Consistent lag please help [Solved]

[whirlypoo]

Hey guys,

I get intermittent temporary lag nearly every game. The game runs silky smooth 99% of the time but perhaps once per game I’ll get this freeze which appears to happen when a few bombs get picked up or another player crashes/gains points simultaneously. I lose input temporarily and the screen freezes for a split second, then again for another split second shortly after - 2 micro freezes in row. Its frustrating because you can bet its gonna happen at the worst time, sending my curve into the wall. Ive lost count the times it cost me the match, and then my rank

I checked the tips and guides found here to fix/prevent lag including updating my gpu driver, using hardware acceleration setting in chrome, adjusted the in game volume (not sure why that was advised but I did it) turned all graphics down/off. I have a wired internet connection with low ping. It has not solved the problem so I’m looking for help please.

Does my description match the lag others have reported? Should I be getting it this often? Is there something else I can try to stop it? A different browser maybe?

My PC:
Chrome
Windows 7 Pro 64bit (up to date)
AMD FX8300
AMD HD5450 512MB (Is this struggling?)
8GB RAM
Internet speed see image attached (I know its not the fastest but I have no issues playing games like counter strike online)

Please help

Cheers

[Rojoss]

Does my description match the lag others have reported? Should I be getting it this often? Is there something else I can try to stop it? A different browser maybe? Are the devs working on resolving this ASAP? When are those updates expected by?

If your own curve freezes then this means it’s client side lag and not server lag.
When there is server lag then you will see other ships flop around a lot more, their input gets corrected later because the servers are lagging.

Because on your game you simulate your own input the server almost never has to correct it.
So for your own input you basically don’t need the server it’s only there to prevent cheating, do small corrections etc. For example if you shoot someone but then the other player put up a shield then the stuff that you simulated has to be reverted to do what the server did so that everyone is in sync.
Getting a bit off-topic here but I’m basically just explaining that you won’t experience server lag for your own ship.

As for your lag it could be anything really.
We have experienced that the game stutters a bit since the past updates (jitter) which is probably related to the smooth ship movement we do. (extrapolation)
We’ll look into this but that only fixes the micro freezes like you see the ship some times move back and forth a few pixels, not really freezing the game.

The game freezes really seem to be related to your performance.
Could you please try looking the FPS?
You can do this easily in Google Chrome.
To do so open the developer tools (F12 on windows) and then navigate to the rendering tab.

On there you can find a checkbox to show FPS meter.

Just play the game with the FPS meter visible and see what happens.
Look for the overal FPS and if there are a lot of spikes.

Also not sure which guide you followed for performance, doubt that turning volume down improves it.
These are the best tips I have for you;

Render performance tips

If you’re having lag (bad performance) then here you can find some tips that might improve it. More tips will be added over time, feel free to share tips if you find something that helps improve performance. Recommended browsers For the best performance we recommended using [image] Chrome or [image] Firefox. (ALL) Video settings In the menu (bottom right cog) you can change your quality settings. There are several settings that can be tweaked. By default the quality is set automatically b…

[Rojoss]

Some other things you can do.

Go here: http://webglreport.com/
Take a screenshot and post it here.

Go here; https://pixijs.io/bunny-mark/
Start with like 10k bunnies, then just select version 4.8.2.
Click on the screen to create more bunnies, post here how the performance is with how many bunnies.

Go here: https://webglsamples.org/aquarium/aquarium.html
How many fish can you render?

Go to chrome://gpu/
Copy the data (there is a button copy to clipboard)
Send this in a private message to me.

[whirlypoo]

This is really helpful thank you.

Thank you for the performance guide I appreciate you putting that togethor. I believe it was the one I found here.

Agreed, it looks like changing the volume is the next question but appears in the bullet point list from this view, anyway - glad I can turn it back up again lol

I can tell you it doesnt happen to other players when it happens to me. So now we know it’s performance based I’m going to follow the steps and report back with my fps.

But I anticipate it’s going to be my GPU? Its on old outdated card, its only temporary until I replace my R9 290. Could it be the legacy AMD driver?

