Continuing Server Issues (13th Sept)

(Moobabe) #1

Hey all,

We’ve spent a load of time investigating the server issues that have plagued us the past week or so. After fixing the ‘black screen on loading’ issue, we were still seeing reports from you all about poor performance on servers; lag, high pings, getting kicked etc

We hope that we’ve narrowed down this problem – an issue where having multiple instances in one machine was causing your reported problems.

There is also a known issue with auto-restarting servers. We have this enabled to happen once a day, but it doesn’t take into account how many (if any) players are active in the server. Our partners at Multiplay have found a solution to this and it’s currently in QA with them, and hopefully it can release next week.

Solutions!

We have increased the amount of machines DB servers are running on, meaning less instances on single machines. For some regions (Sydney and South America) you should start seeing an improvement immediately.

We will let you know about the auto-restart fix as soon as it is live.

This week’s video

We won’t be having a Dev Update video this week. We’ve been incredibly focused on getting the post 1.0 issues fixed – they are your most reported issues, and the main thing we’ve been working on!

Keep the feedback coming, we’re listening and working on it!

Devs abandoning DB?
What happened to the Dev Videos after 1.0?
(Moobabe) pinned #2
(kittz0r) #3

Another Weekend with no Fixes?

If you are listening why does it take years to acknowledge Server Performance Problems? all we got from SD was: take a Note which Server blabla, but that more or less all Servers have Problems got ignored.

2+ Weeks and we still can’t play without Issues, SD should be ashamed to call themselves Triple A Devs…

(Floris) #4

What part of “for some regions you should start seeing an improvement immediately” did you not understand?

I will check out some Asian servers tonight and see if things improved.

(kittz0r) #5

Great, enjoy your stable Servers with 5 Players while the majority sits in the Dark for 3 Weeks.

(Khuzen) #6

Just wanted to mention that the lag along with the terrible rubber-banding has been an issue regardless of how high my ping and those of others in the server are. Just to clarify, I mostly play in the Singapore servers with around 40 ping on a good day even at DB’s current state. But in my experience there was one time where the lag dropped and the match played out without much issue. I have also heard from other players claiming that they have also encountered certain instances like this. It is rare however and only happened to me once. I am concerned with the effect of this issue on new players, having most of my time spent in global chat explaining to new players why the game is lagging. It’s sad to see new players leave matches out of frustration and I can’t say that I haven’t done the same.

It seems to me that most new players do not know this ongoing issue and having to explain it to them ourselves makes a big difference in my opinion because in their eyes, it gives the impression that the game developers are not communicating with the players as well as making the game seem poorly maintained in the process. This is the case for most new players as they don’t have much knowledge/experience with the game and not taking the initiative to find the answers to their questions on these forums, even less so when their first experience with the game is such a negative one.

I feel that having this information available in game would make a big impact in a good way. One would not need to go to the forums for such vital information and it would definitely make an impression. It would show that the developers are on top of the issue trying their best to fix it, rather than seeming like they’re trying to hide it. Especially for the new players. My proposal is to have this information displayed in the news feed within the game itself. On top of this I think that including a promise of some form of compensation when the game is fixed will help persuade players new and old to hopefully return to the game when it’s fixed.

The best of luck to the development team, I hope these server issues will be fixed soon.

(Floris) #7

Just tried playing on a server in Singapore and it started lagging pretty soon afterwards. :frowning: looking forward to the real fix. In the meantime, if it’s the case that a server restart fixes the issue, how about giving more people that ability?

(PeterReaper) #8

Massive lag issues on almost EVERY server I’ve played in Europe since 1.0 came out. It’s an embarrassment. This should have been caught during beta testing BEFORE 1.0 came out. Amateur error. Lazy. Dumb. What are you doing NOW to fix this debacle?

Your communication with your customers / players / community is awful. Your main spokesperson (Mr. Sunsine) only communicates in generalities and platitudes. Do you think we are that dumb, or are you that dumb, to think we can’t handle (and desire) some nerdy techy insights? My god, John Carmack gave us very detailed high level technical infos about DOOM way back in 1993, and we all lapped it up with GREAT INTEREST - making us LOVE the game even more. Have people become so much dumber since then? Have we become the movie Idiocracy?

(Mc1412013) #9

Weird thing is when the server laggs like crazy i can clear itself if the right person leaves. Ive had my server lagg real bad then some o e left and it was fine after that

Also i already talked to multi play they said sd is at fault for issues not there servers

(Mc1412013) #10

D.b. 1.0 is out so they done no more dev vids claiming there buisy(call b.s.) and and more bugs on top of ev not fn fixed weapons system not fixed ect. But we have face it and nvidia integration That could have waited after bugs were fixed

(Khuzen) #11

During the beta we have never experienced lag as often as it appears now (all the time). What I am trying to say is that the lag issues we all have been experiencing is not due to a problem before the 1.0 update was released, at least not one that would have shown itself or affect the game during that time. The developers most likely would not have been able to simulate the real world stress on the servers post update.

