Spiral Knights - Why is there so much lag in this game?

Why is there so much lag in this game?

9 replies [Last post]

Mon, 10/24/2011 - 09:57

Quiiliitiila

I don't think it's just me, most of my guild mates have started complaining about it to and I've read others on these forums. Is there some sort of reason/problem? I play far more complicated and in-depth MMOs (Star Trek Online, Champions Online to name a few) and never really have a problem, but when I play SK it becomes unbearable in even the simplest of encounters. Heck just walking in the clockworks can be laggy for me!

So is this a problem on my end as some people have maintained or is it that something on OOO's end?

I should also point out that I used to rarely have a problem with lag, but as the months since release rolled by I've seen a degradation. Is it there are to many people playing and the servers can't keep up? (Forgive me if the servers have nothing to do with it, I'm not as technically minded as some of you I'm sure).

Yeah,
Quiiliitiila

Mon, 10/24/2011 - 10:13

Wickinson

I have noticed a pretty

I have noticed a pretty severe increase in lag ever since the Halloween content update. At first I thought my connection was having issues, but the game still indicates a four bar connection on my end and Pingtest says I'm not dropping packets so I can only assume that the issue must be server side.

Mon, 10/24/2011 - 10:20

Kirnan

Lag or Framerate

Is your game stuttering, where the screen freezes? Or are you doing actions and finding they are not happening in the time frame you are hitting keys?

Mon, 10/24/2011 - 10:25

Chris

Three rings is too money

Three rings is too money grabbing to upgrade their servers to something even remotely at level with other MMOs.

That's about it.

Mon, 10/24/2011 - 10:26

Aljevoias

Performance issues are almost

Performance issues are almost always related to Java.

There's a thread somewhere... Here: http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/12849

To be honest I think the biggest issue holding this game back is technical issues relating to Java. This game stutters for most people who don't tweak their java settings, even with beastly PCs. Not a lot but enough to kill you on a regular basis down in the clockworks. Combine that with CE mechanics and you have a very discouraging new player experience.

Mon, 10/24/2011 - 10:38

Culture

Yep

Since the Halloween release the lag has been bad, so bad that I've been avoiding Stratum 4+ danger rooms. Every 1-2 minutes my connection will go from 4 bars to 1 bar then back again. During moment everything is delayed. So if I swipe at a monster I don't get the damage number until a moment later. Or I might shield early but then get hit anyways. Or if I 'm standing directly over a vial someone else will walk past and pick it up instead. That kind of thing. In a danger room that could mean being hit many times despite dodging/shielding successfully.

It didn't do that prior to the release for me. I noticed there are about twice as many Haven instances (22ish instead of 12ish) so people are definitely clamoring for candies. Back when Steam was released and it went to 70+ this issue wasn't quite as bad, I'd get a network lag spike once or twice a floor not repeatedly as it is now.

This is completely different from the "lag" I usually get where my screen simply freezes for a moment when creatures are spawning, I get hit or a knight joins the party. That has always happened. I think that is just my CPU not handling the necessary processing.

I tried the performance tweaks in the thread Aljevoias pointed out. Most of it just made the game unplayable on my computer. The only things that made sense was running 64-bit JRE since I'm on a 64-bit computer and running the game in High priority automatically. All the other things I ended up reverting. As a C# programmer, I definitely agree that Java is the issue though ;)

Mon, 10/24/2011 - 10:34

Wickinson

Not stuttering

@Kirnan & Aljevoias
Actually I'm referring to connection lag, the sort that manifests in the form of rubberbanding whenever you run somewhere and is usually associated with having 130+ Ping in most games.

Mon, 10/24/2011 - 10:44

Cavadus

Staggering

I'm normally fine on JK runs; I only lag into an enemy or explosive block maybe one out of every five to six minutes but yesterday I froze and d/c'd not once, but three times during the Depth 16 part. Is anyone else out there getting this kind of massive lag?

Mon, 10/24/2011 - 10:54

Onionflunkie

@Aljevoias

oh god thank you for posting that.

I hope I can remove the stutters now...

Mon, 10/24/2011 - 14:12

Aylnine

I usually get 3 types of

I usually get 3 types of lag:

Frozen: The screen completely freezes and nothing moves for 1-5 seconds, but voice chat at least is still in sync. Bars steady at 3.
Slow: My character moves slowly, my bars are at 1 or 2 and to other people I look like I'm still moving even if I'm not pressing anything. On my screen it looks like other people are flying off the field, far away on the minimap, or flickering.
Delayed: Swiping at enemies doesn't register a hit until a second after. Projectiles that are an mile away hit me. Bars at 3.

My partner and I were having the same problem last night in a danger room. It was the type with 2 walls of different blocks, with spikes on each far corner. We were getting "frozen" lag for upwards of 5 seconds. Once outside of the danger room the lag was gone. Both of us usually get lag on and off in different places, but this was the first time the lag was so bad for both of us that it was nearly unplayable.

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Why is there so much lag in this game?