Problems with patches, saves and connection

 HMRTTI


Posted 16 February 2018 - 3:52 pm
I've tried to play with Forgotten Empires mod, but encountered a series of problems which I sincerely do not know how to begin solving.

Problem 1: I play with my girlfriend and we are experiencing a serious lag in our game, which is even worse when using this mod.

Problem 2: We suspect that the worsening of the lag is caused by the option "Record Game" being automatically checked when using patch 1.4. I'm unable to uncheck it manually.

Problem 3: Reading through some part of the forums I've arrived at the tip that what is causing such an option to be automatically checked is the Anti-cheat protection, which is true. I've tested it, and without anti-cheat the option can be checked or unchecked manually. However, NAT Transversal requires anti-cheat to be enabled, and without it I and my gf can enter the multiplayer game settings window, but cannot see each other there, nor see the messages sent by both.

Problem 4: When we do play Record Game enabled the saves I make are not seen by voobly and I'm not able to restore them. They are still in the system folder of the mod saves though, they just do not appear in voobly's Restore Game window.

I would be grateful with anyone who can solve at least one of these problems and thank you everyone for the attention.
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 kitt


Posted 16 February 2018 - 4:51 pm
hi
try playing 1.5 beta.
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 HMRTTI


Posted 16 February 2018 - 5:16 pm
Hi Kitt.

I tried it now. Same behavior as 1.4.
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 kitt


Posted 16 February 2018 - 11:12 pm
hi
are you both playing together against the A1? those games do lag for what ever reason.
are you playing thro' the same router?
if you play individually against other players, whats it like then? if you play completely off of voobly, how is then?
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 HMRTTI


Posted 17 February 2018 - 1:38 am
Sometimes we play together against the AI, and sometimes we play against each other, and the lag is the same.
We do no play through the same router, I've never played against other players besides her, and when I play off voobly the lag is non existent.
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 +sunny@voobly

Voobly Team


Edited 17 February 2018 - 10:17 am by +sunny@voobly
Hello,

Thank you for posting this issue on the forums and bringing it to our attention. I will try and answer all your listed problems one by one.
HMRTTI wrote:
Problem 1: I play with my girlfriend and we are experiencing a serious lag in our game, which is even worse when using this mod.

Have you tried playing AOC with your friend without this mod? How about a normal AOC game with 1.4 and/or 1.5 patches? Do you notice any lag whatsoever? This will tell us if the problem is indeed related to the mod or if it's something else.
HMRTTI wrote:
Problem 2: We suspect that the worsening of the lag is caused by the option "Record Game" being automatically checked when using patch 1.4. I'm unable to uncheck it manually.

Problem 3: Reading through some part of the forums I've arrived at the tip that what is causing such an option to be automatically checked is the Anti-cheat protection, which is true. I've tested it, and without anti-cheat the option can be checked or unchecked manually. However, NAT Transversal requires anti-cheat to be enabled, and without it I and my gf can enter the multiplayer game settings window, but cannot see each other there, nor see the messages sent by both.

All rated games played on Voobly require anticheat to be enabled. As a part of the anticheat program, all rated games need to be recorded for us to be able to review the game in case a subsequent complain follows. You must also note that this recording is also uploaded on Voobly servers while you are playing the game. That said, a standard 8 player game that lasted an hour will usually have a recording size of a couple of megabytes. Assuming your internet speed (upload and download) is atleast 2 MBPS, this is no reason to worry about. Thousands of games are played everyday on Voobly and unless your internet speed (upload/ download or both) is horribly low, there is no reason for lag here.

Voobly NAT Traversal technology helps you connect to other players on the platform without having to worry about setting up a direct connection. The only requirement here is to ensure that your NAT port (16000 UDP by default) is open on your network. If and when this is done, you will automatically have a direct connection to every other player in your game room.

So when you and your friend are in the Voobly game room, do you see a fast proxy warning message? This is also denoted by a yellow exclamation mark next to your players nick. If yes, you and/or your friend may need to open your NAT port by forwarding the port on your router/modem.
HMRTTI wrote:
Problem 4: When we do play Record Game enabled the saves I make are not seen by voobly and I'm not able to restore them. They are still in the system folder of the mod saves though, they just do not appear in voobly's Restore Game window..

This maybe a problem with the mod. Since FE uses its own SaveGame folder, Voobly will not be able to read those games for restoration. You can check with Gallas here to see if those games can be moved to teh AOC SaveGame folder for restoration.

Good luck ;flowers
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 HMRTTI


Posted 17 February 2018 - 4:10 pm
Hello, sunny@voobly, and thank you very much for the attention given and the help you are lending.
+sunny@voobly wrote:

Have you tried playing AOC with your friend without this mod? How about a normal AOC game with 1.4 and/or 1.5 patches? Do you notice any lag whatsoever? This will tell us if the problem is indeed related to the mod or if it's something else.

