"Chat lag" is a frustrating problem, and it makes the use of the chat system as a means of communicating problematic. As it turns out, however, there is an easy fix for chat lag. With this fix, I find that chat lag is almost nonexistent.

In the game, click the right mouse button; this brings up a menu of options. Click on "Chat...", and change the "Buffer Size" setting to around 80% and the "Scroll Speed" setting to around 40%. You may want to adjust these settings until you're happy with them (e.g., this might cause chat messages to scroll too quickly for you), but as long as you increase the size of the chat buffer and make it scroll faster, chat lag will be reduced.

Since chat messages scroll off the screen more quickly with the adjusted settings, you may sometimes miss chat messages. Also, since the buffer is larger, a large part of the screen may on occasion become cluttered with chat messages. If this happens, you can page through the chat buffer using "Ctrl-PageUp" and "Ctrl-PageDown". You may also use "Ctrl" in combination with the arrow keys to move through it one line at a time.

Last modified: August 20, 1999 by Hartney