font class="MainHeaderText">From time to time I get questions such as those posed by JEMCRYSTAL on my last Blog Entry.  Since I get them often, I thought I'd spend a few moments answering them to all.  Its no secret, I love gaming, online games, FPS, MMOs, and all things to do with Networking these things together.  LLR, The Killer NIC, LLR2, and all things to do with Bigfoot Networks are the penultimate culmination of those combined passions.  On to the questions:

n a previous EndLagNow Blog Entry, we looked at how Counterstrike Source and Team Fortress 2 use Lag Compensation and other techniques to hide Lag from users and make the game 'work' over high latencies and a variety of network conditions.  The Killer Gaming Network Card has been my passion, my life for 3 years now... and i thought it would be good to explain how Killer works in context of how CSS and TF2 compensate for Lag, Latency, and how all that relates to framerates (FPS).  The short answer is, Killer not only helps yourself in the game, it helps the server and the other players too...  AND... less Lag Compensation makes for a BETTER experience, and if this matters to you, More Killing, more winning, and to some that means more fun.

t was great to be able to Sposor the Independent Game Developers (Austin) Summer Picnic this year!  We had a blast, as you can see by the pictures!  Everybody loved the Killer Bling Loot we handed out, and many of the developers were very receptive to the idea of  "End Lag".  I enjoyed meeting lots of old and new friends, and hope they email me and keep the fight going!  Thanks IGDA!

n amazing look into Lag & its causes in a real game (we all love) is a few clicks away.  The Video of Team Fortress 2 (a Valve Steam Source game) and the real game developer conversation about TF2 and Counterstrike Source are both incredibly revealing, shocking, and prove true what we at ELN have been saying for a long long time.  Lag is caused by the internet, the client, and the server... and in many cases, Lag is even introduced and expected: e.g. the things game developers do to try to "Hide Network Lag" from the weak (slow net connections), actually make those of the strong (like you and me with decent to good net connections) experience MORE Client Lag.  Not good my friends.  I'll take my game without Lag please...  read on for the truth, and straight to the point of the story.

orld-of-Warcraft Lag finally makes sense!  Some clever writer has explained the Physics of World-of-Warcraft (geeks like me only!)...  The diameter of the WoW World, the relative gravity, the dimensional implications, and of course, the reason "Time" is 'weird' in the game, especially Lag!  Reality is, you need something like the LagMeter (downloadable here at ELN) to actually tell what is causing your Lag... For WoW, unfortunately, it is the "servers" that are usuallty to blame!  That doesn't mean you can't get a smoother experience, you just can't fix their servers (yet)... Yes, We at Bigfoot are working on that :) GRIN :) (disclaimer, not officially announced with any partners except for Emergent Game Technologies)

ecently, I've been hard at work at not working hard.  Its not an easy thing to do, when I have so many fun work projects to do... but I do find a few minutes to 'not work'.  What I've found is that the state of the internet... the health of our backbones, and general online gaming has gotten WORSE!  Lag has gotten, statistically, worse in the 2 years I've been running this blog.

ant to do more while you game?  Killer NIC is all about that, and remember, doing more while you game usually causes Lag!  Killer NIC lets you do more while you game without Lag; now in a very unique way.

p class="MsoNormal">If you love FPS games, you probably already know that this is the year of the FPS Game.  Check out the IGN.COM reviews of Crysis, Call of Duty 4, Quake Wars, Unreal Tournament 3 (2007), just to name a few…  I believe that 3D VOIP is going to make all these FPS Games infinitely better.  Imagine communicating fluidly over VOICE with your team and smoothly hearing which direction they are on the map according to the sound of their voice.  Coordinating attacks couldn’t be simpler than that!  The price you pay for VOIP is performance though… and that performance price tag is the #1 Reason that VOIP is NOT being done in today’s games.  The Killer NIC is about to change all of that.  The biggest news, and why I haven’t posted in a while, is that the Killer NIC now supports fully offloaded 3D positional VOIP from DiamondWare.

his will be a short post, but I wanted to say I'm not dead!  I've just been crazy busy with all the amazing stuff happening at http://www.killernic.com . We're working on some projects that are amazing (and by the way reduce Lag!)  But what I really wanted to say was: spammers, go away!  Stay out of forums, out of our phones, out of our heads!!!!

n case you did NOT know, there is in fact a tool that measures Lag.  It is called LagMeter, and you can download it right here.  In fact, I helped design it (though I didn't program much of it).  That being said, I have been pondering lately about HOW DO we measure Lag?  Is doing what LagMeter does the right approach (e.g. measuring latency, FPS, and server responsiveness?)  Can we do better?

he I-31 LAN party (biggest annual UK gaming event) was this weekend, and it is there that we offically launched the Killer NIC into Europe!  Yes, your emails and calls can stop now, you can Buy Killer overseas right now!

ecently at E3 2007, new footage and gameplay of NCSoft's upcoming MMO Tabula Rosa was released.  It looks GORGEOUS, it will clearly be a great fun MMO... in fact I had a chance to play it, and it is fun!   BUT IT IS JUST AN MMO.  A lot of people are thinking (incorrectly) that his will be any different than the 'click, click, wait' experience found in ALL OTHER MMOs....  it is not different.  It "hides" lag like all other MMOs.  No, it is no FPS.  There is no FPS MMO.  There cannot be any time soon....

lectronic Arts head man seems to think that the 'sequel' and the 'unoriginal' titles are hurting gaming.  He seems to believe that we need more novelty in gaming... Quite Ironic considering EA is the biggest SEQUEL maker of all time.   I pose the question (and please do respond below), are games stale?  and if so, WHAT will make games more novel in the future?  Read on to hear my thoughts on this...

heck it out! Your chance to win a Killer NIC from Blizzard and World of Warcraft!!!  It's a quick trivia challenge on WOW topics (maybe a Killer topic too).  No hints here!  Good luck!!!!

art 2 of how LLR2 will reduce Lag focuses on the benefits to Killer NIC Owners.  I like to draw analogies to EAX from Creative Labs and their popular 'SoundBlaster' sound cards.  No, LLR2 is not 3D networking (althought that would be super cool!), but it is an API for Game Developers to use that automatically gives access to more KILLER NIC power+advantage (when Killer NIC is present).  How much more?  It is really, really hard to estimate, because the games with LLR2 will have to be measured (every game is made differently)... but we are designing for potential of 2X the LAG reduction of what Killer delivers today.  Check out the new 'game pages' on the KillerNIC.com website for Killer's benefits today (HUGE improvements in FPS and Latency), and imagine that benefit DOUBLED!  Yes, it is possible, and in many games, that will happen.  How?  Read on!