This post is meant for CCP devs. Please forward to relevant parties.

I was digging around the internets about mouse lags in Unreal Engine 3, and it seems that Dust 514 doesn't suffer from this problem alone.

Here is a summary of contributing factors to lag, and their fixes:



1. Jumpy framerate - irregular framerates, sudden framerate drops, they all make it harder to aim (because your vision of motions is disrupted).
Solution: A better and more responsive adaptive degradation to compensate framerate drops. Also see 3.

2. Data streaming - it means the game loads data while playing. Evident from the textures and polygons popping up. This loading contributes to performance issues and influences the framerate.
Solution: Turn this off, or limit how much system resources it uses.

3. V-sync - PC FPS players will know this. V-syncs add buffer frames to the output so you are always lagging behind by several frames, usually this must be turned off for competitve gameplay because it is a high contributing factor towards mouse lag.
Solution: Turn v-sync off.

4. Post-processing - Dust 514 definitely utilizes post-processing... look at the edges of polygons, the game definitely has some sort of sharpening filter going on, or maybe something else. Like v-syncs, post-processing adds buffer frames that will contribute to lag.
Solution: Turn it off.

5. Framerate smoothing - turn it off. Wait a minute, didn't you just say you want a smooth framerate? Yes, but the "framerate smoothing" feature adds lag to the game. CCP you will need to achieve a more consistent framerate with other means.
Solution: Turn it off.

6. In Unreal Engine, "[...] mouse is done through the UI (scaleform) and not using a hardware cursor like most games. this makes it FPS-dependant so if the game runs slow the mouse runs slow too." (Source) "Since the crappy unreal engine 3 (yes I went there) doesn't have hardware mouse support, you'll see the response time of the mouse cursor going down with frame rate." (Source) This is disappointing. This means we will never see the day of having raw input. Dust is crippled by the Unreal Engine.
Solution: Maintain a good framerate and eliminate any framerate drops or fluctuations. Personally I think 24 fps is a good compromise - it is not hard to maintain an all-time 24fps (Dust is not far from that level of performance despite the fps drops) and 24fps looks somewhat acceptable to the human eye, although a bit slow and definitely cannot be compared with 60fps gaming.

7. Mouse smoothing - it adds buffers to your input (aka lag) so turn it off.
Solution: Turn it off.

8. Mouse acceleration - it destroys linearity and make movements inconsistent. Turn it off.
Solution: Turn it off.

9. Speed limits - "Jump suits limiting turning speeds" completely destroys smaller twitch movements (usually small adjustments while aiming). Only someone who has never played competitive shooters would suggest such a stupid idea. TURN IT OFF.
Solution: Turn it off. Review your design philosophy, CCP, do you want this little RPG gimmick ruin the FPS gameplay? It is definitely not worth it.

10. "Enter OneFrameThreadLag.... what is this, you say? I'm not sure, but it has something to do with the mouse lag in Unreal 3 games. Go into the BaseEngine.ini file in the config files, find the variable OneFrameThreadLag, and set it to "False"." (Source) This seems highly relevant. Perhaps CCP forgot to turn it off when they release the game.
Solution: Turn it off. (Set it to false.)



TLDR: CCP you have too many things that lag the controls. These are all proven to contribute to lag in other games, and they are all well known to PC gamers who have access to those tweaks. Now that you know what is causing the lags, CCP you will need to simply eliminate them.

Remember, a game is about gameplay before pretty graphics. You game is sheet if it looks pretty but have laggy and jerky controls. Also, don't forget to fix your hitboxes and hit detection.

Look how it is.. we hear there are different teams all working on different things and don't communicate with each other. recipe for failure right there. That is classic mismanagement 101.

Someone very seriously incompetent is calling the shots, or not calling the right shots. it's just lazy really. Potentially product killing lazy. It coudl even be that the person is way waaay out of their league and a FPS is way over their head/skill set. The former would be seriously lame, and the latter would be a horrible position to keep someone in. I can only imagine the stress they must be going through. They would need help at this point either way.

Either make history in a good way with this game, or become a footnote as a failed game that is only mentioned in future lists of horrible game development fails. It's currently screaming towards the former.

all very bad, and it's quite disappointing. It will be interesting to see if this collapses or gets revamped by putting talented people in charge of putting this together.

Very nice, no sure if CCP is going to take any notice, specially with the "Speed limits". Because according to some "idiots", using a mouse in a FPS game is cheating, sadly that is the people that CCP is listening to.

LOL. Dude, people who don't have a mouse should not get pwned continously by people with a mouse... and that is not a "cheating" issue but a reality.

Are the majority of PS3 players mouse users? Do we want to make the game less fun for the vast majority of PS3 owners just so mouse users can have an advantage? Maybe, if you think that will help the game success instead of just helping people who use a mouse to succeed.

I'm guessing that is where the fix came from... it wouldn't be because some people considered it "cheating". Seriously, can people at least put a bit of effort into these things? Make an argument for having mouse users completely destroy non-mouse users on a console game or something... that's all you need to be able to do.

EDIT: The only area I'm personally aware of this effect is in sniping... as that's my predominant play style. If it didn't apply to other suits and fittings then if a fix was needed it could be limited to where it is truly needed (if that is technically feasible).

