MG/Why is MegaGlest lagging

Not to rarely there are people wondering "why is MegaGlest lagging?" There is, unfortunately, not a single answer to this question, but your experince can vary much based on a three factors: hardware, software, networking. This guide will discuss these factors, tell you how to find out which one affects you and what can be done about it.

Please be aware this guide is written for patient users, since only they will be able to solve such issues. If you are not prepared to spend some time on it, then please don't expect any improvement. Otherwise, if you do, you will likely be able to identify the cause of the lag, and can take counter measures.

Hardware inflicted lag
One of the most common causes of lack is also the one most easily identified: lack of sufficient hardware resources, i.e. insufficient free memory, a slow/outdated graphics card or lack of free disk space.

Make sure that your computer provides the minimum hardware requirements of MegaGlest. If it does not, you will most likely experience lag. And because your PC is too slow and the server will wait for you, the same lag (caused by your hardware) will be experienced by everyone else who is on a network game with you. So please consider upgrading your hardware and do not join larger network games if you are in this situation.

Linux
On Linux, run these commands in a terminal window to find out about your hardware:

Available physical memory:

LANG=C free -m | awk '/^-\/\+ buffers\/cache:/ { print $NF}' CPU:

awk -F: '/^model name/ { print $2 }' /proc/cpuinfo | head -n1 Video hardware:

lspci -kmmnnv | grep -B1 -A7 '^Class:\WVGA'

Windows
On Windows, press the Windows key + R to open the run dialogue, and run "msinfo32", which will open a window showing information about the computer. On the System Summary screen, inspect the values given for available physical memory and processor. Details on your video hardware are available under Components -> Display. Make sure those match the minimum hardware requirements of MegaGlest.