Stutters in Multiplayer Research

[19//Moach 382]

Allow me to add something (possibly) constructive here.

 

 

I have noticed yesterday, once a mission had ended, and the message "mission will end in a minute" or similar had come up, the stuttering had all but completely stopped.

 

It could be then, that whatever causes this phenomenon is not really in the netcode itself, but perhaps it has more to do with the mission logic. 

 

This strikes me as a plausible guess due to how once a mission stopped tracking objectives and stuff, the problem simply went away.  And yet, at that same short interval, the multiplayer environment (sync'ing of aircraft positions and such) still appeared to have been active. 

 

It is also worth noticing that in that same server, while the mission was "young" (having just started), the stuttering was either not present at all or so mild it could not have been noticed at my present FPS.

 

The server had been about >80% full throughout the whole mission. It's player population did not seem directly related to the noticed amount of stuttering. 

 

But it was only after some time into the mission, well after most players had finished joining back in, that the problem gradually grew. First into noticeable, then all the way into performance-crippling shortly before it ended, abruptly, once the Germans had completed the process of thoroughly kicking our allied asses.  

 

In that short time between mission end and server "lights-out", there was a marked absence of the stuttering which gradually escalated up until that point.  Thus implying a possible connection between mission logic and the stuttering problem.

 

 

This would explain a few things, such as why the devs cannot seem to replicate the problem, and also why some servers have it more than others.  Plus, the variation in severity might account for the seemingly random set of settings variables reported to have some effect on it - by coincidence, if not by actual relation.  Multiplayer servers aren't exactly clean trial grounds for scientific experimentation.

 

Of course, from symptoms alone, this is just an educated guess.

 

 

But well, who knows? Maybe a guess might lead to something. Only one way to find out... 

 

 

Edited December 9, 2019 by 19//Moach

[=VARP=Tvrdi 383]

MIcrostuttering has nothing to do with FPS. My FPS is superb all the time.

[SCG_ErwinP 411]

IMO, stutters has bond with new maps.

What is happening in my side:

• TAW is running good, without stutters while running old maps (at moment) (I didn't play too much time in this campaing);
• Combat Box has lot of stutters (micro & macro) (running new maps most of time);
• New maps has lot of (big) cities closer one each other.
• Stalingrad is a big city but it isn't too much detailed such cities at Rheinland map

Potencially, new stuffs as said by Alonzo:

On 11/30/2019 at 11:48 PM, Alonzo said:

The latest release of the game has a ton of new stuff in it, including much asked for increases in spotting distances / render range, new building rendering, etc etc

 

I hope devs bring good news soon!

Edited December 10, 2019 by SCG_ErwinP

[III./ZG1_Ketzoh 2]

After hours of testing different settings without success, i maybe find a little solution, at least for me.

My Screen has a Refresh Rate of 60 Hz, but in the Nvidia CP i could lower the Refresh Rate to 59 and 50 Hz. So i set it to 50 Hz and in the Game Settings turn Vsync On and

Frames set to 50. After a quick Test on Combat Box i can say that the stutters are almost gone.

Edited December 12, 2019 by I./ZG1_Ketzoh

[=VARP=Tvrdi 383]

That is a "half solution" if any, for some.

Edited December 13, 2019 by =VARP=Tvrdi

[=VARP=Tvrdi 383]

Update. Tried again on WOL (75 players) and Combatbox (53 players). Same results, both with microstutters, WOL worse. Then I tried Random expert Battle of Stalingrad Tour 1 server and it was stutter free (56 players)....so, what to say now...

Edited December 15, 2019 by =VARP=Tvrdi

[=LG=Mad_Mikhael 122]

I've got a problem again, yesterday everything was working, nothing change since then with my hardware and software. Today my first launch, IL-2 crashed. I've tried again, crash. I've disabled software related to my headphones, since last time that was causing a crash (but they were different headphones and different software). And IL-2 is working again. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ PC restart, headphones software is running, IL-2 started and it's working..?? Okaay. But when flying, I've stutters and FPS drops from 60 to 30 both single and multiplayer. What the f...? Nothing change since yesterday.. 😐

[RedKestrel 1744]

18 minutes ago, =LG=Mad_Mikhael said:

I've got a problem again, yesterday everything was working, nothing change since then with my hardware and software. Today my first launch, IL-2 crashed. I've tried again, crash. I've disabled software related to my headphones, since last time that was causing a crash (but they were different headphones and different software). And IL-2 is working again. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ PC restart, headphones software is running, IL-2 started and it's working..?? Okaay. But when flying, I've stutters and FPS drops from 60 to 30 both single and multiplayer. What the f...? Nothing change since yesterday.. 😐

Did you happen to get a windows update? I know you said that nothing had changed but I sometimes have automatic updates when I shut down.

