I haven't been playing MW3 for that long online – its my first ever game online, and something that I've found to be quite annoying is that I am frequently finding myself having to shoot people a ridiculous number of times before they die. Sometimes it only takes a few bullets, other times, it's like I'm firing rubber-bullets. Something that I've noticed is that there is often a lag between me firing and hearing the 'thud' sound, the sound that indicates you're hitting an enemy. I had a game on Bootleg yesterday for example, and I hit this guy close range with the ACR 7-8 times before he died, but the first 3-4 bullets didn’t register, there was no 'thud' sound. Initially I thought it was simply a case that there was a lag between me firing my gun, and the bullets registering.

I decided to go into the Theater mode to take a closer look at what happened, and strangely, it showed that I was not even aiming at the guy and most of bullets were missing. But this is not what happened. This has happened so much that I've even gone as far as recording in-game and comparing it to the Theater recording, and it's always the same, there's a visible disparity. In-game I'm shooting at people on target, but the Theater mode shows that I am not shooting at them, and my shots are off target. This explains why I'm shooting at people and nothing is happening, I'm shooting at mirages. I'm shooting where they were a few milliseconds before, as opposed to where they actually were. On a game that is based on reaction-times, milliseconds count.

So, I investigated further and have been trying to fix the problem (since Infinity Ward obviously can't with all their billions of cash) and I came across this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAwQAuMWn6Y This guy explains why sometimes you just can't seem to kill people in MW3, no matter how many bullets you put into them, because the faster your Internet connection, the slower you are in-game and the more lag you have. This guy chokes his Internet connection and limits his upload speed with the QOS-option built into most modern routers and he solved his problem. He starts killing people with ease, and they struggle to kill him, because he's playing the game in real-time, and due to the unbalanced nature of lag compensation in MW3, other people are shooting at mirages and are playing the game milliseconds (or perhaps more) behind him.

This got me thinking. Are most of the good-players on MW3 people who just happen to be on the right side of lag compensation? Also, how many other people are experecing this? Personally, I find it amazing that a lot of the time I'm shooting at mirages. It's a revelation to me.