| Author |
Thread Statistics | Show CCP posts - 19 post(s) |
Othran
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
133
   |
Posted - 2012.01.12 08:31:00 -
[1] - Quote
Dhar'aul wrote:CCP Habakuk wrote:
Btw: The drifting client clock is very probably caused by your hardware and it might also cause other problems, for example incorrect shield and capacitor display or a wrong display of timers.
Might also be the cause of ship speed indicator becoming stuck at a random value
Yes. Once the client clock starts to drift relative to the server all sorts of wierd crap begins to happen :
Traffic control on gates; unable to dock; unable to warp; grid won't load; grid will load but won't update; no shield; no armour; no cap; drones disappear, scan probes vanish never to be seen again.
That's just the ones I've seen in the last 3 years, there's probably more.
Only reason I know about this is because I have a laptop with dual NVidia cards where DPC latency (delayed protocol calls) goes through the roof when you set SLI focus on a window. You're looking at tens of milliseconds latency which adds up very very quickly.
SLI full-screen or just run single card and its fine but when run in a window with SLI focus I've seen the laptop clock drift by up to 5 minutes per hour. Its not a hardware fault, its software in my case.
Another historical cause of clock drift was the spread spectrum setting on some motherboards. With it set on then the clock would drift every time the machine was powered on. That may still be the case on laptops where spread spectrum is enabled by default and in most cases cannot be altered.
My solution to client clock drift was to set the machine to update from a stratum 2 timeserver every ten minutes. Windows7 by default only updates time once a week - if the default server actually responds, which in my experience is hit and miss.
HTH.
Edit - the problem is caused because your client clock is changing relative to the server while you are playing, it doesn't matter if your time is 10 hours out as long as it doesn't drift while connected to the server. |
Othran
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
133
|
Posted - 2012.01.12 12:10:00 -
[2] - Quote
Glorious CEO wrote:\o/ Thank you CCP Habakuk for taking the time to post on a Sunday.
This is very interesting. I knew the RTC clock on this PC is very shoddy and is drifting if left unchecked. So I have a daily sync with a time server scheduled, this is enough accuracy for all my daily work. Never have had problems with Eve on the machine too. Nothing i over-clocked, this is actually the most reliable PC I ever had. Anyway, it's great to not be stuck in limbo anymore.
Its actually Windows which is more "shoddy" as it keeps time when booted, not the hardware RTC. Windows reads the clock at boot time and writes to it at shutdown. As such timekeeping can be adversely affected by either hardware or software.
Pretty much all operating systems keep time themselves rather than reading a hardware clock - which in most cases still runs off an oscillator which isn't that accurate or temperature stabilised. +/-5% would be one of the better consumer-level RTCs found on a motherboard.
It may surprise people but the Windows Time Service is only intended to have an accuracy of greater than 2 seconds. MS explicitly state that the time service is not to be used for high-precision timing, only for "loose client synchronisation". |
Othran
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
135
|
Posted - 2012.01.16 08:26:00 -
[3] - Quote
DurrHurrDurr wrote:Petrus Blackshell wrote:I was able to find a workaround for this on TQ! By default, the Windows time syncs via NTP with "time.windows.com". I switched it to sync with "time.nist.gov" instead, and that seems to have solved this issue with Eve. I have played for hours without noticing the slightest bit of jump lag. This didn't fix the problem.
It won't fix anything unless you alter the default sync interval from 7 days to something sane.
time.windows.com is a complete pile of junk - you're lucky if you get a response from it at all, and when you do you'll often see that you're receiving "invalid" time information, so in that respect changing it may be better.
Frankly the timeservers Windows uses are pretty useless unless you live in the continental USA. Latency is too high and too unstable to be of much use.
Much better to take a look at (for example) Stratum 2 Time Servers and pick one which is geographically closer to you. In the UK at least your best bet for that will be universities - Manchester, Strathclyde and Imperial College London all have open access timeservers, so you ought to be able to get latency down to well under 50ms unless you're on a 3G connection. |
Othran
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
135
|
Posted - 2012.01.17 08:11:00 -
[4] - Quote
Dynamiittiukko wrote:making my laptop sync with a stratum 1 time server near my location
Please don't do that.
Stratum 1 machines are not intended for public access, they are only intended for stratum 2 servers to sync to. Unless you are running a stratum 2 machine and providing time sync to 200-300 machines MINIMUM then you shouldn't be going anywhere near a Stratum 1 machine.
Stratum 1 machines are not cheap to run as they're usually connected to an "atomic clock" and do NOTHING other than provide time synchronisation.
The difference in accuracy between the two is probably in the range of about 50 millionths of a second, so please use stratum 2 timeservers. |
Othran
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
138
|
Posted - 2012.01.18 07:58:00 -
[5] - Quote
Dynamiittiukko wrote:
Fair points. Changed. Even found a stratum 2 server that's significantly closer to me than the stratum 1 I was using until now. With luck, I may actually have gained accuracy.
.d
Good man - you've made a BOFH somewhere happier  |
Othran
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
138
|
Posted - 2012.01.18 17:22:00 -
[6] - Quote
It may not work for you impli but it does for me - this (clock drift) is a recurring problem in Eve, first time I think it was identified was 2005.
You might want to look at the system log files, you should find two entries something like this when you boot the machine and if they're not there then the ntp registry changes you made haven't started the service :
Source : Time-Service
The time provider NtpClient is currently receiving valid time data from ntp.cis.strath.ac.uk,0x9 (ntp.m|0x9|0.0.0.0:123->130.159.196.118:123).
then immediately after :
Source : Time-Service
The time service is now synchronizing the system time with the time source ntp.cis.strath.ac.uk,0x9 (ntp.m|0x9|0.0.0.0:123->130.159.196.118:123).
In addition if your time has changed you should also see something like :
Source : Kernal-General
The system time has changed to GÇÄ2012GÇÄ-GÇÄ01GÇÄ-GÇÄ16T21:53:11.594000000Z from GÇÄ2012GÇÄ-GÇÄ01GÇÄ-GÇÄ16T21:53:11.976407100Z.
Only reason I mention this is when I first did this then the ntp client was still waiting out the remaining old "SpecialPollInterval" time before starting. Edit - that means that if it had 6 days to go before contacting the ntp server then it still has the same time to go after your changes so may not start for 6 days. Solution is to set service to autostart and not wait out timer.
Good that the sisi fix works though. |
Othran
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
145
|
Posted - 2012.01.21 14:14:00 -
[7] - Quote
As long as it helps it doesn't matter who proposed a workaround
I had wierd problems back in 2009 and saw something similar from maybe 4 years before on both eve and some linux forums. From that I looked at clock drift and there you go.
The important thing about the ntp registry change is to make sure its really active and IS getting time data correctly. I was on a roam a couple of months ago and kept getting traffic control crap. Turns out the ntp server I used was down for upgrade that night.... |
Othran
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
145
|
Posted - 2012.01.21 14:17:00 -
[8] - Quote
Sounds like a plan. I use the server I do (and its not the one in an earlier post) as I'm whitelisted for various services but as you see in my previous post it can bite your bum :) |
Othran
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
169
|
Posted - 2012.02.15 16:01:00 -
[9] - Quote
Nursultan wrote:Time-syncing has not fixed the problem for me.
I'd take a look for you to see if anything has changed mate but my ISP has so much packet loss I can't even load the market - can barely change skills. Been ongoing for ages now (and constant for 6 days) so I'm moving to another ISP.
Will take a look once moved.
Oh and anyone having problems playing Eve on Be or O2, its your ISP - they're clueless muppets (and inveterate liars too).
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