[=LG=Mad_Mikhael 122]

2 hours ago, RedKestrel said:

Did you happen to get a windows update? I know you said that nothing had changed but I sometimes have automatic updates when I shut down.

I've checked, no update. I was trying different things past 2 hours and nothing changed. Then I've restarted my PC for the second time, at I've played almost 1 hour on TAW and everything was back to normal. 🙄

[Olaf-A 0]

Guys, please follow Jason's note at the first page to pinpoint the issue cause:

NOTE: If you are on a server with stuttering, please do the following.
- Record a track of the stuttering.
- Please tell us if the track stutters when you play it back.
- Note how many users were on the server when stuttering occurred. 
- Save the mission files (they are downloaded to your install) so we can examine.

[TUS_Samuel 58]

From russian forums. Nothing new actually.
 

 

[4thFG_Cpt_D_S_Gentile 21]

It does doesn't it? But...…..does it slowly disappear with available targets?

 

Cheers

[Jason_Williams 18222]

Comments not contributing to the actual issue will be deleted. 

 

Jason

On 1/9/2020 at 9:38 AM, RavN_Sone said:

I feel bad about cluttering this topic with such things.. but I have to be honest here, it's the neglectful approach that's most irritating.

I am happy to support the WW2 simming niche, so very much. It is sometimes not cheap, but this is what I love. Therefore, I do understand things are often more difficult than they seem, and I do accept it when concessions have to be made. If making the game better and pushing the boundaries require some risks and cause problems - I accept that, because it serves a purpose.

BUT it has been few months now since the issue was (re-)introduced, not just the christmas break. You can see the team and Jason himself active in the forums, answering to questions and commenting on other stuff - almost instantly, I have to give it to them - but just ignoring this one. Even with all the spammy tagging. It's natural you become impatient and frustrated.

 

It is not that I was worried about the team's work pace or methods. I now worry that they actually might not be working on this at all.

 

We are not being neglectful. Comments like this are not helpful. If we were neglecting this issue this thread would not exist. I have not given an update because I have nothing new to add and very few of you have done what I have asked to help us solve the issue. We have worked on some new things to try and alleviate the issue, but we still don't know the root cause. It is very difficult to duplicate all the different conditions internally under which you may experience these.

 

And I say again, if you have smooth SP experience and have these stutters in MP, they are not caused by graphics settings on your end. It's something else that's why we need to see videos and tracks.

 

Jason

[=VARP=Tvrdi 383]

5 hours ago, Jason_Williams said:

Comments not contributing to the actual issue will be deleted. 

 

Jason

 

We are not being neglectful. Comments like this are not helpful. If we were neglecting this issue this thread would not exist. I have not given an update because I have nothing new to add and very few of you have done what I have asked to help us solve the issue. We have worked on some new things to try and alleviate the issue, but we still don't know the root cause. It is very difficult to duplicate all the different conditions internally under which you may experience these.

 

And I say again, if you have smooth SP experience and have these stutters in MP, they are not caused by graphics settings on your end. It's something else that's why we need to see videos and tracks.

 

Jason

On russian part of the forum there are  tracks and even youtube video showing exactly how it looks like and it was reposted in this topic I believe.

Edited January 13 by =VARP=Tvrdi

[Jason_Williams 18222]

Tvrdi,

 

Honestly, stop posting about this. I am fully aware you have MP stutters and I am aware of what is on the Russian forum.

 

Jason

[LLv34_Flanker 978]

S!

 

 I have no stutter at all in MP and that is what I exclusively play. Occasional stops here and there due players spawning or whatever it might be. But nothing continuous. My graphical settings are below in screenshot. Posting nVidia settings. Hardware in signature. Connection is 250mbs fibre.

 

 

Edited January 13 by LLv34_Flanker

[19//Moach 382]

8 hours ago, LLv34_Flanker said:

 

 I have no stutter at all in MP and that is what I exclusively play. Occasional stops here and there due players spawning or whatever it might be. But nothing continuous. My graphical settings are below in screenshot. Posting nVidia settings. Hardware in signature. Connection is 250mbs fibre.

 

 

It might be very useful to learn what your average ping is towards the server(s) where you play. 

 

That would help determine whether or not latency is somehow connected to the severity of the issue.

[LLv34_Flanker 978]

S! 

 

Ping is less than 30ms, usually 18-26ms. Will test other servers tonight to see if there is stuttering. 

[SCG_Tzigy 308]

just to add my 2 cents..

 

WOL ping usually 230-280.  stutters like crazy w new  maps/update

Combat Box ping <50-100 No Stutters

 

Ping/netcode/ or mission logic?

 

 

[LLv24_Zami 852]

7 hours ago, LLv34_Flanker said:

S! 

