). That means no BW patch, original 67s (no 67 patch), no car sound (perhaps), just default GPL with the basic patches (cpu fix, 1.2 patch, d3d rasterizer v1). Otherwise we'll just keep wondering and not coming to any conclusion. We've been doing that for a year now...

[s2173]

 Look, I think we need to clear things up... on this race i had screenfreeze. This is not a disco. The image freezes and theres constant sound loop, you cant get out of game and you have to reboot the computer with the button. I believe others had the same screenfreeze. But, with my previous laptop i had screenfreezes offline, on graphicly intenze tracks, targa especialy; also wery often with GT cars. Therefore i prezume the reazon is overheating or overloading of computer components. With my new laptop, fully sufficent for GPL, i got screenfreezes only online. Now, whether it is server that is stressed and fails to support all the clients, or it just at some point it sends too much data to clients and they fail to cope with it (which actually sounds probable), i dont know, but i believe its not a connection problem, but a hardware problem, caused by something.

I have noticed that GPL takes arful lot of computer resources, altho it doesnt actually uses them, makes almost impossible any program to run sufficiently on the background, unless its set on high priority in the Task Manager, and this might have something to do with it. Im not computer or internet specialist and i might be talking total bullshit, but I think it would be useful to make some spreadsheet with all which had a disco, when they had a disco, their computer specs, server computer specs, connection properties of clients, credit card numbers (jk) and all you can think of.

I mean, tracks are not the problem! Problem is somwhere else and it shows only on certain tracks, tracks themselfs have nothing to do about it. If we locate and fix this problem, we will be able to run any track.

And, as Hristo says, we might try to run some higly problematic track on vroc, which doesnt use the 67 patch (long track patch) which is most recent and a probable reazon for these problems.

Also, we should see if other leagues with other servers/locations/settings/whatever suffer this problem.

And i rebooted directly when i got screenfreeze, probably whitout disconnecting... this might cause the RA confuzion. I dont know how others handle screenfreezes, but all i can do is reboot...

[BadBlood]

Sky was retired by the server at 12:02 by the server. He was on his personal lap 7. He is shown in the RA retiring on that lap. The RA is relative to the individual driver, not the leader. He WAS part of the mass disconnection.

[blito]

If anyone does start to compile a database of our problems, just bear in mind that my recent Disco's have been down to the poor performance of my ISP.

[vosblod]

I mean, tracks are not the problem! Problem is somwhere else and it shows only on certain tracks, tracks themselfs have nothing to do about it. If we locate and fix this problem, we will be able to run any track.

I have to disagree with you, some tracks do cause issues - we often refer to the list here.
I think Spa was a rasterizer issue which has been solved with the new V2's. The problem tracks mostly seem to be to do with mismatches in track sections which don't come to light until they are raced online.

The whole issue of whether the screenfreeze/disco situation has got worse lately really needs some research. Just a case of finding the time to go through our past races, will see if I can start to pull something meaningful together.

[Hristo Itchov]

Sky was retired by the server at 12:02 by the server. He was on his personal lap 7. He is shown in the RA retiring on that lap. The RA is relative to the individual driver, not the leader. He WAS part of the mass disconnection.

OK, I observed it more carefully and you're right, but I certainly remember RA working differently in the past. Either I'm just wrong or recent RA updates made a change in how the Lap by Lap report works. Anyway, I'm more interested in why we really need to rerun race 2.

[Hristo Itchov]

There are a two differences regarding tracks and screen freezes (and please say "freeze" when it's a freeze and only say "disco" when you simply disconnect from the server):

1. Tracks which are known for certain to cause freezes - the old Zeltweg, Paul Ricard, etc. (really can't remember track names atm, but there are lists of those in various forums)
2. Tracks which used to work fine in the past by are now causing freezes.

While the first are due to tracks not being build properly (i.e. gaps in the 3d sections), the second are what we should be concerned with, because even if there's something in the tracks which makes them more likely to cause freezes, I don't think they're the main cause.

In comparison to the past when it all ran fine, it could be the new mod patches, new graphics, new sounds, new bandwidth settings, unstable clients affecting the server in some way, server-side hardware and software settings and anything else which is simply different than how we used to run races. That's why I offered we run a couple of test races using just a basic GPL install (at least on the server side) and see if the tracks we had problems with will run fine, then we could start adding patches and mods, and do further tests. Otherwise I don't really see how we can identify the culprit and in any case, I doubt there's just a single cause for these problems.

