Breaking in with a bang
I am writing this post to educate people on how Halo games work, hopefully you will learn something new, that will benefit you when playing Halo and when you go to create new posts on the forums.
I would like to make a quick note that I am a Cisco systems network engineer, and that I know what I am yapping on about, I have simplified all explanations to benefit the younger and less intelligent forum readers.
The inner workings,
There are a lot of misconceptions about how Halo’s online system works,
When playing a Halo game online every player connects to what is known as a host sometimes referred to as the network host, This is not to be confused with the lobby leader they are not the same thing.
A lobby leader is the player who chooses the map and gametype in custom lobby’s, it does not necessarily mean they are the network host and consequently changing lobby leader will NOT effect connection.
The network host is a player in which every player in the game connects to, their system is chosen by the games net code because of their geographical position and their connection to their peers (the other players in the game or lobby)
The game calculates this using ping, ping is a number and it resembles the time in milliseconds it takes for one user to connect to another, for example if you live in the US your ping to a player in Canada will probably be lower than your ping to a player in Europe. Your ping is different between every user you connect to!
But where are the severs
To be simple when playing Halo online you do not connect to any server to play the game, Halo is run on a peer to peer based system,
The only servers that exist are whats know as data servers which basically store all your stats and armor configurations, so when Halo Reach blurts at you “The servers are currently down” it just means it can’t reach the servers holding your stats.
Network testing,
There are many ways to test your network, the easiest way is to use a website like speedtest.com and pingtest.net
Just remember to test to multiple locations as results will be different with each location you are connecting to just like in Xbox live games.
How to optimize.
To be completely honest there is really a lack of things that you can do to improve your connectivity and Xbox experience.
My advice is as follows,
- Setup your network correctly and forward ports for connecting to Xbox live,
- Use a wired connection to your console,
- Keep your computer and all devices clean and well managed, it never hurts to be organized in case a problem occurs,
- Reset your Xbox’s network settings every once in a while, It makes a small but useful difference,
Port forwarding, Xbox has a nifty little page on how to forward ports for Xbox live which can help in preventing many problems such as NAT type errors.
http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-live/connecting/network-ports-used-xbox-live
Addressing the call for dedicated servers
A quick note, Dedicated servers are where you connect to a server instead of a peer host. Most people seem to know this, There is a reduction of lag and they are usually better managed.
However, They are very very expensive to run and operate it is extremely unlikely that they are financially feasible for a console game without Microsoft bumping on a subscription charge.
They are more effective on smaller games not Block-buster titles, just letting you know not to get your hopes up.
I hope this helped someone.
- Kritical