LAN game load error

[Maelronde]

We have 4 people in a lan game going through a router,
1 of us has a spectacular computer while the other 3 have decent ones that run the game fine.

The spectacular computer loads the game, and doesn't wait for other players, while the other three computers all wait for one another while loading the game.

The three of us can all play normally with or without the fourth,
but he always loads too fast.

Any ideas?

[Kwinghammer]

Maelronde;

I don't know the exact measure of your friend's ultra-powerful computer (the fourth one, I mean) but I think I know what you mean regardless of exact specifications. Up until the beginning of September 2005, my fastest and most often-used computer was a Pentium One 166MHz micro-ATX beigebox, and I recall two happenstances your situation reminded me of in my own experience. Both were with RTSs like Dawn of War/Winter Assault in Internet multiplayer, in fact, and that may be significant. The first- and currently only- game I've played over Battle.net- in this case, Starcraft: Brood War- was so laggy by my involvement that a remote game save from another participant's computer was enough to pinpoint both the problem (me) and its degree. (I was summarilly killed off by the other three players even though the game had barely begun nor had I any time to argue the point in my defense.) Another occurrence was with a game of Red Alert 2- the lag was so bad that the fellow I was playing with had his portion of the game loaded and ready to play for almost twelve minutes on three consecutive tries to start our 1v1, and we finally gave up on it.

The impression I've gotten in my own experience with playing against other people with much faster and more powerful computers in multiplayer- and recently, as I bought a custom-built and considerably more powerful rig in September of last year, playing with both a fast computer and an already-present speedy ADSL hookup against people with less powerful computers or slower Net connections- and those of people I've spoken to in similar situations, is that a faster computer can affect not just how quickly data is processed and programs readied, but also affect a given computer's 'perception' of other sites and connected computers it comes into contact with and/or with which it exchanges information.

I'm afraid that even though I have typed two paragraphs to you, I have no concrete solutions for you. My hope is that my discourse will give you additional perspective on the matter, and regardless of my saying anything, that you'll come up with an answer to your trouble at a much quicker rate than I. :)

-In Nomine Imperium;
-Kwinghammer.