[bernie]

My disco was ISP related , its crappy at best atm and don't see it improving any as more and more geeks come on line cluttering up the ether and generally hogging all the bandwidth .

which could of course be part (or all) of the reason why we are witnessing more and more mass disco's 

(The wise ones amongst you will, of course, ignore my posturing  , as it's almost certainly complete and utter rubbish ) 



'

[BadBlood]

LOL The wisdom of the older generation... bandwidth issues causing a mass disco is actually not a bad shout

[Hristo Itchov]

When I mentioned Bandwidth settings I also meant the number of cars drawn in front and behind. That kinda explains why certain people were dropped out as soon as myself and Evil made contact, it's like we were not meant to be drawn from a bigger distance (all those who froze were not close to us). It's worth testing running default none-BW patched gpl, with just 1 car in mirrors and 4 or whatever it is in front. At least I can't think of any other reason why a contact between cars would cause such a thing.

[BadBlood]

Agreed - its interesting... setting up the test might be a challenge too 

[Billy Nobrakes]

Ok gentlemen.
Happy for you to continue this discussion about the general causes of screen freezes & discos.

As far as last Friday (& it was the 13th) was concerned:
Goodwood does have a history - although it has run without problem on several occasions. Paul & Vos have articulated ULGP's rules & what actually happened from around the 12th minute of the race. There is some ambiguity in the rules but my call is to abandon / void this race. Not everyone will agree but you can't please everyone all of the time. If we were dealing with another more proven track, the disco had come later in the race or effected fewer drivers then the decision would have been different. I was one of the disconnected drivers BUT that had no bearing upon my thinking.
 
After Race 1 I had no clear idea on how this would be resolved. There were about 15 drivers in chat all expecting to race - my decision was to run a second race at Monza with no chassis restriction. This was to ensure that nobody would be particularly disadvantage by not knowing the track or having access to a set up. If the Goodwood result stood then Monza would count as the Race 2 result.
Having decided to re-run Race 1 we will find a new date to run the usual back to back Spec Races with 2 cars on the same track. Trying to keep Monza within this format will just distort this.
   

[Geoff65]

My disco was ISP related , its crappy at best atm and don't see it improving any as more and more geeks come on line cluttering up the ether and generally hogging all the bandwidth .

which could of course be part (or all) of the reason why we are witnessing more and more mass disco's  

(The wise ones amongst you will, of course, ignore my posturing  , as it's almost certainly complete and utter rubbish )  

Bernie, I think you're a genius!. If you consider that ISP's are businesses, trying since the GFC to preserve their ridiculously high profit margins. How would they achieve this when money is scarce? Try skimping on the bandwidth they purchase from wholesalers and/or not replacing equipment that is out of date or simply not up to the task of supplying reliable, smooth connectivity to every man and his dog with a computer/iPhone/iPad etc, etc. Who suffers in all this? Why, us the end user, of course. If you watch out at profit reporting time......you will find the corporations haven't much at all....even though they continuously cry poor.......(bugger can't find a smiley for playing worlds smallest violin). And whenever we complain about our crap service, we get told the same old line about how many millions of users are on the service blah, blah, blah. My reply is usually....."well, you should be buying sufficient bandwidth or updating your gateway equipment to service ALL your customers' requirements!!" That usually has them mumbling in their collective beards and even terminating the call as 'abuse'......LOL. Might not be the answer in all cases but I suspect that a heavy investigation into GPL network parameters will likely not turn up too much. Would be nice if we had/could find an ISP willing to support online racers with decent, reliable connections. Ah......pipe dreams.

PS: Anybody know Richard Bransons' email address? He might be open to cornering the market of online racers/gamers. There are more of us than you could really conceive.

[blito]

Its interesting you say that Geoff. My recent troubles with Orange broadband have been since they changed to the new WBC network from BT. WBC is intended to bring the BT wholesale broadband network up to date, bringing faster download speeds with greater reliability, which sounds great but the system just isn't working. The old system worked just fine, never had an issue with it at all!. Anyhow, thos nice people at Virgin are coming to install fibre-optic broadband in its place tomorow.