[Liyana]

I've heard a lot of complaints about lag here and there but hell , people will offer advice such as your upload or download is insufficient but however , what exactly is the exact definition of "lag" in networking ? why does it happen ? is there anyway to prevent it ? will a person lagging cause other people in a game to lag as well ( very important please ! ) ?

AFAIK the reasons for lag are :

Terribly noob or stock configuration of the network

Terrible upload ( usually its not the download ( I mean you don't have like 100mB/s of data being streamed in all the time right ? ) ) I'd so trade download for upload

Firewall

But if you didn't read all that...I'm basically wondering how lag occurs ( as in the process and not the reasons )

 

[Desperado1987]

From wiki:

Quote:

In computing and especially computer networks, a lag is a symptom where result of an action appears later than expected. While different kinds of latency are well defined technical terms, lag is the symptom, not the cause. Communications latency is the time taken for a packet of data to be sent from one application, travel to, and be received by another application. This includes transit time over the network, and processing time at the source and the destination computers. Specifically, this is the time for encoding the packet for transmission and transmitting it, the time for that serial data to traverse the network equipment between the nodes, and the time to get the data off the circuit. This is also known as "one-way latency". A minimum bound on latency is determined by the distance between communicating devices and the speed at which the signal propagates in the circuits (typically 70-95% of the speed of light). Actual latency is much higher, due to packet processing in networking equipment, and other traffic. While strictly every packet experiences lag, the term lag is used to refer to delays noticeable to the user. Latency is directly related to the physical distance that data travels. Thus the time taken for a packet to travel from a computer server in Europe to a client in the same region is likely to be shorter than a the time to travel from Europe to the Americas or Asia. But protocols and well written code that avoid unnecessary data transmissions are less affected by the latency inherent in a network. Modern corporate networks have devices to cache frequently requested data and accelerate protocols, thus reducing application response time, the cumulative effect of latency.

For example, if you are playing a game online, you won't lag if someone else is lagging. You are causing the lagg yourself. You get lag(high ping) when your downlaods is on. If you uplaod too much. Stop all downlaods while playing. It could also be that you have a slow internet. then there is nothing to do about it.

 

[Kai-]

Latency is the time it takes for the packet of data to get from your PC to the server(Or vise versa)

Lag is when the latency is noticeable.

Say, for example when your typing, the letters you hit appear on the screen near instantly, we could say that it has a 1ms latency.

But, if the letters appear 3 seconds after you hit the keyboard, that would be 3 seconds of lag.

Latency/Lag is mainly effected by your internet bandwidth. (link)

Quote:

We observe empirically that the lower speed an ADSL service happens to be, the higher the time recorded for a 'ping' test (or other measures of round trip latency) on the service.

And then there is also the physical distance between you, and the thing you are connecting to. (link - Fact no3, although all apply to why latency can be bad fact 3 is important)

 

[nugget]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kai- Latency is the time it takes for the packet of data to get from your PC to the server(Or vise versa) Lag is when the latency is noticeable. Say, for example when your typing, the letters you hit appear on the screen near instantly, we could say that it has a 1ms latency. But, if the letters appear 3 seconds after you hit the keyboard, that would be 3 seconds of lag. Latency/Lag is mainly effected by your internet bandwidth. (link) And then there is also the physical distance between you, and the thing you are connecting to. (link - Fact no3, although all apply to why latency can be bad fact 3 is important)

Thats pretty much it nice summary

 

[Liyana]

does that read also apply for cable ?

 

[Sreenath]

yes. it applies for most internet connections

 

[Liyana]

then its time to get the 100mb/s line !

 

[kingsnake2]

you can get up to 1 gigabyte a second if you have the right lan card

nad good internet service

 

[JacKz5o]

The internet at my work is 100mb/s..... sooo fast omg.

 

[xthedrumzx]

lag is the term used to describe a "glitch" or temporary slow-down in transfer or display speed.

the measure of lag is latency, which essentially is the rate at which packets are transfered between two locations, and usually is directly related to the speed or smoothness with which frames cycle on screens.

e.g.
im in world of warcraft. i look down and my latency meter reads "35ms". this means that the transfer rate of packets of info between my computer and the World of Warcraft servers is 35ms. this means that it takes 35ms for the actual progression of frames sent by the Blizzard server to reach my computer....

that clear things up a bit?

 

[DELL-HATER]

here's good example...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VOozxpNI_I

wait till about 40 secs

Dell-Hater

 

[gfreeman1]

You can have fast internet and still have lag. Crappy wireless routers and long distances between you and the server cause it too.

 

[Liyana]

yeah drum...anyways I was just kidding...heck , living in singapore means lag for me no matter what >.<...I'm pretty sure the router and modem ain't bottlenecking eh