LATENCY, mostly TOTAL LATENCY

[jazzerone]

I'm a novice to UDP, as described here by Dimitri, but have a basic understanding of the difference between UDP and TCP, and how peer-to-peer works. So, my question is this: With 3 players on board, does it matter who initiates the session, or are each of the participants on equal status, so to speak?

I have a 200mbps wired internet connection, with about 8ms latency on my AI. I have regular session with a local player and one in California (1500 miles away). I always initiate the session and invite the others to join. The other local player has no latency issues with the California player. His internet speed is 300mbps, with about the same latency as I have. He experiences virtually no latency issues with the California player; I, on the other hand, see about 45ms total latency and experience the same, which puts us slightly off --- still playable, but noticeable. Yesterday I had a session with 2 California players, and it was nearly impossible. Again, I initiated the session, invited them to join, and they had no issues with each other.

I understand that the distance from me to them, and their proximity to each other comes into play here, but I'm trying to figure out why my local friend doesn't experience this problem with the California player, while I do. We use the same ISP, and live about 15 miles apart. We're running comparable audio interface gear, both on MAC platforms. So, back to my original question: In a UDP setup, does it matter who initiates the session?

Thanks for any insights.

I don't think it matters who initiates a session. Have you verified that your home router isn't congested while you're in a JK session? If it's being used for video streaming or game play for example, your time-critical UDP packets aren't going to make it in and out in a timely manner. Check your routers ability to handle this at dslreports/speedtest.

Also, if you're using MAC gear, be sure you use an audio interface that supports Thunderbolt 3 and has a custom driver for that. Otherwise you'll have you use the MacOS Core Audio subsystem which isn't optimal and may not give you the lowest hardware latency your audio interface is capable of delivering.

Thanks for the feedback. I ran the DSLReports/Speed test and got all A's/A+'s, so I think my router is fine. It's possible there is some cell phone or other usage going on in the house while I'm in a session, but there's only 2 of us here and it would be limited (not like having 4 teenagers, for example). Your suggestion about the AI is interesting. I'm using an older iMac that doesn't have a Thunderbolt port; my AI is a Presonus Firewire Project connected to the computer via Firewire --- none of this matches up with your suggestion, so this may be where the problem lies. I'm not having any issues with connectivity or latency on my gear as reported by JK, and playing with local musicians there are minimal, typical, sporadic latency issues, but nothing serious. It's only when I work with players in California, and the curious anomaly of my local partner NOT having this problem. But then, he's using a Focusrite AI, so there you go... looks like more gear experimentation is in order.

Thanks again.