The Effect of Latency on Performance in Warcraft III

Eric Girard, Nathan Sheldon, Seth Borg

Advisors: Mark Claypool and Emmanuel Agu

Major Qualifying Project MQP-MLC-NG02
Computer Science Department, WPI
ABC 2002-2003

Abstract

With the increasing interest in network games and network game traffic, understanding the effect of delay, jitter and latency on Multiplayer Computer Games can help design better networks and games. We studied Warcraft III under various amounts of jitter and latency. As a foundation for research, we separated out the tasks in Warcraft III into their basic components, and analyzed each individually. Through carefully designed experiments, we find that the effect of latency on the outcome of Warcraft III is negligible.

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• Complete report: [ PDF ] (1.6 MB)
• Maps and traces at: http://perform.wpi.edu/downloads/#war3

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