As Aeon alluded to, #9 is to prevent mouse users from running circles around DS3 users, and forcing their usage in competitive matches.

Normalizing turning speeds across all suits and control methods is a wholly different can of worms.

I use DS3 just fine, even against mouse users (although an odd imbalance of 1337 are mouse users. Maybe veteran PC players are just better gamers? Or maybe point and click is easier for most people?) Also. This is a console. Use the consoles controller instead of crying about not getting a secondary system right?

"Maybe veteran PC players are just better gamers?"

Well, let me see.. first FPS game was make in 1973, competitive gaming started around 1992.. is 2013 now, you do the math.

I also know some really young console players who were great with sticks but since moved to KB/M because they found it easier. Veteran PC player here who has since moved to sticks. *shrugs*

Even though have KBM and move avaiable in this game is good.marketing and attracts some to dust, they hurt the game more than they help. The reason being that bad aiming and sluggish controls will turn away more people who would just rather play a game with a more polished aiming system. So while having KBM on the PS3 is pretty cool its a detriment to the game because of the difficulty in creating a fair and balanced playing field regardless of control scheme.

Counter Strike; Global Offensive supports both, KB/M and DS, and they doing fine. And i actually talking about both, PS3 and PC.

I have CS:GO and I'm pretty sure their match making system doesn't group DS3 and KBM users together unless friends are playing together.

Is no match making in the PC, just servers. Counter Strike; Source supported Dualshock controllers from launch ( 2004 ), and they had no problems balancing the two game devices, in fact i did use the DS in CS:S, the DS / mouse combo.

Edit: Battlefield 2 and Battlefront 1 & 2 also supports Dualshock controllers.

Heh, I'm not sure everyone is hearing the same statements you are.

I didn't know that CCP wasn't communicating internally. However, I can assure you that any corporation with offices in multiple regions will have some types of communications issues.

Also, I'm curious about cultural differences. Not all regions of the planet follow exactly the same management styles or philosophies. It's very possible that what we see is the result of a different cultures and different languages. Anyhow, one way or the other the proof will be in the pudding before too long.

I don't think it will "help" to start looking for people to blame...

I especially love number 9, lets just kill everything Dust is and give no reason to play anything other than Heavies.

**** off with this, I say.

We have other downsides, you know.

I hear this crazy rumor that we move slow, have massive hitboxes, and can't hit the broad side of a barn with our specialty weapons.

There are other ways of implementing the RPG elements (like slow walking, big hitboxes, etc) that doesn't affect aiming. Again, it is a problem of RPG overstepping FPS mechanics creating problems. The speed limit should never have gone through the sticky note stage.

With the poor aiming now we have, we will need to disable EVERY FACTORS contributing to aiming problems to HOPE to fix it.

Maybe not. But it's pretty obvious because they repeatedly say - I only know what is going on in my department. Other teams work on others things, so I don't know. <- It has been said repeatedly. Feel free to do the searching, because you'll find it. Not only do they say that repeatedly, it shows in their product. Their product has become a shining example of too many cooks in the kitchen without a chef. There is absolutely no QA. It is absurd to say there has been QA done on uprising. It is not so much that it is incomplete, it has all kinds of problems. bugs and crippling crashes and lag, etc ad nauseum. They actually have very little working well actually.

In my past life, I was an exec for an international trading firm. I've built and oversaw the building internationally, of our global trading network. I've worked with plenty of eurodevs in my time creating our trading software front end to work with our black boxes on the back end proximal to the US exchanges. the devs we worked with most were based in France. they have some great trading software dev talent there, FYI. But France is the king kong of vacation, man :) We'd basically shut down in december because they'd be on break until jan 2-3. every dev had a month of vacay besides that to use whenever they wanted- which would lulz out summer development.You know why none of that was an issue? Because we all knew it was coming, and would schedule properly around it all year long. voila. I mean, I admit, it does take some skill to get stuff done around **** like that, but i'm good like that. so that is more of an excuse than a reason for anything to do with the state of this game. Also of note- working with South African devs.. oh man. Those guys were hilarious. Everything was always 100% mate! meanwhile we are dead in the water. They'd be like 100% mate! It got to be a funny joke as I'd correct him that it was in fact, 0% as of right now, mate. we'd keep it loose and chill even as we would be potentially risking millions of rands as they bumbled around. it was just part of the business. While we continued to send order flow to the particular broker there, we would never use their dev team. TIA.. This is Africa. 100% mate!

but blah blah! The point is- cultural differences, outside of etiquette and decency all come down to the same thing. it's business. it's money. That is it no matter where you hail from.

When should they look for people to hold responsible for the state of everything? It's already pawn3d pretty much. I want this **** to succeed, dude. They need to find the problems and get everything not only on track, but the correct track before it's too late. I want them to make tons of money, and provide me with awesome eve/dust entertainment. I've voted numerous times with my wallet. I've supported them as much as I'd care to. I'm not going to baby them over it, and I will be the first to applaud them.. actually, I think you'd find almost everyone here would applaud the living **** out of them, and dump a gatorade cooler on the collective dev's head when this gets fixed. It will or could be epic. but it might not be the way it is going. that would be hard core suck for everyone. lose/lose.