Condor3 - Kicked by server due to start slot timeout

[stewi2]

Ever since I upgraded to Condor3 I've sometimes had a hard time joining servers due to "start slot timeout", especially when there are a lot of pilots already connected, making it nearly impossible to join larger races (this almost never happened in Condor2).

Is anybody running into the same issue? What timeout is this referring to? Is it the time between connecting to the server and joining the game (i.e. the time spent in the hangar, and the entire map/weather initialization etc., or just the last bit where it says "requesting start slot" ?)

[wickid]

There is a 2 minute timeout from when you click "join flight" to where you need to be in the game. Posible solutions:

Use a SSD for storing sceneries
Reduce texture size (tool on Condor Club)
Reduce graphic settings (especially visibilty distance
Better computer

[stewi2]

Good to know that the timeout is 2 minutes - fwiw, my load time sometimes goes as high as 3-4 minutes Fwiw, I have an SSD and the process seems to be CPU bound on a single core (i.e. it's limited to something like 12% of my total CPU across all cores). I'm running this on an M1 Macbook Pro, so there's probably not much that can be done given that Windows has to do a bunch of x86 emulation.

Either way, I just connected to the "USS Scenery Test" server and wrote down the timing of the various steps (I wish the log file had timestamps to make that easier):

Loading terrain textures: 2s
Initializing Landscape: 18s
Calculating Weather: 33s
Loading Plane: 12s
Loading Ground Objects: 27s
Loading Network Players: 4s
Others: ~11s

Total: 1:47 min

Looks like the biggest time spent is on weather and ground objects (this was using the Slovenia3 landscape). Unless the timeout can be increased or there are any other ideas, I guess I'll need to look into getting a dedicated gaming laptop after all...

[maurice]

We have encountered this timeout as well some times.
From my perspective, its purpose is not obvious tough.
Why does it have to be in place? Is it possible to adapt it?
We cant see any value in excluding people with slower computers or force them to buy new ones.

[wickid]

It is to prevent people who are having issues with their connection or PC to hold up the server for everybody else. Condor waits for everybody that is in the lobby or loading screen to enter the game before starting the "race in" countdown. In order not to hold up the server, all connections that take longer than 2 minutes to load are considered to have an issue and are terminated as a precaution. Same with people that do not enter the game more than 2 minutes after the "join time" has elapsed.

It is hardcoded in Condor, so you cannot change it.

[maurice]

I do understand the purpose, but still think it should be up to the user to define that time out.
Especially it seems not to consider the additional computing effort, that the new feature of the weather-zones can cause.
This can increase loading time significantly. But probably I have to try post it as a bug in hope for a change. Thanks for explaining.

[wickid]

This will never be user defined. At best maybe a server host setting. May i ask what computer you have (CPU, GPU and harddisk).

[maurice]

I am running condor 3 on a gaming laptop with an Nividia GeForce GTX 1070, an Intel Quadcore i7-6700HQ @ 2.6 GHZ and 32 GB of RAM. It is not a new machine, but still fairly good i guess.

[Vertigo]

Its a 10 year old laptop cpu, calling it "fairly good" would be a bit of a stretch, but I do think it should be able to work. But maybe you are using a harddrive and not an SSD?

[maurice]

I do use an SSD to store Condor 3 and Landscapes. I was able to join sometimes after rushing trough the setup dialog where i select the plane.

[Vertigo]

Hmm? To be clear, a server has a jointime, the host determines how long this is. Typically its 15-30 minutes. During this time, you can read the briefing, select the plane. etc. but you have to be flying before the end of this jointime (there is a bit of wiggle room, the server will wait for a minute I think). So if the server starts at 18:00 with 20 minutes jointime, you have to be flying by ~18:20.

Rushing through the briefing should make no difference unless you joined really late, and this doesnt really have anything to do with CPU performance.

[stewi2]

As wickid pointed out above, there is a 2 minute timeout for the loading screen after you clicked on the "fly" button. This has everything to do with CPU performance, unless your disk is super slow.

[Vertigo]

Yes but rushing through the briefing screen as maurice said, shouldnt make any difference, unless join time has (nearly) expired.