Refex developers released a rather hefty update that plays a vital role in online FPS titles. - the netcode has been reworked, Ion Cannon (The quake lightning gun equivalent) damage has been lowered from 9 to 7 along with its knockback, spawn system has changed, hit sounds have been updated and plenty bugs were squashed. A snippet from the overview dealing with netcode
"The new Reflex netcode uses a combination of extrapolation and backwards reconciliation in attempt to keep what you're seeing consistent across clients and servers. This lag compensation has an upper limit of 80ms -- if you have more than an 80ms ping, you'll need to lead by ping - 80ms. I.e, if your ping is 100ms, you'll need to lead by 20ms.
Our backwards reconciliation has the same limit -- if your enemy has a ping of over 80ms, they won't be able to shoot you from 500ms in the past."
You are welcome to give it a shot, report feedback to developers and let them know how the netcode feels right now - if you're pinging below 80 it should be quite noticeable.
Originally posted by
Fleacircus
The new Reflex netcode uses a combination of extrapolation and backwards reconciliation in attempt to keep what you're seeing consistent across clients and servers.
This lag compensation has an upper limit of 80ms -- if you have more than an 80ms ping, you'll need to lead by ping - 80ms. I.e, if your ping is 100ms, you'll need to lead by 20ms.
Our backwards reconciliation has the same limit -- if your enemy has a ping of over 80ms, they won't be able to shoot you from 500ms in the past.
We use these upper limits to avoid the drawbacks of each. For example, with extreme extrapolation values, you get error prone, warpy players. With extreme backwards reconciliation, you get laggy enemies shooting you long after you were safely behind a wall. In Reflex, these drawbacks are minimized.
We have several ideas which we'd like to investigate in the future which would further improve the netcode (notably client-side knockback prediction, client-side prediction of projectiles and compression). These features will require significant research and testing so for now, we're going to focus on other areas of the game.
We've had very good reports from our private testers with this netcode and we are open to any feedback you have. We are gamers too and we'd like the best possible solution for everyone!
Overview (for server admins):
The new netcode uses more CPU than previous versions so keep an eye on your CPU load (especially when running multiple servers on a single box).
We've increased sv_fps to 70 so bandwidth requirements have (almost) doubled.
Client crash at end of connecting to server.
Animations aren't working correctly with extraploation
Players can push dead players around
Pickups can block jumppads/teleports/otherpickups
Players take 1 tick of damage on respawn after dying in lava
Players in lagstate freeze in mid air
Server
Removed com_idlesleep command
Improved connection stability client<->server (should fix issue with clients getting dumped from local server)
Implemented lag state. If client stops responding, they go into a lag state, when the return, they do a small download to catch back up to game. This also fixes disconnection issues when map is undergoing many simultaneous edits.
Increased default (and recommended) sv_fps to 70
Game Balance
Reduced Ion Cannon damage (from 9 to 7)
Reduced Ion Cannon knockback (from 1.1 to 0.5)
Added per-weapon death messages
Added combat text for damage
Added Aerowalk/CPM22 greybox (thanks to Hubster and Preacher for letting us include this)
Added DP4 community map
Added XADM1 community map
Added end-game camera to xadm1
Added biased random spawns
Added player joined / left arena messages to HUD
Art
Fixed pain effect particles based on damage
Toned back IC impact effects
Sound
Updated hit sounds
Updated player landing sounds
Fixed problems with hit sounds not always being audible
Adjusted damage ranges for hit sounds
Bug Fixes
Smoothing on local client (aka error decay), this signficantly reduces local player jitter when knocked around
Lava damage now done when first entering lava, not after delay
Fixed client side prediction of pickups, previously if you stood on pickup when it spawned, it would keep spawning on your local client even though not really there on server.
Fixed potential server lockup with grenade trajectory
Fixed very rare gamestate delta bug where variables wern't synced to client, will increase server CPU load though :(
Fixed crash bug which occurred when spectating a client that disconnected (if they were the only other client)
Fixed bug with server projectiles going through players (this also appeared as grenades boucning off other players on the client).
Removed double jump flag on spawn
Improvements
+commands work on mousewheel now
Clamped outgoing packets to 125 (previously it was unclamped, so at 1000fps you'd send 1000 packets/second)
Damage reporting
Created internal damage entity to help report damage type / amount etc in a more consistent way
Ion cannon hit beeps now correctly reported at higher pings
Damage numbers now displayed on screen.
Damage numbers for SG / burstgun are grouped together and displayed in one number, currently toggleable via cl_text_group
Added custom death messages by damage type
The hostile pain sound is now only applied once when all 16 shotgun pellets hit one target
Debug/logging
Built lagmeter to help debug spikes cl_show_lagmeter 1
Scene delay is how far behind the server your client view is.
Extrapolation is how far ahead of time your client pushed the view
Built traffic meter to help debug trafic use cl_show_traffic 1
Shows outgoing traffic in red, incoming traffic in green
Shows dropped/missing packets in both directions (missing sent packets is only known once server informs you)
Link:
Source,
Buy now,
Official website
GJ Reflex Devs!