Lag
What is lag?Lag can be summed up as the latency between your MUD client and the Toastsoft server. If commands take longer than usual to yield responses from the MOO, this can safely be labeled as lag. There are three kinds of lag, which are explained below:
Server: This is processing lag, only located on the server. Lag occurs when the MOO has many tasks in the queued stack, or if a task is being performed that requires the entire single thread that the MOO runs on. Since MOO is not multithreaded by nature, server lag will traditionally impact all players simultaneously. This is fairly rare.
Network: Network lag usually has little to do with the server Miriani is hosted on and has significantly more to do with the path your data takes to the Miriani server. As your data travels to the server, it's passed from hop to hop until it reaches the destination. Sometimes, some of these hops may cause delays, which results in higher latency. Network latency may also be caused by high bandwidth traffic on your local network or other obstacles that result in lower speeds. You can see the route your connection is taking by opening command prompt (Windows) or a terminal (Linux and OS X) and typing 'tracert toastsoft.net'. 98% of the time this is the lag you may encounter while playing Miriani. There is also network lag localized to Miriani, usually caused by unwelcome mitigation. If this is the case, a high percentage of connected players will probably encounter the same lag and an announcement will usually be posted.
Client: This is lag caused by your client, usually by scripts that are poorly written or excessive parsing of output from the game. Nothing can be done about this besides getting rid of the scripts or rewriting them to be less CPU intensive.
What is the LAG command?
The lag command tells you an estimated value for network and server lag. Since there are a significant amount of variables that can result in network lag, the number (provided in milliseconds) should not be regarded highly and will most definitely not reflect what your personal network lag is. If you wish to get an idea of how much lag your connection may be receiving, you should use the ping facility built into most modern operating systems or create a trigger in your client to measure how long it takes to receive a response for your commands. Currently, Miriani uses a remote server to measure average latency to an outside source. If there is delay related to the network Miriani resides on this command will most likely reflect that. Items will not be replaced based on how much lag is displayed when using this command.
To see detailed statistics on network latency from a variety of different servers, use the command: @LAG MORE
Adding Your Own Statistics
If you have your own server, you can contribute your own statistics to the '@lag more' command. The only requirements are an always-on machine, a stable always-on internet connection, and some way to ping a host and transmit that data to our server. A sample script is provided when you request your special token. To request a token and get started, type: LAG TOKEN. The command will guide you from there.