Once Upon Time When Games Had Lag...

How would you describe lag to someone who never experienced it?
You will have to explain this to your children one day, y'know...
In their world all networks are always instantaneous and have always been that way. Doesn't matter if you live in Australia, US or a base on Mars, there's no lag.

Is this some kind of stupid joke? Networks without lag is a nice dream but laws of nature tell us it's impossible! Didn't they teach us in our physics class that nothing can travel faster than light?

Yep, they did. And they were wrong.


It didn't take em long to make the next step:

Daily Mail said:

China holds world's first 'unhackable' quantum videoconference in secure communication breakthrough.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4930302/China-holds-world-s-quantum-video-call.html

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Love this new genre where u constantly trying to figure out if it's Reality TV or Sci-Fi channel you're watching...

Quantum entanglement will revolutionize the communications and totally change everything. Since it cannot be hacked, I wonder how the common folks would benefit of such applications, especially since this tech starts from China which has a control freak administration atm. but as aexpected, one of the first real applications started in military department with their quantum radar )

PS I'm sure during main events, EU will still be laggy AF even in the quantum entanglement based communications era

Fifth said:

How would you describe lag to someone who never experienced it?

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Jan Universe said:

.

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Didn't watch the vid, but the still frame suggests it is about: Latency Affecting Gravity
Lagging used to be a word for insulation as well as meaning behind something else.

We all suffer from lag in our conscious perception too. My guess is that AI will start call humans laggies in the future. That will keep the word alive (or not...)

Evey said:

PS I'm sure during main events, EU will still be laggy AF even in the quantum entanglement based communications era.

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Yes. The processor speed issue still remains. The more so as we're off the Moore's Law for a few years now.

Or maybe not...

There's 2 ways to make a processor faster:

• make the components (transistors) smaller
• add more of em into one processor

First one died off because you can't make transistors any smaller than one layer of atoms (and for all intends and purposes we're already there).
Second one hits it's limits when processor size becomes too big. As crazy as it sounds, turns out there's a balance point where the pathways between individual transistors become long enough so the time delays in communication will outweigh the gains from the increased numbers. To make things even worse there's related problems - those "power cords" will heat up and it get increasingly hard to cool it so that the whole thing won't just melt down.

Looks like we hit the same communication barrier everywhere, both in networking and processors alike.
Once we're able to lift this barrier, it'll lift everywhere.


I wouldn't hold my breath for EU to improve tomorrow though.
Those things take time... Besides, speaking about EU - those guys are exceptionally good at messing up solutions that are already here and work perfectly well. Not to speak about things that don't even exist yet.

Jan Universe said:

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well, that about explains it all

Fifth said:

Yes. The processor speed issue still remains. The more so as we're off the Moore's Law for a few years now.

Or maybe not...

There's 2 ways to make a processor faster:

• make the components (transistors) smaller
• add more of em into one processor

First one died off because you can't make transistors any smaller than one layer of atoms (and for all intends and purposes we're already there).
Second one hits it's limits when processor size becomes too big. As crazy as it sounds, turns out there's a balance point where the pathways between individual transistors become long enough so the time delays in communication will outweigh the gains from the increased numbers.

Looks like we hit the same communication barrier everywhere, both in networking and processors alike.
Once we're able to lift this barrier, it'll lift everywhere.

I wouldn't hold my breath for EU to improve tomorrow though.
Those things take time... Besides, speaking about EU those guys are exceptionally good at messing up solutions that are already here and work perfectly well. Not to speak about things that don't even exist yet.

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I wasn't thinking of CPU speed, lag problems in this case are/were caused by code. Lag will prollly come back with future loot algorithms change

Not sure I understand the concept of a "state" here. But let's speculate. You can't "teleport" a physical object by analyzing the atom architecture of an object and "move it" but you can analyze it's state. If you can transmit a state of an object over distance then isnt that more a case of "copying" or "cloning" the states of an object or a partucular data set of information?

Imagine we can build a molecular or atomic factory in deep space wouldnt it then by this physics be possible to transmit the states of objects here on earth to the factory in deep space and rebuild it?

If so, copying the state of Earth and all of its content to another remote location would then be possible.
That also means I could do my iron missions in no time because I would have several copies of myself working on it.

@Mindark: Forget the lag, start working on revising the EULA.

Pretto Loco said:

Not sure I understand the concept of a "state" here. But let's speculate. You can't "teleport" a physical object by analyzing the atom architecture of an object and "move it" but you can analyze it's state. If you can transmit a state of an object over distance then isnt that more a case of "copying" or "cloning" the states of an object or a partucular data set of information?

