*Update* Ask and you shall recieve, today Call of Duty 3 was also patched. I have left a note (from the Call of Duty 3 team) further down detailing what the patch fixes.

This morning when you wake up and turn on your xbox 360 you will hopefully find an auto update for Splinter Cell: Double Agent. It appears to fix various issues that I personally was not aware of and some that had nagged me to the point of giving up on the game. So I am glad these issues are finally fixed and I can now go back to playing Double Agent.

As much as I dislike the growing trend of games needing to be patched I am glad to see developers at least trying to fix their mistakes with these auto updates. Lets just hope the promised call of duty 3 patch comes sooner rather than later.

Below is a list of the fixes contained in the update.

  Splinter Cell: Double Agent patch:

1. Connection Issues

·         Some instances of “the host has ended the session”.

·         Disconnections in the lobby.

·         Once the lobby reaches 5 or 6 people, random players drop.

·         After kicking the 6th player from a team, the leader couldn't invite another player

·         Group leader hangs in the "joining session" screen if the host quits while he is joining.

·         Improvement of the server selection so that the server is more reactive.

·         If a player leaves a session immediately when he arrives and they have some packet loss (he is in a resolving state), the resolving time out is not reset and in the next session he will kick all the players as soon as he arrives !!!!

·         Only 1 disconnect function to each peer when resolving is timed out.

  2. Lag-related issues:

·         In-game freezing: treats a limited number of Unreal packets per frame to avoid freezes in some specific conditions.

·         Increased network thread priority over Sound thread that can reduce lag issues.

·         Fix the case when a player got flashbanged while lagging as a mercenary; the player can remain permanently flashbanged until the player reboot the game.

·         Fix FPS loss due to a sound problem.

  3. Others issues :

·         A new Game Version to avoid LAN matches between master and update versions

·         The loading video was always the same, now it's changed at random

·         Fixed a bug on the score calculation of the Max Percent challenge.

·         Challenge Best score is wrong if the player has just beaten it.

·         Improved checks to avoid accessing an invalid leaderboard

·         Allows to write leaderboards of live challenges

Call of Duty 3 patch:

Call of Duty fans,

A quick note to check in and let you know that we’re in final test for the Call of Duty 3 multiplayer Title Update and that we hope to be released to the Xbox Live community in the coming days.  We really want to thank everyone again for their continued support and feedback – you have been a tremendous help.

When it propagates, the update will download automatically upon logging into Xbox Live and running Call of Duty 3.  This update addresses many of the Ranked and Player Match issues that we’ve discussed over the last few weeks.  While we’ve made a number of enhancements, the most significant improvement is that Ranked Matches join lobbies much faster through both Custom and Quick Match.  Player Matches through Quick Match will now query a higher number of games before attempting to join, thus returning a better variety and better quality for the player. 

Additionally, we’ve added some gameplay, HUD and options enhancements.  For example, brightness settings will be saved across both single-player and multiplayer; players will be able to instantly punish medics who maliciously team kill and revive continuously; Auto Team Balance will remain turned on after multiple map rotations, ensuring that each team always has an equal number of players; and players will be able to select either Axis or Allies in Ranked Battle games.

These enhancements will create a more streamlined gameplay experience; however, please be aware that online play is always complicated by players with non-optimal router and connection settings – don’t hesitate to refer to Xbox Live’s “best practices” for router configurations, as it will prove helpful.

Thanks!