Matrix-Style Bullet Time for Realtime Online Games

gcnaddict writes "Creating a slowdown in time on one end of an online game while maintaining normal speed on another was once one of those impossibilities which should never have happened. However, Finnish researchers have successfully invented a way to replicate a bullet-time-esque scene on one end of a real time multiplayer game without affecting the play speed on the other end(s). Of course, there are some slight issues which may never be resolved, such as when a player may occasionally think they have shot an opponent in a game and is surprised when his target refuses to die..."

Comments

Doesn't hit the core of the problem

[James_Aguilar]

This method involves the introduction of excess latency to the system so that the player who is working in slow motion can be allowed to "catch up" to the server's actual state for as long as he is in bullet time. The problem with this method is twofold.

First of all, there is the issue of lag in the standard game. Unless the server-side prediction is able to perfectly determine the paths of the slowed player, it will not be able to send an accurate picture of where that player is to his opponents. This will make a bullet-time'd player either invulnerable or just very difficult to damage. The other problem arises when a player is bullet-timing and kills another player. The player could perhaps be completely out of site from the bullet-timing player, but because his lagged position is still visible to the bullet-timing player, the hidden opponent could still be killed. The frustration this would add could never make up for the gameplay benefits of such a system.

Some things are not merely hard, but impossible.