DUST Search - PC Lag: The Hunt for Cause and Solution

Aeon Amadi wrote:

IAmDuncanIdaho II wrote:

Good stuff. Does this mean CCP don't know what the issues are? And are there two issues? Framerate and lag? Are they different? Is the centre of your diagram "Lag" just a generic name for adverse gameplay events that slows something down?

Not sure if you've got team / squad chat covered as a source of lag (in the form of network latency). And does the number of mercs with mics actually switched on affect this...and if so, does using push to talk reduce any lag?

Also, I would assume the teams from around the world problem manifests itself only when you're not on your "home" server. The guys who are wouldn't perceive much change?

PS. Congrats on passing your exams / coursework!

I'm sure that CCP is getting closer to finding out what it is but it's been an on-going investigation ever since Uprising was released six-seven months ago. I am considering framerate and lag to be one in the same as it's any real detriment toward the smooth performance of a match. There are a -lot- of variables to consider and anything we, the players, can do to narrow it down can do nothing but help find a solution.

I will definitely add team/squad chat concerns to the chart as it is something that needs to be tested - whether it's better or worse on team/squad chat compared to a user-made channel. Voice comms is definitely going to need several runs of testing to actually work out, I feel.

As far as world location - we just recently got out of a war with The Southern Legion who is based mostly in the Australia/New Zealand area (if I'm not mistaken) and while it did generally suck not getting the home server, we'd often hear reports of the other side experiencing lag as well. There is a difference in network and framerate lag, of course but again we're looking to have both of them ironed out.

