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Issues with getting the timers right

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bob

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Post Fri Jan 02, 2015 12:02 pm

Re: Issues with getting the timers right

OK, I would tend to not disable/enable the whole Virtual Combat key map, but rather enable/disable the Virtual Combat -> DPS Rotation mapped key. Use a Mapped Key State Action, not a Key Map State action.

In IsBoxer, I re-enable ALL steps, and cancel all timers when that same key is pressed.

Well, you do reset all back to step 1 and enabled, but you don't reset all timers or make sure that the Virtual Combat keymap is re-enabled (and this is a problem). This kind of means that your Assist keypress doesn't always make it through when you hit your assist hot key if the Virtual Combat keymap is not currently enabled. This comes back to, you shouldn't disable the Virtual Combat key map as I said above.

I can't see anything else out of the ordinary, it seems to be fairly good.
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oldgoat

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Post Fri Jan 02, 2015 12:06 pm

Re: Issues with getting the timers right

That's a good point - I'll try that!

Do you think it will enable me to have a tight time schedule again (with .1 - .2s variance only?)
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lax

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Post Fri Jan 02, 2015 12:10 pm

Re: Issues with getting the timers right

1. I'm not sure I would disable the entire Virtual Combat Key Map, unless you do intend to also prevent Assist etc during those 4.6-5.3 seconds.

2. You can remove a bunch of Timer Actions that reset your timer pools by setting the maximum number of timers in the group to 1 instead of 0. The default with a max of 1 is to replace the existing timer, which is what you're doing with your timers anyway.

3. You can debug what keystrokes are being sent using the in-game debugging tool. This isn't going to show you millisecond-resolution timing on your timers but you can of course tell what keys are being sent in what order. Press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+G to bring up the in-game ISBoxer Control Panel, click the debug tab, then tick "Buttons" and click "Show debugging console". Now when you do your DPS Rotation, you'll see stuff in the debug console window. Note that modifiers will be shown as virtual key code numbers 160-165 instead of reading as "shift" etc, so 162+1 is Ctrl+1 for Pyre of Jacob.


So here's a question. /pause is going to lock out your key bindings, right? so if you press Assist and it does /pause 3,/xtarget target 1, and then you try to press Ctrl+1 during the pause, the Ctrl+1 does nothing? It doesn't just chain to the end?

If that's the case, don't you also want to disable your combat hotkeys during that pause? Otherwise you might never see some things cast due to being locked out because of your social /pause and then simply being disabled because ISBoxer doesn't know it was locked out.
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oldgoat

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Post Fri Jan 02, 2015 12:12 pm

Re: Issues with getting the timers right

The Assist goes on a separate timer/Cooldown and is not affected by the DPS Rotation's state btw :)
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bob

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Post Fri Jan 02, 2015 12:16 pm

Re: Issues with getting the timers right

No idea.

Input lag, and the message to/from the server and the response from the server, is different to running a configured social. You upload the whole social and the server takes care of the timing between all actions, or you control each action individually and need to consider the tcp packet transfer time, server processing time, response times, etc, for each interaction. This might be between 10ms and 800ms depending on too many internetty factors to number (and even those numbers are fluffy pulled out of thin air numbers)



And the Assist runs via a mapped key which passes through the Virtual Combat key map. So if you have disabled the Virtual Combat Key Map, the Do Assist in Virtual Combat action which is run from the Combat Hotkeys -> Assist (NUM 1) mapped key will not do anything.
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oldgoat

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Post Fri Jan 02, 2015 12:20 pm

Re: Issues with getting the timers right

lax wrote:1. I'm not sure I would disable the entire Virtual Combat Key Map, unless you do intend to also prevent Assist etc during those 4.6-5.3 seconds.


Yeah, bob gave me the same tip, working on replacing them now :)

2. You can remove a bunch of Timer Actions that reset your timer pools by setting the maximum number of timers in the group to 1 instead of 0. The default with a max of 1 is to replace the existing timer, which is what you're doing with your timers anyway.


That's awesome! Thanks!

3. You can debug what keystrokes are being sent using the in-game debugging tool. This isn't going to show you millisecond-resolution timing on your timers but you can of course tell what keys are being sent in what order. Press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+G to bring up the in-game ISBoxer Control Panel, click the debug tab, then tick "Buttons" and click "Show debugging console". Now when you do your DPS Rotation, you'll see stuff in the debug console window. Note that modifiers will be shown as virtual key code numbers 160-165 instead of reading as "shift" etc, so 162+1 is Ctrl+1 for Pyre of Jacob.


Been doing that all along, also jammed in a few pop-ups on the necro to see what goes on when

So here's a question. /pause is going to lock out your key bindings, right? so if you press Assist and it does /pause 3,/xtarget target 1, and then you try to press Ctrl+1 during the pause, the Ctrl+1 does nothing? It doesn't just chain to the end?


Yes. But /pause 3 means "Pause for 300ms", not 3 full seconds, so it's not a big one :) Everquest tends to work in 1/10th of a second for all its timers

If that's the case, don't you also want to disable your combat hotkeys during that pause? Otherwise you might never see some things cast due to being locked out because of your social /pause and then simply being disabled because ISBoxer doesn't know it was locked out.


