They're going to doing maintenance on the servers soon so check back after that

The problem is more with Java than the game - Java is somewhat inefficient for 3D graphics, so a game written in Java (Like SK) runs a lot worse than something written in C++ (and almost everything else)

There's a whole load of optimisations that might be possible, but Java on a whole will always run a graphics-based application like SK slower than other languages would. It's something along the lines of Java is written in code that is interpreted via virtual machine at runtime, whilst most other languages are compiled into machine code - Java's running a few other steps before the code actually does anything. I'm sure somebody that knows more will tell me I'm wrong and tell you exactly why Java is worse for these things if we wait long enough, but the issue is simply that Java's generally worse for running games than most other languages. See also: Minecraft, which eats up my system's resources - and minecraft's no Crysis (and I have about 14 GHz of processing power split over 4 cores, 4 GB RAM and a high-end graphics card (ATI HD 5400 series with 2.7GB memory) in this thing)

There ARE things Java is good for - for example, strictly because it runs in a virtual machine, if java can be installed on a device, so can almost any java program; if you could configure the controls in advance, you could probably run SK on an iPad - but Java isn't perfect for games.

That said, if the difference between IMF and the more generic areas is so large, there probably are some optimisations that can be made on OOO's end. Oh, and the issues probably aren't happening at the graphics card - the game can supposedly run on some cards from years back (ATI 8500 is from 2002). The requirement is 64MB memory according to steam, and my 1.5 year old card has nearly 50 times that.

I thought about the Java thing too, and it sounds like it's the real problem.

Is there a version or clone of java that someone has built to deal with these problems? I can't imagine hardcore gamer/programmers putting up with this for long from the foundation of their entertainment without tooling it somehow.

What....err...what's the process of converting from java to a different architecture?

The 11.8's actually have no notable problems. Though it is worth noting that even a Radeon HD 6950 w/ shader unlock + overclock will still not always render over 60fps either. At a certain points the game will only render new frams so fast. There's some kind of bottleneck that isn't hardware related.

@tengutengu - The process of converting Java to another language... it'd more or less be a case of 'run a rough conversion program, then spend weeks combing through the code to find all the new bugs'

Then they'd have to fix the code for a Linux release, and for an OSX release. And ultimately it probably wouldn't be the same.

And Java has a lot of features programmers can rely on that don't exist without being coded into a program directly in other languages, like garbage collection - the programmers, even after converting the code, will have to create a whole load of new code that wasn't in the original to handle removing data which isn't needed anymore, and may need to define a few new classes to handle objects in Java that wouldn't be related in other languages.

Fixing the issues with java would be difficult too, mainly because the biggest one is an artifact of how Java code is executed in the first place. Because Java is interpreted at runtime, there's a lot less that needs to be defined on the programmer's end - the system can work out what code means based on what else is happening, where another language needs the programer to be far more specific. Java code can have code written in ways that would count as containing massive holes in other languages - this is adding on to the 'programmers would need to do a whole load of new work' problem. If Java was changed to compile like other languages, suddenly all the code that works now would need to have loads of stuff added to it just to work the same way - if the core issues with java were fixed, the program would need fixing to work with the new java, which could involve the majority of the work switching to a new language would create.

I'm not an expert here - Computer Science student moving into 3rd year in October - so there might be (are) issues with what I've said, but basically fixing the biggest issues caused by Java involves a whole load of work, especially for a project as large as SK. Ultimately Java's used because it's also harder to go horribly wrong with it, and there are some things that it's better for - portability, and from what I heard recently Java's more accurate than some languages for mathematical functions. Not sure if that last part is relevant or true, though.

@Foxhound - It might be a whole load of information, but I'm basically saying that your problem is caused either by the game or by java, and there's not much you can do about it. There was a thread floating around a couple months ago with a whole load of optimisations you could make to the game by editing the java call when you start it, but I can't remember if it worked for the steam version, or where that thread was. Ultimately the issue's up to OOO, and it may be a while before they can work it out.

Java being "slow" is hardly the issue in this day and age, and more of a myth than anything else. That argument made sense years ago, not today with how Java has evolved, JIT compiles, and current hardware. There are numerous benchmarks to prove this. Here's an example site with benchmarks http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/
Also SK is not particularly processor or graphics intensive, and since many people with specs worse than OP can run the game better, the problem is clearly somewhere else.

