High latency isn’t so much the problem when it comes to “server performance”. Jitter and packet loss are more the issue in this regard.
Jitter is the fluctuation of latency. All connections have jitter. There’s low variance where the latency rarely changes, yet when it does it’s only by a few ms, then it resettles back to it’s normal base low. Then there’s high variance latency in which the latency value is for the majority of the time always changing.
e.g.
Low variance (10 second interval) - 200ms base low
200ms → 200ms → 200ms → 200ms → 200ms → 205ms → 200ms → 200ms → 200ms → 200ms… minimal/occasional low spiking
High variance (10 second interval) - 30ms base low
30ms → 42ms → 35ms → 73ms → 31ms → 104ms → 48ms → 56ms → 55ms → 30ms etc… constant variable spiking
A “stable” latency of 200ms will not cause server issues, desync etc. A whole team of 200ms players won’t do that either. The only issues you’ll run into hitreg wise in this scenario are the norm death/hits behind cover (delayed damage receival), hits not registering (HP advantage), players warping at times (interpolation correction).
Introduce a few high variance connections and the wtf oddities intensify.
- increased number of death/hits behind cover
- increased number of hits not registering
- increased rubberbanding, warping
- 1 hit kills (bundled damage)
- server wide desync
- hackusations galore