I do, or rather, I will :)
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oldgoat

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Post Fri Jan 02, 2015 12:30 pm

Re: Issues with getting the timers right

Disabling the STEP dps rotation in either Virtual Combat or "Combat Hotkeys" does nothing. The spam key ticks through all of the steps every time when hit. Advice?
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firescue17

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Post Fri Jan 02, 2015 12:33 pm

Re: Timers again.. I'm not getting it!

oldgoat wrote:I'm sorry for spamming ...
You're not. Questions are the purpose of the forum. We might all learn something new.

oldgoat wrote:Is it at all possible to get IsBoxer to get this degree of resolution (within .2-.3 seconds) or do I have to deal with whole seconds?

I'd be very surprised if you can get EQ itself to this degree of accuracy on any consistent basis due to the "phantom tick."
Then again, now might not be the best time to attempt to optimize a DPS Rotation due to the, uhm, ... "strain" SoE is under from outside third parties. I'm sure you've noticed the excessive "Zone denied Entry" and lag spikes.


This statement may have been a bit overzealous. I do still stack *some* abilities in the same social. SK epic / 2nd Spire is a prime example. The Spire is instant cast on a 10 minute reuse. The Epic click is .8 seconds on a 5 minute reuse. Both can be combined into a single social:

Code:
Line 1: /stand
Line 2: alt activate #
Line 3: /useitem [Epic]

It's a 1 second /social either way, but the 10 minute / 5 minute cooldowns stack perfectly. On the first activation both abilities fire. On every second activation, only the epic fires. There may be room for optimization by threading *some* clickies, AAs, and casts into a single social without compromising "dead air" waiting for an excessively long /social to run its course.

Another point to ponder when comparing actual DPS parses, is not the DPS of a single character at any given time, but the overall DPS and synergy of the group as a whole. My understanding from IRC is your Necro is down about 5 or 6k DPS. How does your group DPS as a whole compare? Are you seeing benefits to fluidity in regards to movement and /autofollow dungeon running HAs?
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oldgoat

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Post Fri Jan 02, 2015 12:42 pm

Re: Timers again.. I'm not getting it!

firescue17 wrote: be very surprised if you can get EQ itself to this degree of accuracy on any consistent basis due to the "phantom tick." Then again, now might not be the best time to attempt to optimize a DPS Rotation due to the, uhm, ... "strain" SoE is under from outside third parties. I'm sure you've noticed the excessive "Zone denied Entry" and lag spikes.


I usually tend to get good results adding .3s to roundtrip commands such as /xtarget and 1.5s to spells. This has not failed me in the last 2 years :)

Another point to ponder when comparing actual DPS parses, is not the DPS of a single character at any given time, but the overall DPS and synergy of the group as a whole. My understanding from IRC is your Necro is down about 5 or 6k DPS. How does your group DPS as a whole compare? Are you seeing benefits to fluidity in regards to movement and /autofollow dungeon running HAs?


Well, I have used IsBoxer for what now? 1-2 years? And what I did until a few days ago was to just stack up spells in macros, LONG macros (typically 8-14s each) that leaves little room for handling adds, or unexpected stuff and certainly not for stacking dots and spells when they SHOULD.

I did however have a consistent group dps of around 55k, which is what you can expect from a rig like that.
Currently, I'm at the same (50-65 is the range I tested today in Dead Hills / HAs), but much lower for named /longer fights due to the rotations not working at all.

Now, getting my rotations right is essencial to getting the max dps out of each toon. And so as you also know, there are tons of posts "out there" detailing what spell order is best . I tend to try to mix short-term buffs across characters, i.e. shaman epic + monk disciplines. This requires a very fine degree of timing to get done right, which is why I am obsessing about the timers :)

Being able to distinguish between 100 and 200ms would be ideal, but I then have to know how long IsBoxer tends to take for itself, so that I can factor that in with my other time offsets.
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firescue17

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Post Fri Jan 02, 2015 12:57 pm

Re: Issues with getting the timers right

lax wrote:So here's a question. /pause is going to lock out your key bindings, right? so if you press Assist and it does /pause 3,/xtarget target 1, and then you try to press Ctrl+1 during the pause, the Ctrl+1 does nothing? It doesn't just chain to the end? If that's the case, don't you also want to disable your combat hotkeys during that pause? Otherwise you might never see some things cast due to being locked out because of your social /pause and then simply being disabled because ISBoxer doesn't know it was locked out.

No, it doesn't get appended. Any Keypress sent to the window while an in-game /social is running will "eat" a step.

Turning off Combat Hotkeys which contains DPS Rotation -> all means no Character will get the next command until the Character with the longest running /social has finished.

bob wrote:This kind of means that your Assist keypress doesn't always make it through when you hit your assist hot key if the Virtual Combat keymap is not currently enabled.

Any /assist received while a /social is running will get eaten as well.

In EverQuest, the character will ignore any commands while a /social is running. This is the entire purpose of breaking the 45 second /socials apart into multiple steps of shorter duration /socials. If a 5 line /social runs for 45 seconds, that Character can do nothing but chat and manually move with the arrow keys. It doesn't matter if the Mapped Key or Key Map is on or off, the Character is not going to respond.

oldgoat wrote:Disabling the STEP dps rotation in either Virtual Combat or "Combat Hotkeys" does nothing. The spam key ticks through all of the steps every time when hit. Advice?

Put it back the way it was.
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