Lag compensation is here: fair hits for every ping, especially for US players

This is a huge one, guys. Twenty-two years after release, Joint Operations finally has lag compensation. It makes the fights much fairer for everyone who plays from far away, and especially for our US players on European servers.

It was built by BadgerLove from FMJ-Squad.com into WolfRAT, the free admin tool for Joint Ops servers. Here is how it works, explained simply.

1. The problem: with high ping you shoot at the past

Without lag compensation: on your screen you aim right at the enemy, but on the server he has already moved on, so the shot misses

In Joint Ops the server decides every hit. With 200 ms ping you see the other players about a fifth of a second late. By the time your bullet reaches the server, the enemy has already moved on, so the server checks your shot against the wrong spot: miss. That is why players far away from the server always had to aim in front of moving targets. It never felt fair.

2. The fix: the server rewinds time

With lag compensation: the server remembers the last second of every player and checks the shot where the enemy was on the shooter's screen, so it hits

Now the server remembers where every player was during the last second. When a player with higher ping fires, the server checks the bullet against where the target was on his screen: his ping plus a small extra (40 ms by default). Aim at the enemy, hit the enemy. This is the same idea modern shooters use.

Only players are rewound. Walls, buildings, rocks and vehicles stay where they are.
Players under 80 ms ping play exactly as before. The rewind is capped at 400 ms.
It runs on the server only: nothing to download, and no extra lag for anyone.
It works on retail Joint Ops servers and on JO:TAC servers.

3. Does it really help? Yes.

Results on the FMJ UK server: 1,201 hits instead of 1,003 (+20%) on a night with pings above 280, and 511 instead of 474 (+8%) on a night with lower pings

BadgerLove tested it live on the FMJ UK server with players from the UK, the US, Venezuela and China. On a night with pings above 280: 1,201 hits instead of 1,003 (+20%). On a night with lower pings: +8%. The higher the ping, the bigger the win, and players said they no longer had to lead their targets.

One honest limit: only the position is rewound, not the pose. If a target ducks, turns or goes prone in that split second, a shot can still miss.

Big shout-out to BadgerLove

Thank you, BadgerLove, for building this and for everything you do for Joint Ops! Joint Ops came out in 2004 without lag compensation. Now our friends across the ocean finally get the fair fights they deserve.

The full explanation, the numbers, the settings and the troubleshooting are in his article: Lag compensation on the FMJ-Squad wiki.

For server admins

You need WolfRAT 2.9.7 or newer running on the same PC as the game server. Open Server → Lag compensation and tick On; the status line turns green. No game files are changed.

Read the article FMJ-Squad.com

What do you think? Tell us in the comments below or on Discord.