First, as a disclaimer, I'm not a specialist on computer networking. I'm not a member of CubeCraft's Development Team or Admin Team either.
But in this thread, I want to try to explain a little bit about the reason why you will get a high ping, and tell you about that what you can do about it.
Please notice that this is part 2 of a two-part document explaining networking problems. Part 1 is majorly about glitches happening under an unstable internet connection, which is available here -> www.cubecraft.net/threads/295906/ if you want to have a look at that as well.
Well, let's talked about the problems you might have had.
Some of you connecting from East Asia, Southeast Asia or Oceania may have experienced a lot of lag refered as „high ping”. These problems have a number of different effect on your gameplay, including:
Notice that all of the problems here can be comprehended as the server receiving two conflicting request from two players and eventually choosing one to accept. Some other problems cannot be comprehended as such, for example, lagging back to the original position when you are hit off the edge by another player. In that situation, please see part 1 of the document about unstable network connections here -> www.cubecraft.net/threads/295906/ .
Well, if you have been looking around for solutions about this problem, you may have seen somebody saying „get better WiFi”. Well, continue with me to find out about if this is really a solution or not.
Internet is not as fast as you might have thought.
If you have some knowledges about high school physics, you may have known that data in a cable, either as electric current, or as light, is transferring at light speed. Well, Light is very, very fast, some hundreds of millions of metres per second, but it may not be as fast as you might have thought.
Try putting light speed in a simple calculator. Light travels at approximately 300,000,000 metres per second. That is 300,000 kilometres per second. If you are living at a place 10,000 kilometres away from the server, you movement in Minecraft have to spend at least one thirtieth (1/30) of a second before it reaches the server. That's 33 milliseconds and that is just one leg of the journey. If you want to calculate your ping, you still have to double that amount to 66 milliseconds.
Well, some of you may have more knowledge on physics than me, and you want to point out that actually the data can't travel at 𝑐 even in a fiber-optic cable. Yes, because glass has a refractive index of somewhere around 𝑛 = 1.5, light only travels at around 200,000,000 metres per second in a fiber-optic cable, so that brings down your ping per 10,000 kilometres to somewhere around 100 milliseconds. This number is closer to the number you will see in real world.
So, as you have a vague idea about the speed of the internet, you can now start calculating the distance between you and CubeCraft's server. And sadly, that may also be longer than you think. Most of our connections from East Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania to CubeCraft's EU server in France are actually going through the Pacific, passing the US, and continuing into the Atlantic before it reach CubeCraft. That bumps up the distance between us and the server by quite a bit compared to a straight line on the Earth.
You may say, why don't we go through the Continental Asia? It is much shorter on that route. Ah, it would be great if it is really possible, but in fact, there are actually quite a lot of political difficulties as well as other problems going through the continent. It is not impossible, but at least it is not yet available for us regular internet users yet.
There are also other factors I didn't mention by far, such as the time spent at every point (hop) en route when your data is handed over from one internet company to another, but if we add that all up, here comes our conclusion.
Conclusion.
It's normal if you get a 200 ~ 400 ms ping on CubeCraft EU servers or a 150 ~ 350 ms ping on NA servers in peak time if you are from East Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania. There is nothing you can do about it. It has to spend so many time en route before it reaches the server.
Sadly, yeah, this is the conclusion. There is nothing you can do about it.
Actually no, there is indeed ways to lower your ping. One option is to use international satellite internet services that might have just been available very recently. Light moves faster in vacuum outside the Earth than that in a fiber-optic cable, and also it does not need to twist around the various things on Earth. I have no information on how fast it could be, but it would be a huge improvement to say the least. And also the other option, is to personally move to Europe or to North America yourself :DDD
By the way, if you are actually having a ping higher than 400 ms from East Asia or 450 ms from Southeast Asia or Oceania in peak time, you may have some trouble on your route to the CubeCraft server. Check out part 1 for the solutions on that -> www.cubecraft.net/threads/295906/ .
But in this thread, I want to try to explain a little bit about the reason why you will get a high ping, and tell you about that what you can do about it.
Please notice that this is part 2 of a two-part document explaining networking problems. Part 1 is majorly about glitches happening under an unstable internet connection, which is available here -> www.cubecraft.net/threads/295906/ if you want to have a look at that as well.