When we play with just 1.0c we experience lag, but only when the population is almost completely full. We notice however that the lag is considerably increased when we use mounted units, to the point that sometimes it becomes prohibitive to use them, as it can cause loss of connection. When we play with just 1.4 the lag increases slightly. When we do play with the mod the lag increases heavily, and it becomes terribly worse with custom made scenarios, to the point of being unplayable. I've never played with 1.5 without the mod.
+sunny@voobly wrote:

All rated games played on Voobly require anticheat to be enabled. As a part of the anticheat program, all rated games need to be recorded for us to be able to review the game in case a subsequent complain follows. You must also note that this recording is also uploaded on Voobly servers while you are playing the game. That said, a standard 8 player game that lasted an hour will usually have a recording size of a couple of megabytes. Assuming your internet speed (upload and download) is atleast 2 MBPS, this is no reason to worry about. Thousands of games are played everyday on Voobly and unless your internet speed (upload/ download or both) is horribly low, there is no reason for lag here.

Thank you for clarifying this issue, sunny, so I can rule out this as the source of the problem.
+sunny@voobly wrote:

So when you and your friend are in the Voobly game room, do you see a fast proxy warning message? This is also denoted by a yellow exclamation mark next to your players nick. If yes, you and/or your friend may need to open your NAT port by forwarding the port on your router/modem.

We almost never receive the fast proxy message, not even when we disabled NAT Transversal and were unable to see each other.
+sunny@voobly wrote:


This maybe a problem with the mod. Since FE uses its own SaveGame folder, Voobly will not be able to read those games for restoration. You can check with Gallas here to see if those games can be moved to teh AOC SaveGame folder for restoration.

I tried transfering the savegame to the standard savegame folder, but voobly still do not recognize it.

Once more, thank you for the help.
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 [MM]Gallas


Edited 17 February 2018 - 6:25 pm by [MM]Gallas
hi HMRTTI,


Problem 1: From what you said, this can be related to your hardware. FE, UP1.4 and above with the suggested Voobly screen settings using your desktop frame rate and runs the game in 60fps, while game originally runs on just 24, which takes much less resource. You can turn it off in room menu at Game->DirectX-> Start in windowed mode. Also at \Age of empires II\age2_x1\ run the FixAoFE.exe file and uncheck the Windowed mode. I also can recommend playing with lower resolution if this not enough, as with old hardware this can affect the ingame lag too.

Problem 2: Game recording should not affect ingame lag, unless you have bad settings or really outdated hardwares (above). While the game is old, newest patches and mods pushes up the processor needs (vga not too much).

Problem 3: Can't say anything more than what sunny and kitt.

Problem 4: Saved game should appear when you selected the datamod in room. Maybe with FE this can be different, as it's in a special situation with own /games directory (like offline unofficial expansions). I suggest check it with http://www.voobly.com/gamemods/mod/312/Forgotten-Empires-33 or other datamod if the problem persist or not.
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 HMRTTI


Posted 18 February 2018 - 4:03 am
Hi, Gallas, thanks for the attention.

Regarding what you said about hardware: My GPU is a 1060 and I have 16 gb of RAM. However, my gf's pc has only 3 gb of RAM and no offboard GPU to speak of. Is it possible that her hardware is influencing my lag? As from what we were comparing our lag is almost the same. I do not run the game in windowed mode, nor she.

And about the problem with increased lag using mounted units that I said in answer to Sunnny's post, do they have such a huge difference in the requirement of proccessing power compared to other type of units?

Concerning the problem with the savegames, I did some tests with other mods: Age of Chivalry saves were not recognized by Voobly, but WololoKingdom's one was. Both store their saves in the same manner of Forgotten Empires, which is inside their respective folders in the Data Mod folder of Voobly, so I think it's not about the system location of the files. What could be causing such a difference between them?
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 [MM]Gallas


Edited 18 February 2018 - 11:44 am by [MM]Gallas
I suggested the non-windowed mode with 24fps (original full resolution) with 8bit colors for pcs which are 10 or more years old. gpu and ram doesn't matter that much (specially with those specs), but cpu do. I can't even see too much dif between hdd and ssd with aoe2 for myself, so I don't think it's a hardware issue, even with your gf's pc. Her lag yes can affect your game in multiplayer, but then ingame next to her name you would see a white turtle icon (press F4 to show if not on already) or yellow-red lamp if it's a connection problem.

During game check CPU usage, it can be some else too (malware/virus/crypto miner) or something limit how much aoe2 can use. Aoe2 can only use the 1. core, so 8 or more core cpu may can be worse than one with only 2-4. Or in worst case, hard-drive damage, but that would appear with other games too.

It would be good to know more details in what situation is the problem appear as:
- offline without any mod
- offline with FE
- multiplayer without her just vs Ai and without mod
- multiplayer without her just vs Ai and with mod
- multiplayer with her and without mod
- multiplayer with her and with mod

Mounted or not does not mater, all just same units with different stats, class and graphics. 1000 pikeman need as much hardware as 1000 horse archer. The amount of frames, displayed graphics and speed so small between units, you barely could even measure it (unless you mod something really badly).

