UKGPL Season 21 (2011) Grads (67) - Westwood Park - May 22

[ivandjj]

Arf,

your problem doesnt sound like connection problem. You seem to be fine when there are few cars on the server during free practice and it gets much worse when there is a qualy and the race with 10 people on. I was warping the same in free practice, as Will confirmed to me.

Is your cputer a bit older ? Anyway, try lessening resolution and graphic settings in gpl and see if it makes a difference.

[miner2049er]

you have to concentrate hard for all but the long straight

Even that has a kink in it as you go over the hill.

[Arf Arf Arf]

BB

Is there anything I can actually do about the connection quality? I don't have control over ISP choice where I am at the moment, so changing ISP probably isn't an option in the short term.

Ivan

I doubt the hardware is part of the cause - here's my spec; Dell Studio XPS laptop. Its 18 months old, dual core 2.4 gHz processors, 4gB of RAM with two dedicated graphics processors - GPL can run on just one, but I always (and only) use the second for GPL. As such I run full details bias and sound.

[fpolicardi]

Np Arf for the contact, it happens.
About your conn. problem, I was one that complained in qually. I was following you mostly during practice and you were keeping disappearing and reappearing.
From what part of the world are you connecting? GPG server is placed in Nederland and maybe you have a bad route to it.
What kind of steering wheel and Windows version have you? Some old wheels have problems with FF and cause an overload to cpu like what is happening in these days with last build of iRacing and LWFF.
Can you do a trace to the servers to see if there is a hop that fails and loose packets? If you have Vroc you can easily do with Inspect function, or you can use a tool like Ping Plotter.
Ciao

I have noticed no improvement from using a wired connection.

As on Friday with the Porsches, people were chatting about me warping during qually, which I don't think is fair on others (and massively distracted me when I thought I was about to post a 106 until warp decided it was 115).

On Saturday I practiced online and there was no warp (as s2173 will confirm). On Sunday I tried it twice through the day and there was no warp. Then as soon as we get near to race time I did one last test and there was a bit of warp. However, I was relieved to see that after 3/4 laps the warp disappeared and things were normal again...

..until qually, where I got terrible warp - GPL seems to run slow, good laps are rewarded with 115ish times, and everyone complains about me (I understand you don't want your own race ruined). I spent as much time looking at the red 'S' bar descending to the bottom - every time it get to the bottom my wheel shakes as if it has been hit, and the S bar resets itself (i.e. starts to build up for another attack!).

In the hope the warp might die down I decided to make a slow start away from the grid only to find others did that too, and then we caught up much of the pack as there was an incident on T1... I slowed again, and thought I was on my own, but coming down the main straight 2 cars appeared near me, so I pulled off the track to retire, but a piston got there before I hit the escape button.

So, what causes warp? Hristo mentioned stability of ISP service - what does that mean, and is there anything I can do at my end? As I said at the start, I've tried a cable, and it didn't appear to make any difference. I qualified at Monaco on wifi, and the connection was perfect (my internet connection (not wifi) failed just after the start of the race, which is why I DNFd).

Cheers

Arf

p.s. Fulvio, I think I hit you as you avoided the mess on L1, T1. I knew you were there, but warp sometimes affects how quickly I stop. Having checked the replay I was doing 45mph when I hit you, and you were doing 37mph, so I thought the small speed differential didn't explain the way your car reacted by cartwheeling off the road. Sorry anyway..

[fpolicardi]

Hmm a laptop, have you set the power saving to not activate while you run GPL? GPL is a program not recognised by Energy saver, infact the screen saver start while you run GPL if not deactivated. Maybe your CPU slow down to save energy while GPL is running.
Ciao

BB

Is there anything I can actually do about the connection quality? I don't have control over ISP choice where I am at the moment, so changing ISP probably isn't an option in the short term.

Ivan

I doubt the hardware is part of the cause - here's my spec; Dell Studio XPS laptop. Its 18 months old, dual core 2.4 gHz processors, 4gB of RAM with two dedicated graphics processors - GPL can run on just one, but I always (and only) use the second for GPL. As such I run full details bias and sound.

[Arf Arf Arf]

From what part of the world are you connecting? GPG server is placed in Nederland and maybe you have a bad route to it.

I'm in the UK

What kind of steering wheel and Windows version have you? Some old wheels have problems with FF and cause an overload to cpu like what is happening in these days with last build of iRacing and LWFF.

Win 7 64 bit, and a G25

Can you do a trace to the servers to see if there is a hop that fails and loose packets? If you have Vroc you can easily do with Inspect function, or you can use a tool like Ping Plotter.

I have been using iGor to connect - never used VROC. I will have a look at Ping Plotter.

Also seen your later post re power saving - I have 'disable Intel Speed Step' set in GEM, which I think takes care of the power saving issue.