Well, let's talked about the problems you might have had.
Some of you connecting from East Asia, Southeast Asia or Oceania may have experienced a lot of lag refered as „high ping”. These problems have a number of different effect on your gameplay, including:
- You may be hit by other players outside their reach when they is chasing you.
- You may have experienced „lagback” issues when you are jumping to a block when that specific block is removed or covered by another player at that exact moment.
- You may not be able to place a block in front of another player when they is running toward you to give you a better position in pvp.
- You may not be able to pick up an item on the ground or get an item from a chest if there is another player trying to do the exact same thing, etc.
Notice that all of the problems here can be comprehended as the server receiving two conflicting request from two players and eventually choosing one to accept. Some other problems cannot be comprehended as such, for example, lagging back to the original position when you are hit off the edge by another player. In that situation, please see part 1 of the document about unstable network connections here -> www.cubecraft.net/threads/295906/ .
Well, if you have been looking around for solutions about this problem, you may have seen somebody saying „get better WiFi”. Well, continue with me to find out about if this is really a solution or not.
Internet is not as fast as you might have thought.
If you have some knowledges about high school physics, you may have known that data in a cable, either as electric current, or as light, is transferring at light speed. Well, Light is very, very fast, some hundreds of millions of metres per second, but it may not be as fast as you might have thought.
Try putting light speed in a simple calculator. Light travels at approximately 300,000,000 metres per second. That is 300,000 kilometres per second. If you are living at a place 10,000 kilometres away from the server, you movement in Minecraft have to spend at least one thirtieth (1/30) of a second before it reaches the server. That's 33 milliseconds and that is just one leg of the journey. If you want to calculate your ping, you still have to double that amount to 66 milliseconds.
Well, some of you may have more knowledge on physics than me, and you want to point out that actually the data can't travel at 𝑐 even in a fiber-optic cable. Yes, because glass has a refractive index of somewhere around 𝑛 = 1.5, light only travels at around 200,000,000 metres per second in a fiber-optic cable, so that brings down your ping per 10,000 kilometres to somewhere around 100 milliseconds. This number is closer to the number you will see in real world.
So, as you have a vague idea about the speed of the internet, you can now start calculating the distance between you and CubeCraft's server. And sadly, that may also be longer than you think. Most of our connections from East Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania to CubeCraft's EU server in France are actually going through the Pacific, passing the US, and continuing into the Atlantic before it reach CubeCraft. That bumps up the distance between us and the server by quite a bit compared to a straight line on the Earth.
[Figure 1: It takes at least 24,000 km for the data from a Singapore player to be transferred to CubeCraft's EU server (Well in fact, if we consider that a cable will be much more twisty than what is shown here, the real number will be much higher)]
You may say, why don't we go through the Continental Asia? It is much shorter on that route. Ah, it would be great if it is really possible, but in fact, there are actually quite a lot of political difficulties as well as other problems going through the continent. It is not impossible, but at least it is not yet available for us regular internet users yet.
There are also other factors I didn't mention by far, such as the time spent at every point (hop) en route when your data is handed over from one internet company to another, but if we add that all up, here comes our conclusion.
Conclusion.
It's normal if you get a 200 ~ 400 ms ping on CubeCraft EU servers or a 150 ~ 350 ms ping on NA servers in peak time if you are from East Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania. There is nothing you can do about it. It has to spend so many time en route before it reaches the server.
Sadly, yeah, this is the conclusion. There is nothing you can do about it.
Actually no, there is indeed ways to lower your ping. One option is to use international satellite internet services that might have just been available very recently. Light moves faster in vacuum outside the Earth than that in a fiber-optic cable, and also it does not need to twist around the various things on Earth. I have no information on how fast it could be, but it would be a huge improvement to say the least. And also the other option, is to personally move to Europe or to North America yourself :DDD
By the way, if you are actually having a ping higher than 400 ms from East Asia or 450 ms from Southeast Asia or Oceania in peak time, you may have some trouble on your route to the CubeCraft server. Check out part 1 for the solutions on that -> www.cubecraft.net/threads/295906/ .
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