Need Level.TimeSeconds, but replicated..

[pospi]

Hi all,

I'm trying to draw a timer on the HUD. It needs to be very accurate as it displays microseconds.

Basically the deal is that I set a replicated variable to Level.TimeSeconds in my GameReplicationInfo and then send it to clients. The clients are basically printing out (Level.TimeSeconds - ReplicatedTimerVar).

Now that would be fine, except that Level.TimeSeconds is the time since the game started for that machine. And so for example, when a client joins 10 seconds later their timer will always be out by those 10 seconds.

Is there such thing as an accurate time variable that is constant between all machines? Or must I work around this another way..?

cheers!

 

[Shambler[sixpack]]

Getting accuracy like that is incredibly difficult over the internet, you could use a series of (timed and) repeated replicated functions to 'smooth-over' the time difference but it wont be fully accurate.

Here is a good read related to all that, it goes over a lot of time-based inaccuracies in UT:
http://www.clanvikings.org/tnse/utstuff.html

 

[Mychaeel]

I tried to achieve something like that for Jailbreak (see JBTagClient, search for "SynchronizeTime"), but as [Sixpack]-Shambler- says, it's nigh impossible to do something like that over the internet with any accuracy to speak of.

It needs to be very accurate as it displays microseconds.

Given a plausible assumption about a client's framerate, that timer will only have an accuracy of somewhere between 5,000 and 30,000 microseconds anyway, regardless of the precision you display it in...

 

[pospi]

fair enough then guys.

what if I just have a non-replicated variable on the client machines that is set on PostNetReceive() as the difference between the current local time and time the server sent, and factor that into the equation? That should be accurate enough for my purposes I would think..

edit: something else, I notice the normal 'time elapsed' game timer that gets drawn on the HUD uses GRI.ElapsedTime... however it doesnt seem to be updated very often, any ideas why?

 

[Wormbo]

It is syncronized only once in a while because client-side simulation is accurate enough in most cases. Network bandwidth should be used for more important things than a game timer.