Imagine we can build a molecular or atomic factory in deep space wouldnt it then by this physics be possible to transmit the states of objects here on earth to the factory in deep space and rebuild it?

If so, copying the state of Earth and all of its content to another remote location would then be possible.

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Yes, there's nothing in the laws of nature (as far as our current knowledge can tell) that wouldn't allow this.
It goes even further. The basic building block of the Universe are not material objects. We can observe quantum particles as constantly popping in and out of existence, behaving as probabilities in quantum fields rather than objects.
Ultimately even this interpretation isn't entirely correct. On the quantum level the laws of nature become so far removed from anything we humans can possibly imagine or perceive as common sense that we simply don't have words to explain those concepts, only pure math. If you do the math you'll end up with two possibilities: there's multiple (parallel) Universes or the Universe is made of nothing but pure information. Two equally valid possibilities, you choose.

What about cloning, it just so happens that by reading the properties of a quantum object you inevitably destroy the original. The infamous observer effect. So no cloning on the quantum level, the laws of nature don't allow it (as far as we know today).

By the way, do you know if the teleportation device in StarTrek ever malfunctions to create two copies of the same person instead of just moving it? It's just a bunch of fantastic made up stories and you can imagine how many interesting conflicts and storylines you could create with this... but afaik, it never happens. How did they know?

Fifth said:

By the way, do you know if the teleportation device in StarTrek ever malfunctions to create two copies of the same person instead of just moving it? It's just a bunch of fantastic made up stories and you can imagine how many interesting conflicts and storylines you could create with this... but afaik, it never happens. How did they know?

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There was an original episode in which, due to a glitch, Kirk got beamed back twice with two half personalities each, although physically 'complete' twice. Nobody noticed the second one appear a few seconds after the first as everyone had left the room.
It hinted that the system buffered its info, with only protocol erasing it again after each teleport, not quantum requirements. And yes, it was LAG that caused the problem . (on-topic catch there...)

jetsina said:

There was an original episode in which, due to a glitch, Kirk got beamed back twice with two half personalities each, although physically 'complete' twice. Nobody noticed the second one appear a few seconds after the first as everyone had left the room.
It hinted that the system buffered its info, with only protocol erasing it again after each teleport, not quantum requirements. And yes, it was LAG that caused the problem . (on-topic catch there...)

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Heh thanx, nice catch indeed. Yeah I definitely need help with the original series. They're praised to heavens by critics and fans alike but... by the time I came around the original StarTrek was already so far in the past it scared me away after a few initial episodes.

So it was the buffer. Right, ofc it had to be the buffer!

On one hand it tells us Gene Roddenberry didn't think about quantum entanglement as a possible method for teleportation. 'cuz, even if we use a two-step process, for the 2nd try buffer would be already empty without anyone emptying it. Or maybe if not empty empty then at least containing some completely useless biomass like Taco after spending a quality week in a dumpster.

On the other hand it seems he did know about the observer effect, why else try to use buffer to get around it.

Fifth said:

You will have to explain this to your children one day, y'know...

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In EU you need 45 min to an hour to fly from one to another planet with no lag what is in RL space dimension not possible and newer will be.
That's really fast.
But that is nothing compared with our communication speed.
Our communication not only that don't have any lag but is so fast that seem faster of light.
Just think of f...ing global and hof messages from other planets -they seem to be instant.

Fifth said:

Heh thanx, nice catch indeed. Yeah I definitely need help with the original series. They're praised to heavens by critics and fans alike but... by the time I came around the original StarTrek was already so far in the past it scared me away after a few initial episodes.

So it was the buffer. Right, ofc it had to be the buffer!

On one hand it tells us Gene Roddenberry didn't think about quantum entanglement as a possible method for teleportation. 'cuz, even if we use a two-step process, for the 2nd try buffer would be already empty without anyone emptying it. Or maybe if not empty empty then at least containing some completely useless biomass like Taco after spending a quality week in a dumpster.

On the other hand it seems he did know about the observer effect, why else try to use buffer to get around it.

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Jeeezuz christ..what are you talking about? It was a television series based out of 1960's do you actually think they had writers proficient in physics? It was for entertainment purposes only and if you were looking for factual physics and standards , I suggest you look elsewhere.

Thorns Rose said:

Jeeezuz christ..what are you talking about? It was a television series based out of 1960's do you actually think they had writers proficient in physics? It was for entertainment purposes only and if you were looking for factual physics and standards , I suggest you look elsewhere.

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Sci-Fi is all about popular science. There's a difference between popular science and the real science, obviously. But to claim there's no connection at all is like claiming the Discovery Channel has nothing to do with Biology.

Fifth said:

Heh thanx, nice catch indeed.

