Spiral Knights - Server-Side Lag -- The Hardest Enemy in the Game

Server-Side Lag -- The Hardest Enemy in the Game

23 replies [Last post]

Fri, 03/09/2012 - 20:27

Simohayha

I tried asking nicely, but apparently nobody took notice. Now I'm livid.

OOO, it is your responsibility to have servers that can hold the capacity of the game you make.

It's a nice game, one I enjoy very much. I wish to play it further, or else I wouldn't be posting this.

Now as I said before, if it were a hardware or software issue on my end, that's one thing. But when every single FSC party I'm in has their game freeze for 5 seconds and we go from full health to Trojans stomping on our corpse as we stare at our screens blankly, it feels less like a game and more like a racquet. And it's far too frequent and widespread for it to be people trying to "cover" for their poor play.

If I make mistakes or I screw up and die, I'm okay with that. I can learn from that. But the lag is totally out of my control, and when I die to it, I have nothing to learn or improve, and I feel scammed.

I have countless complaints of the same accord. The lag and freezing issues are actually taken as part of the "strategy" in boss levels. This is completely unacceptable, and I'm sure you know this. Now I'm aware this can't be fixed overnight, but I need SOME recognition of this problem and that help is somewhere along the way. I want to keep playing Spiral Knights, as do all of us. Please give us the tools to do so both in good faith and as your duty as the provider.

Thanks,

Simo.

Fri, 03/09/2012 - 20:41

Demonicsothe

Must nerf lag.

Fri, 03/09/2012 - 20:44

Shoebox

The lag is a lot worse now

The lag is a lot worse now than it used to be.

Orders of magnitude worse. I've never gone above one bar this entire time.
The game is completely and totally unplayable in this state.

Unless somebody is carrying you.

Fri, 03/09/2012 - 21:38

Heimdallr

---

It's still playable for me... I always end up at 1 or 2 bars during peak hours though. Becomes a bit troublesome.

Fri, 03/09/2012 - 22:18

Katmint

I haven't noticed any

I haven't noticed any server-side lag at all.

The only new lag issue I've had lately is that the run-the-game-too-long lag respawns much more frequently than it used to, but it's nothing spamming the Task Manager's charge attack can't fix, which rules out the server as the cause of the problem.

Fri, 03/09/2012 - 22:29

Dodolisme

always 1 bar ftw! I wonder

always 1 bar ftw! I wonder how I'd do if I have 4 bars XD.. this game must've been more fun & enjoyable if I have full bars...

Fri, 03/09/2012 - 22:42

Iron-Volvametal

...

I wish I could Give my connection to someone else after I'm done using my Mist Energy. I feel like a fatty with my 4-5Bar Connection. ._.

Sat, 03/10/2012 - 00:39

Shortnstubby

Ok, im sorry to tell you that

Ok, im sorry to tell you that if your screen is completely freezing for a few seconds then you are able to move again, it is your pc and the way that java is working for you, you need to tweak your java parameters, the thread i linked is a gm telling you how to do the tweaks on steam client, and the beginning of the thread on page 1 is how to do it with the standalone java client and you can also use the way the gm said to do it for stand alone as well.

Please read this thread
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/12849?page=2#comment-199145

now I my self use the following parameters and it has solved merely all my freeze issues.
-Xmx1g
-XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC
-XX:+CMSIncrementalMode
-XX:+ExplicitGCInvokesConcurrent

Sat, 03/10/2012 - 05:54

Realnight

I have only ever had 5 bars -

I have only ever had 5 bars - but I rarely have a lag free experience with this game. The game uses a synchronous networking model though (guess they would have to since we fight AI characters) so your connection is only as good as the slowest person in the party.

I have used the above mentioned settings too - they helped in many places but for me at least made some very important areas (like Vana's throne room) significantly worse.

Sat, 03/10/2012 - 05:59

Paweu

I've used those tweaks once

I've used those tweaks once too, the result was a huge loading time and me being dead after the game finished loading the level (apparently i was already in the level and had control over my character according to the game because normally you blink invisible after loading, i myself blinked over my character being dead without me having a chance to fight back).

Sat, 03/10/2012 - 06:01

#10

Simohayha

@Shortnstubby

I really thank you for the input, I have no idea how to do anything like that though. Still, knowing I can do something to solve this lifts my spirits. I will read the thread and implement your parameters if I can figure out how, then report back.

Sat, 03/10/2012 - 06:03

#11

Evilnut

I usually have a single red

I usually have a single red dot, sometimes I get two yellow bars. When it changes from red dot to 2 bars (and vice versa), my knight gets jerked forward for a short distance, which is great for getting a face full of spikes or fire.

When I watch videos of people playing, I always think "oh now he gets into that situation... he's gonna lose half of his HP now..." only he didn't. He maneuvered out of the crowd easily without taking a hit. Then I noticed that's with full bars.

And that's why I'm haven't paid OOO a single dime. I will not pay for this kind of gaming experience... I'm here only because it's F2P.

Show your commitment to us by setting up Asian servers. Then I will buy that DLC of yours and some energy packs.

