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Help Keywords : Lag.
Help Category : Information.
Last Updated : 2008-09-07 13:32:45.
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It is very common for people to ask questions such as 'why is this MUD
so lagged?', or, 'Is there any lag here?'.
First off, note that several commands have lag attached to them. This is
intentional; it should not, for example, be possible to cast 10 spells in
one round of physical attacks, so there is a lag time on casting spells.
Other commands may be resource-intensive (such as 'bigmap') and may have a
lag added to them to reduce how often they may be used.
When you connect to Aardwolf, or any other site, you do not have a direct
connection to the MUD. The connection from your own computer to the MUD
itself goes through many sites and routers. Each of these connections is
generally referred to as a 'hop'. (At the time of writing, Lasher goes
through 14 hops to get to the mud!) Lag can occur at any of these hops,
which is why some people can be very lagged while others have no problems
with their link.
One of the best ways to tell if the problem is with your link is to use a
traceroute program. If you are on a Unix account, you should be able to
go to a shell prompt and type 'traceroute aardmud.org'. Windows users can
use 'tracert aardmud.org' at the command prompt for the same result. Mac
users likely have a similar option available; ask on the Tech channel for
suggestions.
This traceroute will show each hop your connection takes to get to the
Aardwolf server. Very high numbers or asterisks at a particular hop are
a good indicator of a source of your lag. (Unfortunately, there is little
that can be done about this, other than knowing that it is not Aardwolf
itself that is lagging.)
Of course, nobody is saying that it is impossible for Aardwolf itself to be
lagged. The immortals do have notification if something is causing major
issues with lag, and it is high priority to get these issues fixed. This
type of lag will be universal and likely mentioned by many players when it
is an issue.
Also, don't think that just because a lot of people are online means there
will be lag! With 450 people on, only 20-25% of the mud's resources (or
less) are being used.
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