grin_kufa

will be fixed in 1.04

As promised, an update: we know what the problem is, know how to fix it, working on it I wont give too many technical details, but to simplify it's a timing problem when the map takes too long to load.

FYI we are aware of this bug, managed to reproduce it and trying to figure out asap what it is and how to fix it. We will keep you updated on this one.

More infos on the "?": you'll get it when the ping cannot be determined without doing a (slow) NAT traversal, ie when the server is behind a firewall, or when the ping in 0 (LAN). High pings are now capped at 9999 You can get it's ping by right-clicking on the server, and wait a bit.

The "?" ping means the server is firewalled. Instead of trying to ping it automatically, and therefore do a slow NAT traversal, you need to manually update the server (normal right click) and wait a bit to get it's ping.

We're working on removing the need of ICMP support. As Ichabod said, it's not only an issue on Vista using Windows Firewall, it's an issue for all firewalls/routers blocking icmp packets. For instance, on XP SP2 using Windows Firewall, go to Control Panel / Security Center / Manage security Settings for Windows Firewall / Advanced / ICMP Settings. Make sure that "Allow incoming echo request" is enabled (afaik you don't need more).

This is a indeed a weird but known behaviour on some configurations (not only SLI). Actually a simple alt-tab should give you this speed increase too.

What do you use to start the game, the games explorer? The game should restart MC only if it was started from there (ie if it has the -restart_mc parameter)