Den Thomson here, from Shutter Research. Yesterday I got a call from a company called Faucet, trying to get us to do some science. That's what we're doing anyway, so I didn't immediately shoot him over the phone. Said they were making some kind of game, and people were complaining that it was laggy.
Now, I'm no expert in games or internets, but that sounds like a problem for good old-fashioned science. So I talked to the lab guys about it, and today they told me to hand out oxygen masks for all of you, because we have some breathtaking news. Didn't do it of course, you only get one to pass around. Gentlemen, I present you the microportal! Placed in internet centers all over the world, they allow pulling cables between them without having to worry about that pesky speed of light, so there is no more lag. That's right, none at all. In fact, you might even get messages a bit sooner than they were actually sent. In that case, you should wait a bit before reading them. I'd tell you why, but the truth is that we don't even know ourselves. We never found the lab wing where they were supposed to try it.
To prevent any wrong impressions you might get from the title of the update or Den Thomson's rambling, this update still has good old lag. However, we noticed that the key presses are sent to the server ca. 35ms after checking for them, instead of immediately, and we removed this unnecessary delay. That means you will still get lag on faraway servers, or on those that are very full, but no matter what server you are on your lag will always be 35ms less than with any previous version.
Now, brace yourself for the changelog:
- Improved input handling to reduce input delay by ca. 35ms
- Once again replaced the demoman portrait animation (thanks Elkondo)
- Fixed minor desync issues on round end (thanks NAGN)
- Limited the command rate servers will accept from players, to prevent flooding attacks
Download as always on the main page or
here.