As for OP: if updating java and updating your drivers did nothing, then you'll need more information about what is your problem exactly, so you should get some monitoring tools and see what your cpu/memory/gpu are doing.
Would be nice if OOO allowed a debug option in the client to show all the graphics/memory/cpu info in a corner.

So, basically someone would just have to "bigger hammer" the problem at the source by putting in a more powerful CPU and RAM. There's no soft solutions to speak of.

I understand the Java stuff, and I've seen these issues with the GPU drivers.
nobody has a test system, or a close duplicate of Foxhound's specs, so it's difficult to say what o.p.'s fix COULD be.

i have SOME lag issues & i don't study what exactly makes the lag happen. I've noticed that when i play solo, SK runs smoother. some updates have actually caused lag -then came a patch.

runs on an HP Slimline: AMD Athlon 64 x2 Dual Core Processor 5000+, 2.6 Ghz, 2 Core(s), 2GB RAM, Vista 32bit Home Premium Service Pack 2 , NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 128MB ram(shared), JAVA 7, minimal processes, Comodo antivirus/firewall & MSSecurityEssentials(85mb as process most memory) out of 50 processes open, minimal display settings in game

i kinda don't think iit s a java thing. i'm doubtful it is a server thing. as far as specs go, this computer isn't exactly on the edge (cutting/bleeding) of anything. i'm leaning toward the code not being optimized to run with the amount of stuff the game is trying to do simultaneouslly.

I wonder how the game runs on the lowest minimal spec machine? would more of these latencies be apparent then?

Your games you mention aren't mmo are they? they also don't run Java...

do you have anti-virus/firewall/monitoring programs running?

is there any mmo game that you have/can run on steam?

from my experiences, all online games are choppy -from the best/biggest to the freebies.

it's a freebie, get a PS3 & you won't be lacking.

you can also completley remove java from your machine, and reinstal it.
also do a msconfig adn disable the stuff you dont need in services and startup (make sure you tick hide microsoft services). and run a registry cleanup.

yeah it's possible to clear the temporary files from the Java. However, you don't hafta remove and re-install to clear them out.
i did find the spiral folder created from running from the web at:
\Users\UserName\Appdata\LocalLow\

idk what this helps at all, but definitely the packet drop and the ping rubber-banding make sense. i ran a tracert and from here in Tampa, FL the trip made 30 hops and ended up at the servers in Seattle, WA.

the longest hop took 93ms, and if you look:

...
2 ) 9 ms 10 ms 10 ms
3 ) 14 ms 10 ms 9 ms
4 ) 10 ms 17 ms 9 ms
5 ) 15 ms 16 ms 14 ms
6 ) 15 ms 11 ms 11 ms 72-31-208-99.net.bhntampa.com [72.31.208.99]
7 ) 15 ms 13 ms 13 ms ae2.orld71-cbr1.bhn.net [72.31.220.1]
8 ) 40 ms 43 ms 38 ms xe-11-2-0.bar1.Orlando1.Level3.net [4.79.116.145]
9 ) 44 ms 37 ms 39 ms ae-8-8.ebr1.Atlanta2.Level3.net [4.69.137.150]
10 ) 36 ms 38 ms 42 ms ae-63-63.ebr3.Atlanta2.Level3.net [4.69.148.241]
11 ) 41 ms 38 ms 37 ms ae-2-2.ebr1.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.132.86]
12 ) 42 ms 39 ms 39 ms ae-71-71.csw2.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.134.134]
13 ) 53 ms 60 ms 41 ms ae-2-70.edge3.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.149.81]
14 ) 38 ms 39 ms 38 ms AMAZON.COM.edge3.Washington1.Level3.net [4.59.144.94]
15 ) 39 ms 44 ms 47 ms 72.21.220.131
16 ) 49 ms 41 ms 93 ms 72.21.222.143

that's over 500ms and the server is trying to keep track of me 30 hops away.

since the game is free, the aws.amazon.com cloud server is cheap and the resources it has to share with bandwidth ... idk, just some other things to place the blame on.