Sat, 03/10/2012 - 12:03

#12

Shortnstubby

@Realnight I agree on your

@Realnight I agree on your statement about the synchronous network and that is how the game works so if you connection ping + bandwidth is not adequate it will cause bottle necking and major issues, on the other hand changing parameters does result in different outcomes on different pc's containing different hardware. It seams to make the most difference on high end pc's and cause more issues on lower end pc's, in the thread I linked in previous posts I state my pc hardware and what it had changed for my experience as well.

@Paweu Yes it does increase load time a slight bit, but I still load faster than 3/4 of the party usually. also im not sure how you were moving and such unless your mashing keys while it is loading...especially with the changing station and such on each level now, not sure how you would be getting killed.

@Simohayha Good luck hope you have some insight to fixing the issue once you finish reading that thread. I was to the point I couldn't even play the 2nd level of IMF cause it froze so bad, now I'll do UIMF or IMF any day of the week and love it. (always was one of my favorite bosses)

@Evilnut you are dead on with your statement, there's only so much you can do when the latency is that high, people don't think a 1/4 to half second delay is that bad but really its horrible when a game like this actually does require some quick reflexes and pinpoint timing. I have friends from the UK that I play with and they have 4 bars when on the EU server and if I join their party I'm constantly getting hit when normally on the US server I would be just fine when having 4 bars, so I can feel your pain even at 2 bars.

Sat, 03/10/2012 - 12:08

#13

Paweu

I wasn't moving, i joined a

I wasn't moving, i joined a friend and at the moment he was on a spike trap (had control i.e. i was not invisible, not literally could move with my character, the game removed the invicibility flag prematurely)

Sat, 03/10/2012 - 12:39

#14

Shortnstubby

Lol well that's gonna happen

Lol well that's gonna happen no matter what, if I join a party I always start trying to shield when I'm around 85 to 90%. But loading on spikes is pretty much gurenteed death lol.

Sat, 03/10/2012 - 12:57

#15

Paweu

It doesn't happen if you

It doesn't happen if you don't use those tweaks, you get few seconds on invicibility and full character control.

Sat, 03/10/2012 - 13:52

#16

Simohayha

Disappointment

Shortnstubby, can you send me a mail in-game and talk to me, because I tried doing what you said and if it did anything it only made it worse.

OOO, I'm getting really damn sick of this. I demand some sort of explanation.

Sat, 03/10/2012 - 14:19

#17

Shortnstubby

List your pc specs, like I

List your pc specs, like I said depending on pc specs it can make it worse some it can make a world of difference, I'm mobile atm so I cannot log in game for atleast the next 3 or 4 hours

I run win 7
I7 720qm
8gb ram
HD 5870

This is in a laptop, now if your runnin say a dual core at like 2.2 ghz, 2 or 4 gb ram and a basic onboard video card I bet them settings I mentioned will make it worse for that is my expirence. just list cpu model, amount of ram, and video card althogh video card isn't much needed it helps this game is more cpu and ram intensive

Sat, 03/10/2012 - 14:47

#18

Xylka-Mkii

My specs Windows 7

My specs
Windows 7 64bit
NVIDIA GEFORCE 310M graphics card
Intel i5
4 Gigs of RAM

On a Laptop. And I run at 4 bars no lag (except those slight lag 'jumps' but those clear up.) Try updating your drivers and such, it might help. I know that usually nothing can fix for lag, but I haven't noticed a huge difference, only when I'm on EU servers I lag out pretty bad.

Sat, 03/10/2012 - 14:53

#19

Simohayha

No Windows, sigh

Yeah, I'm on a Mac (not my choice, stop the flame posts now). It's a good Mac though, runs harder games than SK without a hitch.

Mac OSX 10.6
4 GB RAM
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.6 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT

Sat, 03/10/2012 - 15:29

#20

Shortnstubby

@Simohayha bingo I'm not

@Simohayha bingo I'm not against mac but that's exactly what my gf uses and we have tested different settings but anything besides running stock java settings (no paramater changes) and low graphic settings is the best we can make her mac laptop run. We tried the configs I use and it just made it worse. She has expirenced even more freezes since they put out a patch a while ago to stop mac crashes, although in 7+ months of using sk on a mac she never had a crash but I guess others have had issues. But yeah she expirences the same issues.

@xylka if you have any freezes a setup like that should be able to cure freezes using the settings I mentioned previously

Sun, 03/18/2012 - 20:19

#21

Ndognine-Forums

This needs to be bumped.

This needs to be bumped. Taping my "a" key once should not make me walk across the map under any circumstances

Sun, 03/18/2012 - 20:31

#22

Guttler

My lag experience.

I haven't noticed any server side lag, but I haven't been running FSC recently either.

My lag problem is that flame vents, frost vents, three other knights in my party, and to a lesser extent spikes throttle my games performance to a point where some rooms in FSC and missions like the gauntlet are almost unplayable.

What really kills destroys me are the room in FSC with the four switches with the key in the middle and the final room before Vanaduke where the trojan breaks the blocks, the last one is very bad because that room is a heck of a fight even with good ping and frame rate.

Please please please get rid of lag in spiral knights.

Sun, 03/18/2012 - 20:34

#23

Toxicyoccm

Best part of loading a stage

Is finding yourself dead on the other side of a T3 deconstruction zone's party button, still in wolver-line gear, surrounded by gremlins.

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Server-Side Lag -- The Hardest Enemy in the Game