OOS problem

[CarnalCanaan]

Perhaps I am an idiot.

Could someone explain to me exactly what the "Out Of Sync" error is? Recently, I have been getting this error while playing Warlords with my friends. I am the only one that has experienced this and it has only started since we all upgraded to Warlords.

The game does not stop nor boot anyone out. It just displays the OOS message. Everything keeps running fine. The error comes after only a few dozen turns. Regardless of restarts or even reloads, the error will happen immediately after I rejoin the game. Sometimes the error message flashes. Sometimes it is stable.

I have tried this with my Windows firewall on and off, running through a Linksys router and connected directly to my broadband modem. I have tried it with text-modified versions (e.g. new diplomacy text, unit names, etc.) and without (i.e. after a complete reload of Vanilla and Warlords).

The only difference I can think of is that I am running on a different ISP than my friends. I am in Reno, they are around the corner from one another in Sacramento. This I can't control for.

Any other test suggestions?

[Robert]

OOS = Out Of Sync
It means that the data your computer/game is working with isn't the same as the data of (one of) your friends. Compare the numbers after each others names, the number that's different then the others is OOS.

That player should quit the game and rejoin. Mostly that fixes it. I'm not sure how it's possible that the game goes OOS everytime you join. Maybe someone else can give more info about that.

[CanuckSoldier]

Most times, in my experience, if a player constantly OOS's when joining a game it is because either there system is to slow or there internet is slow, and this casuses the games data transfer code to time out, and therefore you didn't get all the data, and your game is "out of sync" with the data from all the other players.

CS

[Gibsie]

What I want to know is why when this problem happens does it flash on and off the way it does, making it stupidly hard to determine who it is with the problem?!

[Deity Dude]

I agree, it should just say player "x" is OOS and leave it at that. The blinking red is very annoying.

[CanuckSoldier]

I agree and I've posted that issue to Firaxis for(hopefully) inclusion in the next XP. But I don't beleive that the flashing message is a "design flaw" I beleive it is a side effect of the fact that the game is actually checking the data, going OOS, waiting the programed time, and rechecking, in between it's not OOS as data is not being compared then. But despite this it's very annoying and what we generally try to do is press pause when the message is up, this is hit and miss and isn't a real solution.

CS