MovieChat Forums > Gamer (2009) Discussion > Ping? LAWL

Ping? LAWL

posted 13 years ago by cobes11
19 replies | jump to latest

I am in my late 20s and have been playing games online for a while for as long as the internet has been evolving. I remember back when the only way to access the internet was through AOL. Back then, even left clicking on anything while doing a search would completely crash the computer. Since then, the internet has evolved in the last 12ish years in an incredible way. At college in New Jersey, 99.7% of students lived on campus dorms. And we all had free access to the T3 internet. For gaming purposes, I got ping as little as 5 for nearby servers and as much as 90 for servers on the west coast. Remember that this is in microseconds. So 4 years ago, ping on the other side of the country lagged us 90 microseconds at most with T3.

This movie sets place in some sort of future. Let us say conservatively that it is 30 years in the future. From the rate of internet speed accomplished per year, we will likely be in T13 by then. In other words, we could likely get AT MOST 40 ping with the best internet anywhere in the world.

So while it is cute that this movie uses the gaming term of "ping", the fact of the matter is that ping would not matter in the least bit at around the time that this movie takes place. The computer advances, as well as the advances of internet efficiency, would not matter in the least bit in the time that this such concept could be achieved. We could say that maybe the ping would cause the slowdown of the alias by 30 microseconds. Please ask ANY gamer today how they would like to have 30 ping as the lowest possible target in the entire world.

Game lag was more realistic in the movie Avalon.

Feel free to criticize me all you want.

[–] ephemereality 12 years ago

I think the reason why ping is mentioned at all in the movie is that there is actually huge disrepancy between modern technology and not so modern technology, which is obvious if you study the various environments presented in the film. Compare Simon's hi-tech gaming room to the Humanz' or even the sleazy fat man controlling Angie. He even has LCD screens!

Just like today, not everyone has access to the most top-notch modern technology and perhaps we are even led to believe that while Simon managed to win so many games with Kable thanks to his technology being superior to that of others, the point was that ping is a significant matter because:

1. First Simon must make a decision to act on when playing the game, which takes a certain amount of time for his brain to process and send out the information to the relevant body parts. Even if we account for that Simon is young and thus got good reflexes, people will be surprised over how reflexes and speed in processing information differs between individuals. It can take up to a second or more, especially if you also consider age.

2. Then the computer must send this information to Kable which must then be absorbed and interpreted by the nanites in Kable's brain.

3. Then the nannites send out the relevant information just like any regular brain cell would to Kable's body and he will act. Again, taking individual reaction speed times into account.

4. The system must also monitor Kable's actions and send this information back to Simon.

5. Simon's computer must interpret this information and show it on his screen.

We're back at point 1.

See, the problem with ping here isn't necessarily the ping itself but the reaction speed times of the human body and when you got two people involved, there is a significant slow down. Adding ping times to that can make it even more significant though, I think that was the point?

I agree it was perhaps an awkward way to introduce it but I can see the point.

[–] Strazdamonas 12 years ago

1. internet on campus =/= internet elsewhere. while i am happy to live in the country that has officialy the fastest internet in the world, i still get pings up to 44 ms outside country and up to 90 ms when across ocean. however i have many friends who still live in palces where ping above 300 is normal. this is largely due to american ISPs refusing to upgrade in many cases, but as lnog as people dont go telling them to upgrade or gtfo it will stay like that.
2. the increased popularity of wireless also increase pings.
3. ping does depend a lot on the amount of data you need to send, whinle speed takes most of the horse here, you still need more time to trnasfer more data. one can only assume that the need to control a live human being to such extent would need massive amount of data.
4. internet speeds took a massive jump with fiberoptics. there are another jump now, however yet the new cables (sorry, forgot the name) is so expensive its unpractical to use them in any household envirment. beside that, fiberoptics pretty much flatlined the speeds at around 300mbps. you CAN get more with multiple cables connected, but hardly anyone really need it now.
5. in a game like this even small amount of lag can mean a lot. however the most lag is cuased by your brain, as it needs time to process the information and nerves to move the controller. this is why bots aim better - they dont need eye-hand coordination time.
6. One has to also account the processing lag of the server provider, this case the machine that runs the eniroment. this in fact is what causes most of frustration as people with 44ms ping get 200+ in some games whne in fact its mostly due to servers not being that fast.

Tl;dr: while lag in modern gaming is not a big problem for SOME gamers nowadays, it can be a problem for a setting such as virtual contorl of a human.

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Applied Science? All science is applied. Eventually.

[–] 12 years ago

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