Open Beta: Faster connection to NationStates

[Roavin]

We've been tinkering with something that should, if everything works out, make NationStates load faster, particularly for players that are not in North America. You can try it out right now at https://fast.nationstates.net. This routes to the normal NationStates server and works identically to www.nationstates.net (including the API), it just connects to NS in a different way. Of course, given that this is a beta test, there's no guarantee that it won't be down for a few moments or suddenly go away entirely.

Feel free to try it out and let us know in this thread if it's faster, slower, or the same speed for you. I'm curious to see if and how it improves the player experience.

[Reventus Koth]

Reporting from New York, this seems roughly the same. Hope that this works out favorably for the non-NA players

[Eternal Algerstonia]

Works like a dream to me on mobile iOS. Notice an immediate faster load time. Can't get more detailed because I don't have the nerdy stats but I can tell its f a s t e r.

[Tinhampton]

Faster over here in sunny Northants.

[Gorutimania]

Holy, this is good.

[Isabella van der Feltz]

From Australia/NZ here - it's faster, thanks!!

[Eternal Algerstonia]

Works like a dream to me on mobile iOS. Notice an immediate faster load time. Can't get more detailed because I don't have the nerdy stats but I can tell its f a s t e r.

Also I'm a usual Iowaposter but I'm currently in Arizona

[Onionist Randosia]

Posting from New Zealand, I'm not sure if load times are better. I'd be inclined to say they were, but the difference is generally insignificant as far as I can tell. However, I'm on pretty decent wifi right now, so the difference might be more noticeable on a worse connection?
One thing though - when trying to switch between regular NS and the fast NS linked in the OP by editing the URL (for testing reasons), I got a DNS error. This doesn't seem to happen when using other methods of switching between the two (i.e back button and the link here) though.

[Mad Jack Is Rejected]

It's definitely quicker, posting from the UK.

[Roavin]

Thanks for the quick feedback, everyone! This is encouraging to hear.

Posting from New Zealand, I'm not sure if load times are better. I'd be inclined to say they were, but the difference is generally insignificant as far as I can tell. However, I'm on pretty decent wifi right now, so the difference might be more noticeable on a worse connection?

Hm, from NZ there should be a difference even with good wifi. Maybe you're currently connected to a VPN in North America? In that case, it won't make a noticable difference.

One thing though - when trying to switch between regular NS and the fast NS linked in the OP by editing the URL (for testing reasons), I got a DNS error. This doesn't seem to happen when using other methods of switching between the two (i.e back button and the link here) though.

Is this reproducible, and if so, can you give me a step-by-step? My initial intuition here is to think it was a typo.

[The Ambis]

One thing though - when trying to switch between regular NS and the fast NS linked in the OP by editing the URL (for testing reasons), I got a DNS error. This doesn't seem to happen when using other methods of switching between the two (i.e back button and the link here) though.

Is this reproducible, and if so, can you give me a step-by-step? My initial intuition here is to think it was a typo.

Idk if this is the same thing, I don’t speak tech, but when I navigate to my nation page and stick “fast.” In front of “NationStates.net” I’m told the server is not found.

Also, it is quicker (I timed it) if even marginally so here in the Lone Star State

[Montrandec]

This is very fast, I'm truly amazed. Thank you!

[Onionist Randosia]

Is this reproducible, and if so, can you give me a step-by-step? My initial intuition here is to think it was a typo.

Idk if this is the same thing, I don’t speak tech, but when I navigate to my nation page and stick “fast.” In front of “NationStates.net” I’m told the server is not found.

Aside from the fact that I did it with the World page and not my nation page, this is exactly what I did and I'm pretty sure the same error message, so yes I think it's the same thing.

Thanks for the quick feedback, everyone! This is encouraging to hear.

Posting from New Zealand, I'm not sure if load times are better. I'd be inclined to say they were, but the difference is generally insignificant as far as I can tell. However, I'm on pretty decent wifi right now, so the difference might be more noticeable on a worse connection?

Hm, from NZ there should be a difference even with good wifi. Maybe you're currently connected to a VPN in North America? In that case, it won't make a noticable difference.

Definitely not connected to a VPN.

[Kakastania]

As an Eastern USer, I am not seeing the issues my NZ friend is. Fast is a bit faster, but it could just be because less people are using it right now. I know I'm not in the target region for it.

[Klaus Devestatorie]

That's just about as fast as I've ever seen this site load. Amazing!

[Britain Interbellum RP]

Its faster than I could have ever dreamed of

[The Ambis]

Aha! For me at least, I wasn’t deleting the www part of the address.

[Sweeze]

it feels a tiny bit faster coming from the mountain west but its probably mostly placebo tbqh, still pretty cool ^_^

[Arstotskiano]

From Scotland, I've never loaded this fast in my life. It's great. My one issue with it is that when I go to the forums I have to go back through my pages to get back to it rather than being able to just click on my top bar.

[Britain Interbellum RP]

From Scotland, I've never loaded this fast in my life. It's great. My one issue with it is that when I go to the forums I have to go back through my pages to get back to it rather than being able to just click on my top bar.

When it's fully implemented it would just be regularly implemented instead of fast. though so it should be good long term

[Kostane]

I'm in North America (US Midwest) and everything loads very quickly. It's practically instant.

[Onionist Randosia]

Aha! For me at least, I wasn’t deleting the www part of the address.

Same here. As far as I can tell, the issue does not occur if you do delete the www part of the address.

[Volstrostia]

Northeast US here - I ran a couple GET requests with cURL to a few region pages on both extra crispy (fast) and original recipe (regular NS). Barring a bit of variation that I'm attributing to changes in ambient networking conditions, extra crispy seems to load within 100ms of the time that original recipe does, erring on the side of faster (but nothing cut-and-dried - I haven't sat down and crunched the numbers, but it feels more like random chance than anything statistically significant).
ICMP round trip seems to get within a handful of milliseconds. These values are so close that I'm comfortable saying they're equivalent. I plan to run some tests with farming and whatnot to put it under a "real steel" stress test, and will either follow-up or just edit this post if/when I do, but my first-glance says it's identical.
Tl;dr I can't see much of an impact, but I'm somewhat close to the servers, and considering that I've seen other users in other locations saying the speed increase is downright magical, I've got a good feeling about this beta.

[Siluvia]

This actually works faster. I feel like by about 25-30%.

[Bormiar]

So fast! [admin] must be pretty damn proud of themselves.