Windows Multiplayer Stuttering source identified (partially)

G

GearBreak

Refugee
Version
25 B27
Platform
Windows
So me and my friend have been playing on and off for years and since I'd say.... A19, we had this absolute crazy stuttering for the hosting player whenever we were firing guns (Assault rifles causing the most lag) and when cycling through our toolbelts.

We blamed it on his old PC but now that he has a 3060 with a 9900x.... well it's still happening...
So today we had enough and frustrated by the lack of any fix or testing done to find the source we started messing around and.... we found a way to cause stutters on demand with 100% success....
This is important because I didn't realize at the time that he wasn't getting the stutters when we weren't around each other. He always tells me when it gets bad and he can't fire guns to defend himself which on hoarde nights is pretty important to do....

So we tested and Assault rifles by far due to the fire rate cause IMMENSE amount of stuttering and weird visual glitches like half black screens. Only the host suffers these issues. Shotguns seem to deal only minimal stutters. This happens regardless of if there's one zombie or 20.
If I cycle my toolbelt every switch causes BAD stuttering.

This is where we finally found something interesting, it only happens if he's within 25m of me EXACTLY.
25.1m no stutter at all.
25m or less, stutters.
We tested modded, vanilla, minimum graphic, maximum graphic, none of this made it worse or better.
So I think there's a bug in the synching for multiplayer cause its not a lag or an FPS drop its just a hitching stutter from loading that is only host side.
 
Reproduction Steps
Play Multiplayer and be the host
Have someone play with you
Be within 25m of each other
Have the NON HOSTING player cycle items in his tool belt while the host moves around.
Link to Logs
https://pastebin.com/vw7TrkVk
Link to Screenshot/Video
https://gyazo.com/f1008bade7d1f8fe45035c499c3b2dd2
I confirm this as I tried it with my brother and as soon as he's within 25m or less from me, I see this weird flickering on the screen as he's switching weapons on his toolbar. I'm also hosting the game.
Thank you for finding this. I would see the flicker every once in a while but didn't know what was causing it.
 
Space4Ace said:
I confirm this as I tried it with my brother and as soon as he's within 25m or less from me, I see this weird flickering on the screen as he's switching weapons on his toolbar. I'm also hosting the game.
Thank you for finding this. I would see the flicker every once in a while but didn't know what was causing it.
Click to expand...
I’m the friend he plays with, we actually figured out what’s causing the hitching/stuttering. He was using the hell reaver skin, removing it makes the issue go away. He changed to a different skin and the issue is still present but not nearly as bad/no graphical glitches and minimal hitching/stuttering. Removing the skin altogether and just showing regular armor and the issue 100% is gone. Buttery smooth.
 
Bunnifyed said:
I’m the friend he plays with, we actually figured out what’s causing the hitching/stuttering. He was using the hell reaver skin, removing it makes the issue go away. He changed to a different skin and the issue is still present but not nearly as bad/no graphical glitches and minimal hitching/stuttering. Removing the skin altogether and just showing regular armor and the issue 100% is gone. Buttery smooth.
Click to expand...
I will try that tomorrow... Thanks!
 
I've spoted similar behavior you described. The flickering you see is due to the cloth system used for outfits and such, other options have been looked at/being looked at internally (it used to be way worse before public release but as you can see not all have been fixed).

Gun firing shouldn't be that taxing, quite a bit of work (mostly networking) was done, but it may be triggering something else. Either way, I'll do some profiling today based on what yall are discussing here.

Certainly not required and I wouldn't be upset if you two didn't try this, but try making a quick game reversing the host/client in creative mode and see if it's any better or not.

Side note: we do know of some issues with some gear that happened at one of the last merges we did for the build that's out atm, we're working on that. So, I'll check with fixes internally and see if that affects it or not.
 
pastebin.com

Test-7d2d - Pastebin.com

Pastebin.com is the number one paste tool since 2002. Pastebin is a website where you can store text online for a set period of time.
pastebin.com pastebin.com

Ya i had hitching as the host and somehow its still worse if my friend wears an armor set as a skin and even worse if I wear the hell reaver even as the host, so its from wearing skins about 20% and 80% the hell reaver
Pastebin is my creative mode logs
Post automatically merged:

Forgot to add there is, regardless of skins or not, some barely perceptible hitching as the host regardless.
 
Confirmed, got some profiling samples and will narrow down which outfits/armors are causing it.

However, I have not found any lag spikes related to gunfire, so I am still digging at that, but I do have some ideas.

Thanks for reporting!
 
GearBreak said:
So we tested and Assault rifles by far due to the fire rate cause IMMENSE amount of stuttering and weird visual glitches like half black screens. Only the host suffers these issues. Shotguns seem to deal only minimal stutters. This happens regardless of if there's one zombie or 20.
If I cycle my toolbelt every switch causes BAD stuttering.
Click to expand...

I've actually not been able to reproduce gunfire causing the stuttering, not that I'm going to give up trying to get it to happen. Definitely got the toolbelt cycle though. It very well could be the same cause though, so it may not matter.
 
The gunfire while still causing issues is much less severe than it was once, the belt problem just made it seem as though it was the same as back in..... A21? or A23, theres still some slight stutter and hitching when firing but its not game breaking, tho any improvement is welcomed.

Glad to see I got the belt and skin issues identified :D
 
I stand corrected even as the one not hosting doing some high level POI in the snow area caused me to chunk hard with an m60 mowing down over 20 zombies at once
 
GearBreak said:
The gunfire while still causing issues is much less severe than it was once, the belt problem just made it seem as though it was the same as back in..... A21? or A23, theres still some slight stutter and hitching when firing but its not game breaking, tho any improvement is welcomed.

Glad to see I got the belt and skin issues identified :D
Click to expand...
The last Alpha was A21 and then TFP released 1.0
 
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