Tips for keeping lag to a minimum online and other helpful info.

With a second weekend of racing\derbying with Wreckfest Build #6 coming, I thought it be a good idea to post some tips to help players keep lag to a minimum this weekend.

1. Need to fine graphic settings and screen resolution that will give you at least 40 FPS offline. I think this will help you from being laggy online. If your FPS are in the low 30s and 20s offline, odds are your going be laggy online.

Also I suggest for most players to turn down Particle effect at least one notch ( unless you getting 100 FPS on all tracks ). I think smoke and dirt dust from lots cars on your screen is 1# cause of FPS dropping to 3-4 FPS. Like at start of race or first corner on some tracks od derbys sometimes. this can happen no matter what your PING is. You can be host with 0 PING and FPS drop can still happen!

2. If host in host list showing 250+ PING, you better off not joining, unless there just a few players. I did join Adenru host with a PING of 273. I was expecting some lag when Adenru started the race, but I got off to a normal start and did not experience any lag. But there was just the 2 of us.

If you join a host with 10+ players and a high PING, odds are you will see some lag.

But a PING around 200 is OK. Its been the norm since I started racing online with Flatout 1 back in 2005, US players joining a Euro host and vice virus, will have PINGs around 200. And we can still race together without lag.

Distance from host mean higher PING, so there no getting away from 200 PINGs when US and Euro players get together online.

3. Odds go up that you will see some lag if join host with more than 12 players. Host that has a big pipe to the internet, is less likely to be laggy with lots of players, 14+. Us average Joe hosts with only 1-2 mbps uploads going have problems hosting 16-24 player lobbys online.

Here my download and upload speeds with a Charter cable connection in Eastern Washington and 16 players are laggy in my host last weekend: 

Last Result:
Download Speed: 63.95 Mbps (7.99 MB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 3.9 Mbps (0.49 MB/sec transfer rate)
Latency: 24 ms
Jitter: 2 ms

Server: Medford, OR - 400 miles away

HUGE Upload during hosting

You guys got any other tips to keep lag to a minimum online?

My graphic settings for going online, get between 40-100 FPS depending on the track:

Sticky please!

+1 this post. I've noticed the same that in single player I can max everything but in multiplayer I have to set everything to half and kill AA. Otherwise Ill get random lag in certain areas of the map or visual scenarios.

PC specs just for refrence :
Processor: I5 3570k @ 3.4ghz
Video: Asus R9 280x
16GB ram
Windows 7

Closing file-sharing software like uTorrent usually running in background downloading/seeding pr0nz also helps to maintain low, stable ping.

Here some helpful info I learn today about joining a host:

I'm not a coder so take this with a grain of salt, but IIRC when player leaves, the game has a timeout period of 1-2 minutes (to allow player to reconnect) until the player is dropped from the server. So it's not displaying the amount of players wrong per se, because the server still has the slot reserved to the player who left. After that time, the slot opens for new player. And the number in front of players in Lobby is reflecting that, that's why players position numbers are not rearranged if someone leaves. I'm sure there's a better technical explanation why, but I'm wrong person to answer that. And of course it's not written in stone that we'll keep it that way.

That good to know. I like to join servers that are on the full side, so I will refresh host list until I see a 24/24 host I want to join has 23/24 or less. And usually I can't join first try, it take a few tries.

I dunno... The game feels broken since they updated it with whatever lag fix they stuck on it. The cars don't feel the same anymore, they glide along and don't feel real. They clip objects without touching them. Lag is more frequent and is sort of glazed over. It was better before the update as long as people making the servers stuck to 14 slots. I'm gonna wait for another update.

pc specs
cpu -i7 4770 3.4ghz
gpu - gtx 650
ram - 16gb



have started hosting my own server and seems run 24 fine (if i remember to kill my downloads first... kinda forgot that one yesterday..)