[s2173]

  Well, very good race for me... with my favorite cars on my favorite type of tracks i was able to run so-so solid, no shift'rs, just some spins and offroad hikes. No connection problems and screenfreezes, server was nice, no dramas and collisions, it was actually very good track for passing (noticed lately that best place to let fast guys through are actually the corners). Hine's mexico setup worked wery well because of all the trailbraking. Looking forward to Monsanto park...gorgeous track, and 66's arent that different from 67's... i can even use the same setup.

[BadBlood]

You seem to be fine when there are few cars on the server during free practice and it gets much worse when there is a qualy and the race with 10 people on.

Not the case. He was warping terribly when he was on the practice server and that was just me and him. He actually appeared on me once. It is very disconcerting overtaking someone, seeing them disappear in your mirror and have them appear in front of you! lol

TBH Colin, I don't think that there is that much you can do. The only thing that you can do is make sure that there is no other traffic on your connection when you race and no other processes running on your pc - no anti-virus, no downloads etc etc.

[BadBlood]

you have to concentrate hard for all but the long straight

Even that has a kink in it as you go over the hill.

LOL You are right - I pulled left to let somebody past (Fabio I think) and found myself going very right over the crest - oops!

[Hristo Itchov]

If you suspect your ISP is the culprit, you can do nothing else but call them and tell them about your problems, and demand a better service or at least some change in their settings. Normally they'll probably try to deny that it's their fault, but you should be persistent.

[fpolicardi]

Also seen your later post re power saving - I have 'disable Intel Speed Step' set in GEM, which I think takes care of the power saving issue.

Are you sure it works? Have you an utility on your laptop to trace cpu speed while running GPL? You could set GPL to run in a window with old D3D raster and see what happens around easily.
Ciao

[s2173]

I drived with Arf on the practice server, we even did some tag - he was rock solid, no wraps... maybe something situational?

[Arf Arf Arf]

TBH Colin, I don't think that there is that much you can do. The only thing that you can do is make sure that there is no other traffic on your connection when you race and no other processes running on your pc - no anti-virus, no downloads etc etc.

Ironically when I had a good connection @ Monaco there was someone using the connection, but Friday and Sunday I was in on my own. Wasn't d/l anything, but my virus checker was on. Not sure how I feel about disabling that when I am online for 60-90 minutes.



Fulvio - using PingPlotter I appear to be getting a lot of packet loss. I have tried Google, BBC and then the GPG and BB's GPL server. I get significantly more packet loss on the two GPL servers. All 4 sites seems to have 14-18 hops. Google and BBC have 1 or 2 bad hops. Both GPL servers seem to have more red bars (packet loss hops) than good hops. Starting to feel paranoid....

[Arf Arf Arf]

Also seen your later post re power saving - I have 'disable Intel Speed Step' set in GEM, which I think takes care of the power saving issue.

Are you sure it works? Have you an utility on your laptop to trace cpu speed while running GPL? You could set GPL to run in a window with old D3D raster and see what happens around easily.
Ciao

Yes, I'm pretty sure it works. Before I used the GEM setting I used GPL Power Monger. Without one of these running, GPL doesn't seem to run at the right speed.........er, which is what happens when I have bad warp. Oooh.... (although warp makes me run wayyyy too slow, and I ran way too quickly without Power Monger/Disbale Intel SpeedStep

I am convinced that Disable Intel Speed Step works then I practice on my own at home (i.e. not online), and I always lauch GPL via GEM. The only question is whether all GEM settings work when I go online via iGor. Anyone?

[EvilClive]

Even though I have a reasonable computer and a 20mb ( which of course runs at about 8mb normally  ) I still use a small programme called
 "End it all" before each race.

I know some will throw their hands up in horror, because it shuts down just about everything on the computer except Igor and GPL, but it does guarantee that I get no interference from AV updates, screen savers, power saving or any other stuff. It also frees up all my computers resources for GPL, although it probably does not need quite that much computing power!!

As I shut down my computer after racing ( because I am usually knackered and am off for some zzzzzzzzzzz's ), everything is restored when I next reboot so I have no probs.

As for the race and the circuit...... I never got a comfortable setup for this track and found that I was fighting the car all the way...never good .  In hindsight, the ride was probably too hard and unforgiving.
A couple of offs dropped me slowly down the order until I found myself behind Will and I enjoyed a few laps chasing his Brabham until the Esses at the top of the S/F straight where I had been experiencing some frame rate drops. The car seemed to bottom on the ( too hard??) suspension and snatched to the left ripping a wheel off on the fence...race over.

I think I will return for some private practice here and sort the setup because it should have been a great race on a nice track...but it certainly did not feel that way last night!!