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It's gonna be hard to keep steering this back to lag, but I get the impression this thread is a bit light-hearted anyway .
In terms of 'real' physics, the tps had no mention of entangled pair storage (separated and waiting for each other a long distance apart). The tps also had a range and didn't need a specific link between two points, but could transfer to and from the tp room: in some cases even things such as 'beam him directly to sick bay'. It was very much a case of "cache me if you can" and then send me somewhere... not much in terms of quantum references

jetsina said:

I get the impression this thread is a bit light-hearted anyway .

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Oh yes, you got it exactly right. I'm certainly here for entertainment first and foremost.

jetsina said:

In terms of 'real' physics, the tps had no mention of entangled pair storage (separated and waiting for each other a long distance apart). The tps also had a range and didn't need a specific link between two points, but could transfer to and from the tp room: in some cases even things such as 'beam him directly to sick bay'. It was very much a case of "cache me if you can" and then send me somewhere... not much in terms of quantum references

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Well sure, it's kinda shaky, cutting some corners here and there. Like, there's usually no relying devices on the receiving end like we have on the picture below. We have no idea how any of this could possibly work without those end-point devices in place (at least, not atm).

Then again, the similarities are also pretty amazing. One could imagine one laser beam aiming at the patient and the other straight at the sick bay. The Chinese experiment also had a definite range beyond which the teleportation would not work (due to particle absorption and decoherence).

Well it's easy for us to criticize the vision of early Sci-Fi pioneers now in a hindsight. All things considered, those early Sci-Fi concepts were actually pretty ingenious. It's not so easy to imagine a technology of the future in action so many years before it's arrival with so much detail - and not get everything totally backwards!
Human mind is freaking amazing thing...

Fifth said:

Oh yes, you got it exactly right. I'm certainly here for entertainment first and foremost.
Human mind is freaking amazing thing...

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This is your thread and you can laugh if you want to, laugh if you want to, la da, da da di da dum.

On the original bit >China holds world's first 'unhackable' quantum videoconference in secure communication breakthrough.<, it was already possible to send an optical signal that could not be listened in on by using polarisation and splitters. Or rather, a listener was an observer who simply could not recreate the original signal and send it on to the receiver accurately. Thus, the two communicators would know a test signal had been violated and not send the true messages. In this day and age you can switch frequencies etc at will, so I would guess even a video conference could be transmitted this way and securely even if you knew someone else was frantically trying to intercept your signals. (sort of like the Borg continuously adapting to what the unwanted party is doing)

jetsina said:

On the original bit >China holds world's first 'unhackable' quantum videoconference in secure communication breakthrough.<, it was already possible to send an optical signal that could not be listened in on by using polarisation and splitters. Or rather, a listener was an observer who simply could not recreate the original signal and send it on to the receiver accurately. Thus, the two communicators would know a test signal had been violated and not send the true messages. In this day and age you can switch frequencies etc at will, so I would guess even a video conference could be transmitted this way and securely even if you knew someone else was frantically trying to intercept your signals. (sort of like the Borg continuously adapting to what the unwanted party is doing)

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What you mean is that China is stupid for spending billions upon billions for getting some results that were already achievable with other technologies...?

I think that there's a big difference in the two; if one stream of information can be intercepted but not decoded and the other stream can't be intercepted in any way, the latter should be better, no? Because for the first one there's no way of knowing how unhackable can be in 10 years from now....
I am very curious of future application of the quantum entanglement technology, I think it will be a huge world changer...

And Gene Roddenberry was a fucking genious!

jetsina said:

On the original bit >China holds world's first 'unhackable' quantum videoconference in secure communication breakthrough.<, it was already possible to send an optical signal that could not be listened in on by using polarisation and splitters. Or rather, a listener was an observer who simply could not recreate the original signal and send it on to the receiver accurately. Thus, the two communicators would know a test signal had been violated and not send the true messages. In this day and age you can switch frequencies etc at will, so I would guess even a video conference could be transmitted this way and securely even if you knew someone else was frantically trying to intercept your signals. (sort of like the Borg continuously adapting to what the unwanted party is doing)

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When the optical cables first came out it was thought Oh nice that's something that can't be wiretapped... yet pretty soon devices were invented that you could latch onto optical cables and listen in to the data stream without physically doing anything to the cable (or even the insulation around it, for that matter).

What seems to be different this time (as far as we can see) 'cuz the fundamental laws of physics have to be violated for the 3rd party to be able to listen in on the conversation. Then again, the word unhackable was already in quotes in the original article. We've seen claims about "unhackable" solutions so many times before which always ended up being hacked that we're grown instinctively suspicious when we hear claims like that.
Who knows, there's always the first time for everything, a time will tell...