PsychoScrum League Season 17: Season Mode

[get some]

i have used vent before and have visably noticed it creating lag. granted...not for TT. plus the quality of vents performance can be spotty at times. skype was crystal clear with no lag time within the program.

i think we all need to be on board with this or it will not work. Rx and I were on skype last night during the game but we were mostly making observations about how the game was going. we didnt use it all all to coordinate the teams movement or play as Grreat was not on and Ox...well who knows what Ox was doing.

if Jays entire team was on Skype and coordinating their play with it, it clearly creates an enormous advantage. they were super tight with the teamwork...looked like they were in mid season form right outta of the gates. now, this isnt a problem as we all agreed to use skype beforehand...my team just didnt get it together like they did. i do see the parity between teams being wiped out if some teams or players do not use it vs the teams who do use it.

right now im neutral on the issue. i would like to see more players weigh in on the issue. having virtually an entire West Coast lineup i foresee my team struggling with less than ideal server conditions regardless of Skype usage. i am excited by the potential of using Skype but not at the cost of seeing teams get blown out 20 to 3 if everyone isnt on board with it.

[Blind Cide]

Bandwidth and network limitations aren't the main issue with Skype. The biggest problem is that when your processor is already maxed out with TT, Skype will just slow it down even more. This will lead to less data in/out of your TT client and that affects everyone in the server.

Bandwidth requirements are small for TT and Skype. If there's someone else on your network (or you are) using a major percentage of your bandwidth with a download, then it will affect your TT.

If Skype + TT is using 90% of your processor, you will probably bring lag. My guess is that you need dual processors of minimum 1.5 Ghz. to run Skype on the same machine. Skype on a separate machine shouldn't be a problem.

[LGM]

It bugs me that my server was bad... it hasn't been that bad before. (Not that it's stellar, either)

I'm wondering if I could get 8-10 players to come in at the same time so I could do some observations on the CPU usage it's causing. I think it was related to using different copies of TT to host different things, but not sure. It seems to be improved after a restart.

Any volunteers?

[belikin]

Im glad to hear that xKane found server 1 to be running smooth last night. I hope the rest of the players also found it to work well. That may be because i have the server 1 computer separate from my gamming computer and my skype computer.

I use three computers to run TT on league nights.
Computer one is my game computer and the only one i play on.
Computer two runs the server. (this computer has priority)
Computer three runs skype.

Last night I had skype running but did not have voice going because of a technical problems on the other end.
IMO if you have your skype machine separate from your TT machine things work fine. As others have mentioned, there have been many conferences with multiple players from the states and from overseas with no lag.

If there was some way to measure bandwidth/CPU usage with the different applications it would be interesting. It might also might help this conversation move from opinion to fact.

As you may have guessed im for keeping skype.

[TankerBel]

LGM, I could... But yea, like others have said, LGMs was very bad. I would definatly not suggest it being used for the season (unless it gets much better)


Don't get me wrong LGM, we appreciate your hosting a bunch!

[The Professor]

Certainly there is an accessory in Windows/Mac that can log what applications were running at a certain time, and the resources utilized to run said applications. Yes? I know task manager displays certain info, but naturally it would be hard to play TT and have Skype on, while charting any info from task manager.

Get some is correct in his observations re: communication/last night. The team that does not use Skype or something similar to communicate faces a sizable disadvantage playing a team that is using it.

While I enjoy winning, it's hollow unless it is a "fair fight."

[Blind Cide]

Certainly there is an accessory in Windows/Mac that can log what applications were running at a certain time, and the resources utilized to run said applications. Yes? I know task manager displays certain info, but naturally it would be hard to play TT and have Skype on, while charting any info from task manager.

Get some is correct in his observations re: communication/last night. The team that does not use Skype or something similar to communicate faces a sizable disadvantage playing a team that is using it.

While I enjoy winning, it's hollow unless it is a "fair fight."

Professor, do you remember Seed of CTB? I think voice would have distracted us from the near perfect harmony we had. I learned from that team that total domination isn't very fun.

On the Mac look in Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor. Choose "CPU"

CPU monitor.jpg (22.16 KiB) Viewed 4487 times

[Cloud]

if Jays entire team was on Skype and coordinating their play with it, it clearly creates an enormous advantage. they were super tight with the teamwork...looked like they were in mid season form right outta of the gates. now, this isnt a problem as we all agreed to use skype beforehand...my team just didnt get it together like they did. i do see the parity between teams being wiped out if some teams or players do not use it vs the teams who do use it.

Which is precisely why we use it. This is TS, and skype increases communication between teammates which in turn strengthens the team. RX stated that we can use voice chat. It doesn't have to be skype, so if you get your team together and get team speak which uses considerably less bandwidth and memory, then you can also have this advantage.

Bandwidth and network limitations aren't the main issue with Skype. The biggest problem is that when your processor is already maxed out with TT, Skype will just slow it down even more.

It depends on the computer. As you said, perhaps a back up computer may be helpful but for those that have a strong enough computer, skype and TT can work on one machine. Skype does not affect my lag at all and I only hear complaints about skype when we are in PSL. 85% of the time when I play TS with all of you, I use skype and I never hear any issues pop up.

This will lead to less data in/out of your TT client and that affects everyone in the server.

It is tough on the processor but the amount of data being transferred cant be so large that it can affect the server. Wouldn't this be exactly having several computers in use on the internet over one network. (router/modem) I never hear problems with this, unless they have way to many people downloading things.

You would probably be better off closing all other applications and processes running in the background which eat up bandwidth. Processes such as ituneshelper, any other messenger, limewire, ect. Any file sharing software included.

[The Professor]

@ BC - Was I around for "Seed of CTB"? I honestly don't remember - although I do remember CTB put a hurtin' on some folks.

[LGM]

Here's the results I got from pingtest.net. I tried a MI server too... got a B there. Ping was higher, but <100

Seems like the connection is solid. Also, my TT server is using 1.5% of my CPU... I find it hard to believe that the CPU was all used up with the game. I did think I was seeing 80% last night, but that was the copy I was playing on.

I think the issue may have been the router or cable modem... both were restarted, and now it seems much better. The ping I get here dropped from 46 to 4 ms. I have no idea how it got up to the 40s... have never seen that before.