 

Ping is less than 30ms, usually 18-26ms. Will test other servers tonight to see if there is stuttering. 

Try out the WoL. It gives me the stuttering almost every time. 

[Alonzo 872]

You could also try TacView recording, which will show how many objects your client is processing. My suspicion is that with the longer aircraft visibility distances (something that multiplayer pilots have been asking for for a long time, and which is a massive boost to the game, really great stuff) the server is sending more information to the game clients. Kind of obvious really, the 10km "bubble" is no more, so there's a lot more stuff going on. On Combat Box we have tried hard to optimize the maps by switching off units when no players are nearby, but on a busy server this might not help since everything is mostly active most of the time.

 

Anyway. TacView might cause stuttering in itself because it's extra overhead, so don't confuse the issue, but it will show all the objects your client is processing. For me it's sometimes a surprising amount of objects including stuff very far away. This might give you an idea of if there is a difference between WoL and Combat Box for raw "amount of objects" or something.

 

Another thing you might try is some sort of network monitoring for the amount of bandwidth/packets used by your game client. Is it more bandwidth = more stuttering? Or no correlation? You want to do very specific monitoring though, not just Windows "network bandwidth" for the whole machine. I'm not sure of the right software to do this but I'm sure there is some to just look at the data to/from the IL2 server.

[LLv24_Zami 852]

1 hour ago, Alonzo said:

You could also try TacView recording, which will show how many objects your client is processing. My suspicion is that with the longer aircraft visibility distances (something that multiplayer pilots have been asking for for a long time, and which is a massive boost to the game, really great stuff) the server is sending more information to the game clients. Kind of obvious really, the 10km "bubble" is no more, so there's a lot more stuff going on. On Combat Box we have tried hard to optimize the maps by switching off units when no players are nearby, but on a busy server this might not help since everything is mostly active most of the time.

 

Anyway. TacView might cause stuttering in itself because it's extra overhead, so don't confuse the issue, but it will show all the objects your client is processing. For me it's sometimes a surprising amount of objects including stuff very far away. This might give you an idea of if there is a difference between WoL and Combat Box for raw "amount of objects" or something.

 

Another thing you might try is some sort of network monitoring for the amount of bandwidth/packets used by your game client. Is it more bandwidth = more stuttering? Or no correlation? You want to do very specific monitoring though, not just Windows "network bandwidth" for the whole machine. I'm not sure of the right software to do this but I'm sure there is some to just look at the data to/from the IL2 server.

When I have time, I'll give a Tacview a go. Sounds useful. 

[VBF-12_Snake9 224]

6 minutes ago, VBF-12_Snake9 said:

Well something very weird with this mission.  

 

As I stated earlier on 1-10-20 me and two other wingmen flew this mission and we all noticed heavy stutters.  Thus the above quote.  Then on 1-11-20 flew the same mission twice with the same wingmen and all of us noticed the stutters were completely gone.  Great!  We thought maybe the mission had been tweaked.  We flew again on 1-13-20 and again no stutters.  Great!

Well tonight I jumped on tonight 1-14-20 this mission and noticed right away the horrible micro stutters were back.  I took a quick flight and landed to restart my computer just to check it wasn't me.  Restarted and logged back in and took off from the same airfield a-92 down south.  I noticed the stutters were better but still not quite smooth.  I circled the airfield until a saw a 47 take off.  As soon as he went wheels up the micro stutters were awful once again.  Very confusing.  So I landed and wrote this post up.  

Again this is the only mission that I have had micro stutters on.  All other missions are smooth.  What makes it even more confusing is that we flew this same mission for several days smoothly until tonight.  Very confusing.  

I believe it has to do with the netcode or something like that due to when the 47 went wheels up the stutters started bad again.  But why would it be just this mission and not the others?  Very confusing.  

This was on combat box.  Maybe helpful.  

[G_Schwarz 6]

i live in Saudi Arabia and my ping in most servers is around 200 to 400 ms and i have no stutter at all

[RedKestrel 1744]

23 hours ago, Alonzo said:

You could also try TacView recording, which will show how many objects your client is processing. My suspicion is that with the longer aircraft visibility distances (something that multiplayer pilots have been asking for for a long time, and which is a massive boost to the game, really great stuff) the server is sending more information to the game clients. Kind of obvious really, the 10km "bubble" is no more, so there's a lot more stuff going on. On Combat Box we have tried hard to optimize the maps by switching off units when no players are nearby, but on a busy server this might not help since everything is mostly active most of the time.

 

Anyway. TacView might cause stuttering in itself because it's extra overhead, so don't confuse the issue, but it will show all the objects your client is processing. For me it's sometimes a surprising amount of objects including stuff very far away. This might give you an idea of if there is a difference between WoL and Combat Box for raw "amount of objects" or something.

