Stutter step

locallyunscene · March 2012

<div class="IPBDescription">can't move</div>When I join a game my latency is fine (28 ping for example) but moving around even in the ready room is like I'm constantly being jerked back a half second behind. I tried lowering the resolution and settings down to ridiculously awful but this didn't help.
win 7
AMD Athlon II X4 630 Processor 2.80 GHz
6GB Memory
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS

Kouji_San · March 2012

Is it like rubber banding? That would most likely be cause by the server being low on tickrate. net_stats will show you, if it isn't then I dunno...

Kivlov · March 2012

I've been getting this too, but it only happens when me and my roomate play on the same server. Odd because it sometimes doesn't do it and other times it does.

Kouji_San · March 2012

I've had rubber banding happen once on a perfectly fine server and it was after a VPU recovery. I was something like 10000ms behind in terms of what was going on on UWE Onos. Then after a while I got a very large amount of kill/build/destroyed messages and it went back to normal. But that was a very rare case :P

On a side note, check net_stats when you have this, maybe it will show you that your client is doing a lot of predictions. Then try and use the profiler in the console (profile) and get us a screenhots of the high peaks and drill it down on the high ping objects. You can pause the thing with space and cycle trough it with the [ and ] keys.

The devs love those screenshots

locallyunscene · March 2012

So I joined a server to replicate and the problem was pretty much gone. I still felt it a little bit but it was subtle. I took a screenshot and decided to play through the game to see how it goes. I was good until the server shot down or I lost the connection or something. At which point I pulled down the console and typed exit to save the screenshot and the game crashed. Hard. I had to restart my computer. I'll try this exercise again tomorrow, but maybe the "rubber banding" is a first load problem.

Martin7 · March 2012

Hi,

those lags are very often (i play this game since last friday) and most for all players on the server when u ask the people. Its almost unplayable and i think it doesnt depend on the system. I try to make a screenshot in the evening when it happens again.

Floodinator · March 2012

Considering how many new server popped up and how many of them run on normal Server hardware, it's hard to find AND join a good Server.

From those 100 Servers only around 6 grant a constant tickrate over 20.
I can't understand how 16 ppl can play with 3 ticks for hours.

Obraxis · March 2012

At the moment, there are lots of 'listen' and WINE (running on Linux) servers. Right now NS2 only runs on Windows, and works best on a dedicated FAST CPU. Currently, the best servers are:

Inversion, Team 156, Skulkrush, HBZ, and AustraliaPure.

They have the most powerful and best tickrates currently. Other servers, you can check with the 'net_stats' command in console. If the tickrate is less than 15 to 10, try another server :)

Martin7 · March 2012

Which Internet-Connection is recommended to run a server with 14 players?

Argathor · March 2012

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Martin7 @ Mar 5 2012, 02:49 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1910153"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>Which Internet-Connection is recommended to run a server with 14 players?</div>
I am interested in an answer to this too. I tried hosting 14 players on my connection (50 down, 5 up) and it seemed ok. I wasn't sure if the gameplay was suffering in a non-obvious way though.

Obraxis · March 2012

Keep en eye on net_stats on both clients and servers. Make sure msgs are getting through.

Martin7 · March 2012

Hi,

so here are two screenshots from net_stats and profile (how can i disable profile again?). Tickrate always changes between 7-14 and it was like those rubber banding like people described before, like you wrote before, its the low tickrate which causes the problem? Maybe u can see also something at the profile which im not able to read correctly i guess.
Whats the Prediction rate?

System:
Intel Core i7 2600K
2x4GB G.Skill DDR3-1600 Kit (F3-12800CL7D-8GBXH, RipjawsX)
ASUS Maximus IV Extreme-Z
ASUS ENGTX580 DirectCu II
OCZ Vertex 3 240GB
Windows 7 x64

Internet Connection:
8192 kBit/s
768 kBit/s

Edit:
Wasnt able to add the profile screen, even 50kb seems too much/big.

ScardyBob · March 2012

This 'stutter step', more commonly referred to as rubberbanding, is usually an issue with the server. As the server tickrate drops below about 20, the client starts to do more prediction (i.e. you moved from A-------------->C). However, when the server finally sends you another update, it says you didn't move as far as your client says you did and resets your position back (i.e. instead of moving to C it says your true position is A--------->B-------C, which in practice means you suddenly find yourself transported back a few paces). Speed this up so that its happening dozens of times a second and you get the stutter step/rubberbanding problem.

Sadly, the only solution is to find a server in which the tickrate doesn't drop to <20 (or <10) very often. In addition to the servers Obraxis mentioned, you might also try:

All-In or go home!, Team Darkside, and devicenull's NS2 server.

paradoxum · March 2012

I get this stutter/lag when I have a good ping too, thought it was only me. so it's the server hardware being crap?

endar · March 2012

It's not that its crap, but more that it cannot handle the current load required by the server. This can sometimes mean its crap (or not good enough for NS2), OR it can mean that the server has suffered a bug and caused a looping script which is requiring about 70% of the load for running this bad script, leaving 30% or less for actual game code.

If it happens immediately after being ok, then chances are its a script error.

Obraxis · March 2012

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Martin7 @ Mar 5 2012, 02:51 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1910212"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>Hi,

so here are two screenshots from net_stats and profile (how can i disable profile again?). Tickrate always changes between 7-14 and it was like those rubber banding like people described before, like you wrote before, its the low tickrate which causes the problem? Maybe u can see also something at the profile which im not able to read correctly i guess.
Whats the Prediction rate?

System:
Intel Core i7 2600K
2x4GB G.Skill DDR3-1600 Kit (F3-12800CL7D-8GBXH, RipjawsX)
ASUS Maximus IV Extreme-Z
ASUS ENGTX580 DirectCu II
OCZ Vertex 3 240GB
Windows 7 x64

Internet Connection:
8192 kBit/s
768 kBit/s

Edit:
Wasnt able to add the profile screen, even 50kb seems too much/big.</div>

Your system is fine, it's the server which is either a Listen server (Normal PC not a server), a Emulated Server VM or WINE under Linux, or just slow. So it's down to finding a faster server I'm afraid for now.

Martin7 · March 2012

Hi,

thx for your answers. @Obraxis ye did so, actually its hard to find a good one, on most servers, tickrate will break when more players are joining.

Stutter step

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