PS. Thanks! I worked really hard on it ^_^


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IAmDuncanIdaho II R 0 N 1 N 186	Posted - 2013.12.06 10:21:00 - [1] - Quote Good stuff. Does this mean CCP don't know what the issues are? And are there two issues? Framerate and lag? Are they different? Is the centre of your diagram "Lag" just a generic name for adverse gameplay events that slows something down? Not sure if you've got team / squad chat covered as a source of lag (in the form of network latency). And does the number of mercs with mics actually switched on affect this...and if so, does using push to talk reduce any lag? Also, I would assume the teams from around the world problem manifests itself only when you're not on your "home" server. The guys who are wouldn't perceive much change? PS. Congrats on passing your exams / coursework!
IAmDuncanIdaho II R 0 N 1 N 186	Posted - 2013.12.06 12:13:00 - [2] - Quote Aeon Amadi wrote: IAmDuncanIdaho II wrote: Good stuff. Does this mean CCP don't know what the issues are? And are there two issues? Framerate and lag? Are they different? Is the centre of your diagram "Lag" just a generic name for adverse gameplay events that slows something down? Not sure if you've got team / squad chat covered as a source of lag (in the form of network latency). And does the number of mercs with mics actually switched on affect this...and if so, does using push to talk reduce any lag? Also, I would assume the teams from around the world problem manifests itself only when you're not on your "home" server. The guys who are wouldn't perceive much change? PS. Congrats on passing your exams / coursework! I'm sure that CCP is getting closer to finding out what it is but it's been an on-going investigation ever since Uprising was released six-seven months ago. I am considering framerate and lag to be one in the same as it's any real detriment toward the smooth performance of a match. There are a -lot- of variables to consider and anything we, the players, can do to narrow it down can do nothing but help find a solution. I will definitely add team/squad chat concerns to the chart as it is something that needs to be tested - whether it's better or worse on team/squad chat compared to a user-made channel. Voice comms is definitely going to need several runs of testing to actually work out, I feel. As far as world location - we just recently got out of a war with The Southern Legion who is based mostly in the Australia/New Zealand area (if I'm not mistaken) and while it did generally suck not getting the home server, we'd often hear reports of the other side experiencing lag as well. There is a difference in network and framerate lag, of course but again we're looking to have both of them ironed out. PS. Thanks! I worked really hard on it ^_^ The Southern Legion is my old corp (great bunch), and they withdrew from PC (ages ago) due to lag issues. I'd say they've generally seen far more lag than others appear to have done. It would be great if you guys could get on board with testing stuff out, coz they are great guinea pigs for your tests and there's plenty of them ;-) [edit] Wow I wouldn't have thought of all the things you did in that apparently simple addition of the voice chat node to your diagram. Do you think that belongs under the network node though?
IAmDuncanIdaho II R 0 N 1 N 190	Posted - 2013.12.06 14:47:00 - [3] - Quote Aeon Amadi wrote: Your Absolut End wrote: Cant really say changing ingame graphics help with it, tried low and high on both and for some reason i even have the feeling high works better than low Right, I've fiddled with the settings a bit and saw literally no change in graphical quality what-so-ever; thing it might just be a feature that hasn't been implemented. Dunno. Shotty GoBang used to run at 480p I think - and he did it consistently for quite a while. So he must've thought it made some sort of difference. I keep meaning to try this myself, but I keep forgetting. If I remember I'll let you know any observations. Spectral Clone wrote: Robert JD Niewiadomski wrote: Just one thing to make myself clear on settings: music and SFX have separate settings. Setting music to 0 does not set SFX to 0. You should still hear equipement sounds, gunshots, vehicles etc if music is set to 0. To mute ALL sounds in DUST client both setings must be set to 0. Im assuming setting SFX to volume "0" does not actually turn sounds off, it just scales sound with a factor 0 (hence no output signal). In this case, the sound effects are still "rendered" by the PS3 CPU, and if this is the cause of lag, it might not work to set the volume to 0 to fix it. But hey, always worth a try. I am curious about this too. Robert JD suggests otherwise, but isn't a case of how it's coded? I'd have thought it would be an optimisation in code to have it work that way. if volume is 0 then disable sound channel or something [edit] oh yeah and someone here suggested they run PC on different servers? We need to know if that's the case I would think. Because then there is merit in testing this in pubs or FW too, and the results may not affect PC, or vice-versa
IAmDuncanIdaho II R 0 N 1 N 190	Posted - 2013.12.06 14:51:00 - [4] - Quote Perhaps you also need to set your server to a specified region, instead of automatic, so you know which server you're playing on, and then you can ask ppl where in the world they are. At least then you can have a baseline to measure the non-network related issues.
IAmDuncanIdaho II R 0 N 1 N 200	Posted - 2013.12.24 22:56:00 - [5] - Quote Hmm I only have speculation myself, I don't know much about how these things work. What might help rule some things out is if you tried placing your equipment always in the same spot, or at least, similar spots if you can't get that same spot on the map you happen to be in. For example, if there's, say, echo built into the game, that might explain the difference in the synchronisation sounds. When you're on that hill, does echo make it sound like it's out of synch, but when you were on the flat with not much in the way of solid obstacles around you, there is no echo? Which might mean that actually, equipment sound is always in synch? Long shot, but you can make what you want to of my wild theorising :) The other thought that crossed my mind was what happens if you walk far enough away for the sound of your equipment to disappear, then come back? Does that change the synch effect? I couldn't really tell from watching, but you typed something in the 2nd part of the vid in the low res test - no lag, right? So there was lag (frame rate drop) in the first one? I mean, what about wilder theories like, was your squad all on mics with PTT off? And if so, could it be something silly like feedback loops causing more network data? Like you know when you can hear someone with their mic on and no headphones - you can hear them shooting and the announcments etc. What if that sound from all the equipment was causing some form of feedback? I'm not aware of why the video res should affect sound directly. I tried to play on 576p or whatever option my PS3 (slim) gave me not long ago and found it unplayable, those weird all-caps fonts like you saw there and no text fitting on the screen properly. Anyway, I digress. Perhaps there is optimisation code that says, ahh this PS3 is only using this much RAM, or this much CPU, or we've (CCP) done our baselines and know that when you run the game at a lower res., we can optimise some of the effects. This, based on the theory that they could save some CPU / RAM by synchronising the sound of the same equipment, and keep track of just the one. No idea really. It might also be interesting to see you turn all the sound off before you step into a battle, so it doesn't crash, and see how performance is then. If it's related to sound, you could be onto something. Then if that works, you could try turning all the sounds on to try and get your comparison. Pity you can't change video res mid-game hey - that would be a smoking gun I suspect. Sorry it's all speculation, hopefully you get some more knowledgeable peeps here to help ;-) Good stuff by the way. Thanks you all you guys helping out there.