Packet Loss and Latency in Unreal Tournament 2003 Tom Beigbeder Rory Coughlan Corey Lusher John Plunkett

Background  Major draw of first person shooters (FPS) is the multiplayer aspect  The Internet was not designed for the real-time nature of computer games  Most games descend from one of two lineages – Quake or Unreal

Game Information  Majority of research has been done on Quake-engine based games, in particular Half-Life  Unreal Tournament 2003 is a popular fast- paced FPS game  Includes multiple types of weapons, typical of most other FPS

Network Traffic  Unreal Tournament 2003 transmits over 5000 packets per minute  Majority of game traffic is carried over the User Datagram Protocol  No retransmission functions built in  Need for precise movement and aiming requires constant updates from a game server, which requires low latencies and packet loss rates

Goals of the Project  Determine the impact of packet loss on player performance  Contrast with the effects of latency  Determine the specific components of gameplay that are most effected by network connection degradation

Technologies Utilized  Unreal Tournament 2003  NIST Net  Ethereal  All Seeing Eye

Lab Setup

Methodology  Divided game into basic components such as precise aiming, and movement  Performed controlled tests at different levels of packet loss and latency  Analyzed results

Complex Movement Results

Precise Shooting Results

Restricted Deathmatch Results

Full Game Results

Conclusions  Despite making gameplay less enjoyable, levels of packet loss and latency likely to be encountered by average players do not statistically impact player scores  Latency was more detrimental to player performance than packet loss  Packet loss was only noticeable at levels higher than 25%

Future Work  “Bursty” Loss  Variable Latency  Unreal Tournament 2003 compared to different game lineages

Questions