What can be done to minimize lag?

[Paragon-Yoshi]

We all would like the game to be as lag.free as possible.
And the most common suggestion to fix this issue, is to implement Regional Matchmaking.

Since for many people asian players lag, because of the distance.
And there is no denying, that this can be an issue.
While it is true that there are laggy players in every region, for many people asian players do it that much more often.
Myself included.


But now, that I opened up that "Pro or Con - Regional Matchmaking", many people say that this won't solve anything, regarding lag.

For those people I would like to ask: "Then what can be done against lag?"
"What could Nintendo do to ensure more connection-stability?"

Or is the game already as lag-free as it can be?
Personally I doubt it.
I still believe there is room for improvement.

Or what do you think?

 

[Gameboy224]

Nothing.

Just make sure you don't have ****ty internet and hope your opponent doesn't have ****ty internet.

Even if we implement regional matchmaking, the US really isn't know for having a consistently good internet connection, you have people with crazy good internet and people with internet so bad they make Japanese players seem like they're running of super computers. Honestly I never had too much error with Japanese players, no worse than any other player.

 

[Reila]

Regional matchmaking. Regardless of "the US" not having great connections, cutting the distance between the players would help. For those who don't know, you only need over .8mb of upload to have stable matches, so even the players with average connections can play Splatoon fine. What brings lag to the game is in many cases the distance. Sure, if you have 50mb of upload and the other players also have great upload speeds, the distance will not influence that much (but will still influence, at least until we figure out how to bend the laws of physics). Japanese players do have great connections, so the problem technically isn't on their end, the problem is the distance. Regional matchmaking would reduce the lag for us and it would also vastly improve the experience for the Japanese playerbase, since they wouldn't have to deal with the west's inferior internet connections.

Also, again, it seems like some people think only Japanese and US people play Splatoon, which is quite ignorant, to put it lightly. There are other countries with less fortunate internet connections on Asia, Europe, etc. That + the massive distance between the continents = lag. So again, even if many people in the Americas have mediocre internet, if they aren't playing against people on the other side of the world, the matches will run fine and mostly lag free.

 

[Noire]

I sound like a broken record, but the only advice I can give is try putting your Wii U in a wired connection. You'll still get the occasional disconnects here and there, but the lag between you and the Japanese will be minimized. Although I hope Nintendo works on the netcode for the game to make it easier for everyone.

 

[Paragon-Yoshi]

I do have a good connection actually.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/4754352040.png

So the problem is not on my end.

 

[Noire]

Again, the difference between wired and Wi-Fi are massive in this game. When using Wi-Fi, the lag, "connection unstable", slowdown, and loads of disconnections were the driving force to finally get my Wii U wired. And our speed is really, really fast (lolcomcast). Playing the game wired allow us to play for hours without issue. Even when playing against the Japanese at the middle of the night.

If you have a fast connection speed, then you're losing packets due to Wi-Fi interference, which can cause lag and disconnections. If you can't get yourself out of Wi-Fi, then you'll need to hope Nintendo will fix their netcode because there isn't much you can do at this point.

 

[Paragon-Yoshi]

I have done a lot of testing on my end.
The connection speed is consistent.

Only rarely will the connection drop. And only if someone messed with it.

And most of the time, I have no trouble at all.
But the occasional lag is annoying.
And sorry for sounding stereotypical, but again, on my end it is the japanese players that do it most.
Again, for reasons that "Reila" already described.

 

[Inyo]

I do have a good connection actually.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/4754352040.png

So the problem is not on my end.

Jeez, that must be expensive! I pay like $67 for 25 down 2 up (lousy Canada)

Anyways, upgrading to a higher speed and using a wired connection fixed pretty much all of my lag/connection issues, even with the Japanese players. I realize that's not an option for many, however, so some kind of net code tweaking might be in order for those who can't afford or don't have access to better internet.

As far as regional matchmaking...I dunno, I never notice the Japanese players lagging that much now, and it seems like it's the Western players who drop more often. Regional works out okay in Mario Kart 8 but I never get full rooms in Regional so I think that's probably the big barrier to regional for Splatoon, where you NEED full rooms.

Considering that this is Nintendo's first ever online shooter, the net code is actually pretty good, miles better than Smash.

 

[Glass Eater]

My biggest word of advice to everyone is get off the WiFi and hard line your WiiU. I don't care how fast your speeds are, a simple frequency from something stupid as a baby monitor can drop your connection for a brief second.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00F4...et+adapter&dpPl=1&dpID=41QeGCRLD+L&ref=plSrch

 

[Newtonjar]

This video will help anybody who is the cause of Internet lag

Unfortunately you can do jack about other people.

 

[ReturningFall]

I'm usually skeptical of these "buy a wired card" solutions.

The wireless does suffer nasty interference from just about everything (microwaves, cellphones, computers...), and you get waay more bandwidth via wired connection (hint: router manufacturers almost never actually give the Ethernet connections they advertise, especially with wireless).

But it's just the local network. It's a short distance away and probably gets you a solid 50+ Mbps.

The real issue is 90% of the time the console is trying to communicate with 7 other consoles often on the other side of the planet. Going wired will speed things up, but is it enough to justify the price? Put another way, how much will you spend upgrading your local network options versus upgrading the internet plan? ISP hardware has its own issues (satellite hates clouds and cables can unplug due to temperature shifts, for example).

Wired might make of a difference if you live in an apartment where everyone has wifi routers that all overlap and you suffer constant interference. It probably won't matter if you're in a semi-rural neighborhood living alone with no other signals in the immediate range of the router and console. There's really no answer to all questions. If you really think it's local network, try moving the router or console closer together. Most routers can recognize strong signals and then filter out weaker competing signals when trying to talk to a device (in fact, many routers these days are beam-forming and can distinguish direction).

 

[Phobos]

I wouldn't complain about lag in Splatoon before doing these two things: Get a wired connection; put your WiiU in the DMZ. I did these two things and now rarely experience anything like the lag that I was seeing previously. The WiiU's wifi adapter is really not very good. Now when I do experience lag it's very clearly due to individual players with bad connections, teleporting all over the place, but very rarely are these players located in Japan, so I don't think regional lobbies are the solution here.

 

[Revolution5268]

I got this result from my wireless computer.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/4799387467.png

Is this good enough? I use wire when I play Splatoon on Wii U.