Age of Chivalry as offline mod by installer or the voobly-one from mod center? Voobly datamods with extra civs requires .xml file to make it load, but on sideffect it has some other extra directories (scenarios, custom random maps and ofc saved games).

This is why pre-selecting mod is a must, but if you did that correctly I have left two more guess:
- Maybe you have to try with other patches, as these mods were made and tested under 1.4 RC not the v1.5 Beta
- This is some new bug what you found and devs have to look on it. (some years ago extra civ loading had some issue and none worked correctly)


One more thing what I not asked before, what is your base game? aoc from CD or aoeHD + compatible patch? If you use aoc CD with a pirated "free download" it can have issues and file corruption, which cannot be fixed by us and we won't even try and you must get a legit copy of the game.
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 HMRTTI


Edited 18 February 2018 - 3:50 pm by HMRTTI
[MM]Gallas wrote:
Her lag yes can affect your game in multiplayer, but then ingame next to her name you would see a white turtle icon (press F4 to show if not on already) or yellow-red lamp if it's a connection problem.

I haven't seen such an icon next to her name ever.

[MM]Gallas wrote:
It would be good to know more details in what situation is the problem appear as:
- offline without any mod
- offline with FE
- multiplayer without her just vs Ai and without mod
- multiplayer without her just vs Ai and with mod
- multiplayer with her and without mod
- multiplayer with her and with mod

1st situation: No lag
2nd situation: No lag
3rd situation: No lag
4th situation: No lag
5th situation: Lag only when almost at full pop, with increased lag in custom made scenarios. Some disconnects or crashes when mounted units attack buildings
6th situation: Heavy lag against the AI, custom made scenarios unplayable. Otherwise the same as above.

[MM]Gallas wrote:
Age of Chivalry as offline mod by installer or the voobly-one from mod center? Voobly datamods with extra civs requires .xml file to make it load, but on sideffect it has some other extra directories (scenarios, custom random maps and ofc saved games).

Age of Chivalry was installed through the mod center of Voobly.
[MM]Gallas wrote:
- Maybe you have to try with other patches, as these mods were made and tested under 1.4 RC not the v1.5 Beta

I 've tested it under both patches.

[MM]Gallas wrote:
One more thing what I not asked before, what is your base game? aoc from CD or aoeHD + compatible patch? If you use aoc CD with a pirated "free download" it can have issues and file corruption, which cannot be fixed by us and we won't even try and you must get a legit copy of the game.

We both have the original game from CD and it's the one we use to play through Voobly. These days I bought aoeHD for both of us through Steam, but she has been unable to play it. Is there a way to use it through Voobly without WololoKingdoms?

I want to add that I made some more tests about savegames with other mods. Those were 5th age, Age of Vampire, Rome Returns, RCB Fair, Age Perfect, Portuguese Civ III, Royal Marriage and Teams Td III. Only Portuguese Civ saves were not recognized by Voobly.
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 [MM]Gallas


Posted 18 February 2018 - 5:02 pm
I can't figure out what this can be :(

For aoeHD yes you can play it without Wololokingdom, just follow this guide:
[You must login to view link]
Maybe using aoeHD as base game instead of the CD version can solve the problem. Make sure Voobly detects it correctly, but guide says all.

From those mods I know Vampire and PCM III has extra civs, but Vampire has less, while PCM more. I would also suggest try the Realms mod to test.
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 HMRTTI


Posted 18 February 2018 - 6:41 pm
I've tested the Realms mod as you suggested right now and the save I made with this mod was recognized properly by voobly, so I think it's not a problem with the number of civs. Maybe the mods or voobly itself are trying to load the save from a folder that doesn't exist or was created in some other place that was not inside the game folders? I cannot see why voobly would not recognize a save because of content if it's made with a properly compatible mod. Do you know someone who can figure this out?

Thank you for the willingness to help so far, Gallas :)
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 [MM]Gallas


Posted 18 February 2018 - 6:50 pm
FE mod is in a special situation and perhaps that's mess up, but then what's with PCM III + Realms is working? So again not make sense for me and dunno who can help in this :S
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 HMRTTI


Posted 23 February 2018 - 7:56 pm
Hey, Gallas, I've come here after much time to inform you and any other who might have the same problem as me that I found a solution to the save game problem, by accident, at least for Age of Chivalry, but I think the logic with the other mods should be the same. After all the talk we had I've downloaded the non voobly version of Age of Chivalry, to test it in another program. Such a non voobly version gets installed in the Games folder of the main game folder and not in the Voobly Mods/Data Mods folder like the voobly version. Today I got desynced from a multiplayer game and tried to rescue my save in another program by transferring the saves from the voobly version folder to the non voobly one. But for some reason, after the transfer, I got the idea to take a look at my lobby room and... voilĂ , the saves I transfered appeared. Somehow Voobly looks for the save folder of the non voobly version instead of looking for the voobly one. I imagine that even the mods which do not have non voobly versions can recognize saves if you create a (name of the mod)/SaveGame/Multi folder inside the Games folder.


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