 

Another thing you might try is some sort of network monitoring for the amount of bandwidth/packets used by your game client. Is it more bandwidth = more stuttering? Or no correlation? You want to do very specific monitoring though, not just Windows "network bandwidth" for the whole machine. I'm not sure of the right software to do this but I'm sure there is some to just look at the data to/from the IL2 server.

When I fly on Combat Box, regardless of player numbers, I get at least some stutters. They are noticeable worse on the BoBP map, but they still occasionally occur on the Kuban map missions.

The worst offender is A Bridge Too Far. I get 2 to 3 times as many stutters on that map as on any of the others. Ruhr Pocket is probably next worst. Crossing the Rhine and Battle of the Scheldt are pretty smooth over all. 

This doesn't mean there's a problem with the missions per se, but there is clearly an impact from the mission design standpoint on how bad the stuttering is. But the root problem is why is there stuttering in the first place?

 

11 hours ago, VBF-12_Snake9 said:

This was on combat box.  Maybe helpful.  

I think I was on this mission with you, saw you in the chat. For me, that mission had stuttering but a the 'normal' level for me; not really frequent or bad. So even people who have the stutters, flying in the same mission at the same time, can see it differently.

I have tracks, video and mission files from A Bridge Too Far last night where I had the stuttering, I will upload if I can, but my upload speed is highly throttled where I am so I will have to try and do it overnight at some point.

[RavN_Alienzo 34]

 

 

There's been an update and I made some test about stutters. Before update there was a 100 fps with drop to 50 fps at high alt (Rheinland map). At low it was 80fps to 40fps. Now it looks better, but it should be noted that there were only 18 people on the server.

 

[Miras 1]

I did a quick test  and the stutter was gone ..

Edited Tuesday at 05:47 PM by Miras

[RavN_Sone 76]

I did a little first test, on Wings of Liberty (50-70 players online) for most plausible effect.

The positive change is significant, performance was a lot better. It seems a little stutter here and there still happened (it always had with WoL), but those nasty framedrops were not noticeable.

 

I noted that, while before today's update there had been huge frametime spikes (from ~7 to 16 or sometimes even 30ms) and this was when the stutters showed, today frametime variations stayed around +/- 4 ms.

 

This was not a reliable sample for final conclusions, but general message is that v4.004 seems to have helped.

[EAF_Ribbon 695]

Stutters are GONE!

On Rheinland map in Combat box i always had bad stutters, now they are gone and everything is smooth as hell.

I fly in VR!

 

Also framerate is stable, i don't knlw what miracle you did but while taxing fps used to drop to 40 and now i have stable 79-80fps while taxing and in air.

 

4.004 is miracle for me!

[=VARP=Tvrdi 383]

My report after 4.04 update. I tested on Combatbox server, full (72/72) and with 45 players. Both missions on new bodenplatte map. The situation is much better now. Stutters are more or less - gone, can be still seen sometimes, moving around with edtracker pro is much smoother but I can still feel it its not smooth as before big "visibility patch". Still, now is playable and is much better online and most of the time i feel my head tracking/movement is much smoother. FPS is stable. I hope devs will continue with this fix since it seams its a right approach.

Edited Tuesday at 09:51 PM by =VARP=Tvrdi

[EAF_Ribbon 695]

I tested again on full server Combat box.

I've got some stutters over the big city with enemy activity bellow me.

Could be due to my hw limitations, overall much better than before.

 

 

[[_FLAPS_]Diggun 754]

I was having Micro- and Macro- stutters terribly on all maps, but by far worst on Rhineland, but post patch things are butter smooth everywhere else with just occasional stutters over big cities in Rhineland which I assume is hw related. This patch has made the game playable again for me, thank you devs!

[newbravado 10]

I just upgraded from an Intel qx9650  system with a gtx560ti to an AMD Ryzen 7 3700x / rtx2070s. Plus the latest patch and the game plays great. I've been able to kick all the settings up and it looks great. Thanks Devs for all your hard work.

[LLv24_Zami 852]

I've tested MP on few servers in the last couple of nights. And it seems, that the  4.004 patch does the trick reducing stutters to practically none in my case. So far so good, job well done!

[RedKestrel 1744]

From my testing last night, on several sorties I had no stuttering to speak of, other than a stuttering effect I get when zooming in on large cities. Only on one sortie did I encounter significant stuttering, but the next mission I did not encounter it.

[TUS_Samuel 58]

19 hours ago, [_FLAPS_]Diggun said:

This patch has made the game playable again for me, thank you devs!

 

Agreed! Got some sorties today after several of months of break, stuttering is there but much less. Devs good job!