Has XBLive performance gone down hill?

[Leon Retro]

I remember when I first got XBLive; MotoGP was simply amazing, with hardly if any lag at all; even the demo game Whacked was rock-solid.

Then came the next-gen of games, with PGR2 being the big one. This game ran really well, not as good as MGP but good enough not to annoy. Then after that came Rallisport2 and things whilst still ok, the cracks were beginning to show in the system.

Then came the 3rd generation; Burnout 3 what the hell, this game was totally messed-up in every way; I got rid of it. Then came Outrun2, what a disaster, far from smooth, with the most crazy stuff happening; I was gutted.

Now I have bought DOAU, and guess what? The online mode is the most unstable yet. I agree that it works a lot of the time, but when it goes wrong, it really goes to hell; I just sit there in shock when it really gets bad.

So to conclude I want to know if others feel the same? Has the service got worse? I have no idea why this is the case, all I have heard is murmurings from other gamers but no magazine has brought the topic-up yet; though GamesTM marked down DOAU for being dodgy online.


Edit... Forgot PES4; this is a nice game, but why the hell isn't it rock-solid?

[jassi singh]

I dont think it is the service, it just depends on the people you are connected too. I play SF3:TS online loads, and the connection can range from OFFLINE quality to down right bollocks.

I had DOA:U for a while, and on the whole the connection was great. However, when in a room a couple of times, i did hear

"ohh ****, bet my brothers downloading again,hold on a sec."

Also, when i am in laggy games, on the odd occasion i have forgotten that ive still got Bittorent running in the background...I SAID ODD OCASSION! >_<;;; Which im sure is the case with most people on live. OR, they just dont know.

So on the whole, i dont think the service has gone downhill, its just sometimes unfortunate due to peoples network conditions either (dunno the terms ) congested\used by someone else\torrents\crap uploads.

Best way someone described XBL is as a "matchmaking" service, this is because there are no central servers people connect up to, but P2P.

of course, im prolly chatting bollocks, and XBL has got servers :S . Although, I wonder how much better a game like SF3\DOA would run if XBL did have servers? Cant be that much better.

Anyway...good morning

/me sips tea.

[Fuddle]

i dont thik its really gone downhill. it just seems that some companies dont know how to use it very well.
i remember in moto gp2 if i got disconnected for a second it basically just pauses the game for you, and you can rejoin in exactly the same race (although everyone might have overtaken you) which i thought was great.
but every other game i played since then just chucks you out, leaving you to sign back in and try to find your room.
seems weird that one of the earliest games got it so right, and nobody else could copy it.

[Kieran76]

My XB Live performance has gone down hill, I can't stop losing at Pro Evo

[Benji]

My XB Live performance has gone down hill, I can't stop losing at Pro Evo

games have been terrible on live, i no i could have won otherwise

[cleandude]

Last night on Live was awfull, Laggy as hell on Halo. Was playing with the usual people and everyones connections were green full bars on the scoreboard. Though this afternoon on GR2 it wasnt to bad.

[Kotatsu Neko]

I've always had problems with it, right from it's beta phase to now. I get a ping of almost 200 on Xbox Live (checking it through the dashboard), but around 20-30 on my PC. And they're using the same connection!

Probably why I so rarely play Xbox Live games. Last one I tried was Halo 2 and the match making thing was so slow I thought I would die of old age before it found a game. Before that OutRun2 which was worse than playing on dial up.

[TheForce]

no problems what so ever, and with games like Outrun2 and DOA it's more about the game then the connection, I play Halo2, DTM2, Burnout3 alot with no problems what so ever (once in a while something happens but that's minimal) it's only when I play Outrun2 I have some problems with cars going all over the track, and that maybe says more about the connection of the other players. I think microsoft does a great job running xbox live !

[Leon Retro]

So it looks like people aren't having a rough time with Live.

One point this thread has raised is: ' Why are some developers having trouble getting the online side of things stable? '. It could be down to each game having different demands on the system, but why do racing games such as MotoGP2 and PGR2 run amazingly well, and Outrun2 run really bad?

I think their is more to it than developer ability; surely the online aspect is a ready made component that can be tailored towards a specific game; there doesn't seem to be reason why some games run bad.

Can anyone in the know shed some light?

[mr_sockochris]

So it looks like people aren't having a rough time with Live.

One point this thread has raised is: ' Why are some developers having trouble getting the online side of things stable? '. It could be down to each game having different demands on the system, but why do racing games such as MotoGP2 and PGR2 run amazingly well, and Outrun2 run really bad?

I think their is more to it than developer ability; surely the online aspect is a ready made component that can be tailored towards a specific game; there doesn't seem to be reason why some games run bad.

Can anyone in the know shed some light?

Yup, you've answered your own question there. I imagine that games like Moto GP and PGR were given a huge amount of help by Microsoft in getting good netcode working, while SEGA probabily got very little help.

Halo 2 has great netcode, but can be laggy for 2 main reasons - there are no dedicated servers, but the main reason is that we always end up playing on bloody american servers because the game tends to favour them when it comes to deciding the host. The fact that you can't just simply do matchmaking with Europeans has ruined the game for me.

[Keitaro]

Weird. Could've sworn, European, American and Japanese XBLive were seperate.

[NeilMcRae]

No they aren't Xbox Live is simply an authentication system, there is very little in the way of infrastructure on top of this other than some matchmaking servers. The games that have worked well are those with dedicated servers but with peer to peer games, like most of them are you are only going to get a game as good as your hosts network connection.

We had some Live games in the office with Halo 2 and the lag was non existant. I think some of the netcode is poor [or rather lazily written].

Neil.

[Bleeders]

Pro Evo on Live is atrocious for me.

Aside from the playing the NTSC-UK League games, I don't bother with it otherwise anymore, much prefer the offline PS2 iteration these days.

[MikeRox]

I gave up on XBL last summer, the online play is barely better than the DCs 33k online play was back in 2000/01 and the selection of games really doesn't do it for me. It was great to start with, Moto GP really drained a huge chunk of my life, but after that Midtown Madness 3 was average at best and Project Gotham while playing smoothly online jus didn't do it for me. I guess I've jus gotten bored of it though to be fair Burnout 3 was mint on Live. (apart from the constant disconnections and all the bollox that went with EA running it)

[MACO]

LIVE is absolutely fine. It's who you play with that sometimes screws it up and causes lag. I was hosting 16 player recon the other night absolutely smooth as silk and my DOA sessions have been great as well. Maybe I'm just one of the lucky ones.
My bigest problem with it is still that publishers are still not utlilising a standard for LIVe play.