Online video games have grown in popularity, bringing latency as a challenge for game developers. We studied the impact of two latency compensation techniques, time warp and prediction, on player performance, player experience, and system load by developing a networked, top-down shooter with both techniques. We conducted a user study with 32 participants, varying the latency and enabled compensation techniques across 16 game rounds and experiments with up to a hundred AI players. While neither latency compensation technique substantially impacted player performance, prediction made latency less noticeable. Based on our data and time warp's constraints it may not be worth including in a top-down shooter, whereas prediction is more effective as it reduces players' perceptions of latency.

• This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

Creator

• Hetherington, Benjamin W.
• Osler, Alexander Peter

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Identifier

• E-project-030620-015104

Advisor

• Claypool, Mark L.

Year

• 2020

Date created

• 2020-03-06

Resource type

• Major Qualifying Project

Major

• Computer Science

Rights statement

• In Copyright