Post-game estimation of game client RTT and hop count distributions

ABSTRACT

In first person shooter (FPS) games the round trip time (RTT) between a client and server influences player decisions on which server to join. Game servers do not accurately log the RTT of potential clients who only probed the server. We describe a simple, active method of estimating the RTT and hop-count between server and client when armed only with each client's IP address. For rough approximations this scheme works days or weeks after client IP addresses were collected. We illustrate using data gathered from a Wolfenstein Enemy Territory server operating in Australia, providing after-the-fact comparisons between the RTT and hop-count distributions of clients who probe a server versus clients who actually join a server and play.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.3 Network Operations
          Subjects: Network monitoring

Additional Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.4 PERFORMANCE OF SYSTEMS

General Terms:
Measurement

Keywords:
game traffic, hop count, post-game estimation, round trip time