Cheers a million

[Rojoss]

Yeah it’s most likely your GPU, which is why I put the links for GPU tests and details. (see my second post)
I’ll have a look later when you post the results.
It’s not very likely I can have a magic solution for you but in some cases there is so worth a shot to post it.

[whirlypoo]

Thank you

Ok so heres the screenshot

Bunnies - 10k @ 20 fps/20k @ 10fps

Fish - 500 @ 30fps/10k @ 15 fps

Ive just messaged you my chrome GPU data

So I ran the fps meter in game and I was unable to replicate the error, there were a few very small and manageable stutters where frames dropped from the average of 45-50 down to about 30-35 for a fraction or 2 and this was about as frequent as I was getting the drops before.

However, its worth noting that when I experienced the issue before I was playing at full screen, however with the developer console open for the fps meter it shrinks cfp down to about 720p to fit the console on the screen.

I tested both with and without console and whilst I wasnt able to read the fps whilst the console was closed, I noticed significant difference in silkyness. I reckon I was averaging maybe 30fps at full size, which could explain why it seemed playable but the freezing was so unmanageable as the equivalent drops would have probably been 10 fps or less.

Ive also tested it using incognito mode and im getting a solid maximum 60 fps while windowed, so I tried it full screen and there was no drop in performance there either, at least not that I could visually measure this time. So I guess windowed mode helped, but the biggest performance boost is from incognito mode.

I did notice in your guide about running in windowed mode and tbh that was the one thing I hadnt tried, that and incognito mode. It seems that the solution for me at least until I upgrade my GPU/CPU is to continue to run in windowed/incognito mode for a more manageable experience. This makes me very happy as it’s such a great game to play

I hope this helps others who may be experiencing performance issues - make sure you try every step in the render performance tips guide: Render performance tips

Thank you Rojoss for your guide and help!

[the_hashtag]

@Rojoss is beast! XD

[Rojoss]

Awesome to hear that you managed to improve it.
People always find it funny when I tell them to play incognito but in most cases it helps a lot

For the WebGL report should have taken the one for WebGL2 but it doesn’t matter that much.

Out of the GPU data you sent me I noticed rasterization is disabled/unavailable.
This is probably the main cause of your performance issues.

Something you could try is go to chrome://flags/
Search for rasterization and try set GPU rasterization to force enabled.
Restart the browser and see if the game runs any better.
It might not fix it because your GPU might just not support it but it’s worth a shot.

[whirlypoo]

Hey Rojoss,

Thanks, it did help with improving the frames significantly but actually since we spoke last the issue came back. I think that my GPU struggles with the effects more in higher rank games with more high power modules being fired as when I derank the issue disappears when its mostly just single shot battles.

Thank you for the extra tips, I tried the GPU rasterization setting but with no luck. I’m confident the issue will go away as soon as I’ve replaced my GPU which is on the cards as this one is only temporary.

Here’s the WebGL2 report just in case anything jumps out at you

I’m just glad it’s environmental, easily fixed.

Thanks again for all your support

[whirlypoo]

Just wanted to stop by to say I’ve upgraded my GPU and the game is running flawlessly. Its so nice to play the game at fullest graphics without any fps drops, it really looks and feels great! Thanks again

[whirlypoo]

chrome://gpu/

Hey,

When I upgraded my GPU the issue was resolved for a while, but I seem to be getting the same freezing again. Sometimes at the start of the round, sometimes randomly, doesnt seem to be associated with points collection or bombs this time. Im certain its not related to my GPU. I turned the graphics settings down and running incognito.

Here is my data: (i also pm’d you with my gpu data for chrome. When it happened to me, others said it didnt happen to them. Am confused now Im the only one that uses my internet and its a wired connection.

[Rojoss]

Seems a lot better, also can confirm that your new GPU is working as intended.

We are currently working on performance improvements.
Mostly working on reducing the lag spikes.

I’ve also sent you a more detailed message with some instructions and info.