I know that there are existing issues with Dirty Bomb’s net code, at least that is what other people say. An example of this would be the often mentioned lack of latency distribution, a supposedly major setback to becoming the proper competitive e-sports title that Dirty Bomb is supposed to become. In another thread talking about these lag issues someone else mentions that the problems stem from the UE3 engine itself, which has supposedly been discussed for a long time now. Have a look for yourself.

Please don’t speak for all of us and state that we all have the same negative experiences. Why not talk a bit more about your own experiences regarding this topic? I have had a couple issues in the past that I’ve reported and had resolved almost instantly. Personally, I don’t have any complaints in this aspect. Sure they could be a bit more involved but I’m sure they have other things to do. I also think there is a reason why things are kept simple. Ill admit, I like being involved in the technical side of things as well. However, other players wouldn’t find it entertaining nor informative when they can’t understand half of what is being said. They need to appeal to everyone. Why come to this conclusion, accusing the developers for treating us like toddlers?

(Khuzen) #12

Just putting this out there, what if the Developers had uploaded a Dev Video? Are you sure that in that situation, you would not have bashed them instead for making a video rather than focusing on fixing the bugs? Plus, I am sure that the Nvidia integration was being worked on in the background anyway. It was probably already planned to be released for the 1.0 update, it would have been another promise broken. Why delay the release of a new feature when it has already been completed? It would not have made any difference to the performance of the servers, nor weaken the performance of the development team at Splash Damage at fixing bugs because the server issues only surfaced AFTER the 1.0 release. AFTER the introduction of Nvidia highlights. I’m not trying to say that I am satisfied at the game’s current state. But seriously, move on. Adapt.

(K1X455) #13

I gave this one a fair go and, no… the improvements needs to be perceived. I tried it on several places (Sydney, Singapore, LA, Frankfurt and Stockholm). At some point, I tried to play at Sao Paolo with 420ms latency and it’s the same symptoms of hits not registering and reloads not working.

Netcode needs to be seriously reworked. Whatever you did in the last 5 updates, you need to bring it back because it’s really intolerable when you run out of ammunition and have to reload much longer than necessary just to get back into the fight.

EDIT:
BTW, that app switching thing with Alt-Tabbing in and out of DB and lockups happen??? Google Chrome isn’t causing it. Even if it’s not on, Alt-Tabbing will somehow upset EAC and give you a Game Security Violation Error #00000001

(PeterReaper) #14

These severe lag issues didn’t exist in anything even coming close to this severity before the 1.0 release, and I seriously doubt there are THAT many new players - hell, ancient games like DOOM and QUAKE could handle probably an exponentially larger amount of players - without lag. You sound like a nice person, but also like a fanboy. Please don’t try this lame game of smoke and mirrors on me. The massive lag issue is new! SD obviously introduced something with 1.0 that they need to back out ASAP.

(K1X455) #15

Were suspecting some server side processing is preventing the transmission of the game stream to client (not sure what it is cause we don’t have the knobs and levers of this game) and the client seems to be having game processing lag spikes as identified here.

We’re suspecting it’s EAC contesting the single core for processing that’s causing these spikes.

(boerhae) #16

Sorry if this is unhelpful, but I’ve been using Alt+Esc for as long as I can remember, so if you ever need to tab out that’s what I’d recommend. I’ve never encountered any issues with EAC and tabbing out with that so hopefully that’s a temporary fix since even the simple things seem to have broken post 1.0.

(K1X455) #17

I’ll give your Alt-Esc a try. I haven’t done that so in the interest of fair-go… I’ll reply to this when I get the intended results.

EDIT:

Nope… didn’t made a difference.

Same schitt.

(Khuzen) #18

What works for me is to just have DB open in one desktop and then switch straight to the other one do other stuff. Getting back into the game takes a bit but I think that’s to be expected. I’ve never encountered any EAC problems using this method.

(K1X455) #19

How do you switch to the other? Alt-Tab? That’s one of the problems I complained at right here.

(Khuzen) #20

Oops, sorry my bad. Didn’t know that Alt-Tab were the keys for switching desktops. Never had to use it that way because I’m on a laptop. I just use the gestures on my touchpad (4-finger swipe).

Edit: There is a way to switch desktops immediately without Alt-Tab
As long as you have more than one desktop already set up, you can switch between them using:
Ctrl+Win+Left/Right arrow key
It is basically the same as my left/right 4 finger swipe gesture so I think you should try it, it might just work considering how fussy Windows is nowadays.
i.e. ‘desktop 2’ is to the right of ‘desktop 1’, so you use Ctrl+Win+Right_Arrow to switch from desktop 1 -> 2 and Ctrl+Win+Left_Arrow for switching from desktop 2 -> 1