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The lag is strong with this one...


Guest Saedow

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I've played Alpha 2 months ago (for about half an hour), but was terrified by the horrible FPS lag in the game. Today I'm returning to DU and my blood freezes as I experience the same lag. I have an i7 and a GTX960 with 32 Gb RAM, which is not really too bad is it? Anyways... I'm reading it will all be better once I leave the newby zone. Is this true? if so, I can live with that lag a few hours I guess...

I hope Novaquark will fix these issues soon because it might leave people dissappointed. I know I was after checking out Alpha 2...

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I know it's been discussed a lot, but no, you're not crazy...performance is really bad. It will improve as you leave starting areas, though.

 

Overall, I would be extremely surprised if they were capable of optimizing the product at this point...

 

By all means check out the other very complicated projects built on the Unigen engine...like that one tower defense game or that other puzzle game...or the seven games other than DU ever deployed with this engine since 2010 (at least one of which was made by Unigen itself lol)

 

I'm sure it'll be just as advanced as other commercial engines...despite the fact that Unigen mostly focuses on benchmarking and no MMO title has ever released using this engine ... ;)

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It doesn't really improve the situation of the game tho if it gets better when you're further away from the noobzone. This game wants to have a civilization. And large battles. If it doesn't work with some hundred constructs, how the hell should it work with thousands? 

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25 minutes ago, Lethys said:

It doesn't really improve the situation of the game tho if it gets better when you're further away from the noobzone. This game wants to have a civilization. And large battles. If it doesn't work with some hundred constructs, how the hell should it work with thousands? 

They've yet to prove that it will work in a real-world setting. They've done simulations/benchmarks, which mean very little...

 

Network ops scale exponentially. There's 10 people moving around a room. Each of those 10 clients must sync their position with the server. To show other players moving, each client must synchronize the positions of the other 9 players as well. If another player walks into the room, it requires exponentially more resources. Obviously this is a very simplified example, but shows why massive player interactions are difficult. 

 

There's a reason they split people into 10 different starting cities....their promise of huge battles and big cities shouldn't be taken that seriously IMHO...I've yet to see any evidence for this being realistic (yes even post-beta which is only expected to last a year). 

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4 minutes ago, michaelk said:

They've yet to prove that it will work in a real-world setting. They've done simulations/benchmarks, which mean very little...

 

Network ops scale exponentially. There's 10 people moving around a room. Each of those 10 clients must sync their position with the server. To show other players moving, each client must synchronize the positions of the other 9 players as well. If another player walks into the room, it requires exponentially more resources. Obviously this is a very simplified example, but shows why massive player interactions are difficult. 

 

There's a reason they split people into 10 different starting cities....their promise of huge battles and big cities shouldn't be taken that seriously IMHO...I've yet to see any evidence for this being realistic (yes even post-beta which is only expected to last a year). 

Lets be real, this beta is going to last through 2021 and probably a large chunk of 2022 if not the entirety of it.

 

There is no way NQ will be able to chew through even just the current list of features on https://upvote.dualuniverse.game/ for 2021.

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38 minutes ago, michaelk said:

They've yet to prove that it will work in a real-world setting. They've done simulations/benchmarks, which mean very little...

Oh but first they've milked everything they could of that 30k bot test ....before jc said himself that bots are useless for testing and that they don't know if it ever will work. 

 

I always had heavy lags in DU, I never saw any environment because it would only load after I stopped for 5-10min. Been so for years, doubt it will ever improve 

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53 minutes ago, Mordgier said:

Lets be real, this beta is going to last through 2021 and probably a large chunk of 2022 if not the entirety of it.

 

There is no way NQ will be able to chew through even just the current list of features on https://upvote.dualuniverse.game/ for 2021.

Yeah ?

 

DU can be a lot of great things, but it isn't going to live up to the rambling ambitions of an inexperienced developer. The pitch was a "virtual civilization"...after all these years, we can mine stuff, make buildings, and make ships...that's great, but stop promising a "civilization sandbox" as if there's just a few more things it needs. 

 

I've seen so many players buy into it without question. "Well eventually players will control x, y, z...and eventually crime will something with patrols something..."

 

Eventually the world will melt as the sun explodes...it ain't happening in my lifetime, though. 

 

They didn't make their own engine (Unigen2). They didn't invent their own server architecture (runs off AWS). They clearly didn't write a solid core (client and network issues through all of alpha and into beta). 

 

Yet...here we are 6 years later wondering how the game is supposed to run at the scale proposed in their marketing materials...? 

 

It can still be a great product, but not if JC insists that DU will become "ready player one". Have some freakin' humility...understand the limits of the shoddy tech you've hobbled together using a second-rate engine intended for benchmarking. 

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4 minutes ago, michaelk said:

Yeah ?

 

DU can be a lot of great things, but it isn't going to live up to the rambling ambitions of an inexperienced developer. The pitch was a "virtual civilization"...after all these years, we can mine stuff, make buildings, and make ships...that's great, but stop promising a "civilization sandbox" as if there's just a few more things it needs. 

 

I've seen so many players buy into it without question. "Well eventually players will control x, y, z...and eventually crime will something with patrols something..."

 

Eventually the world will melt as the sun explodes...it ain't happening in my lifetime, though. 

 

They didn't make their own engine (Unigen2). They didn't invent their own server architecture (runs off AWS). They clearly didn't write a solid core (client and network issues through all of alpha and into beta). 

 

Yet...here we are 6 years later wondering how the game is supposed to run at the scale proposed in their marketing materials...? 

 

It can still be a great product, but not if JC insists that DU will become "ready player one". Have some freakin' humility...understand the limits of the shoddy tech you've hobbled together using a second-rate engine intended for benchmarking. 

 

Eh - I don't really agree with you.  Yes the game needs a lot of things. NQ/JC are aware of it.

 

There is quite a bit of unique tech in this game. You really think you can just log into AWS and setup a server mesh that 'just works'. 

 

What DU does is very unique - there isn't a game like DU today period.

 

I do agree that JC needs to stop looking at how a book about a fictional game did things and starts to look at how games that work today do it. Specifically when it comes to pvp, territory control and mitigation of griefing and handling other uhh 'open world pvp tactics'. I keep saying this over and over - JC really has no idea how hilariously grief prone DU will be with territory control.

 

I am not at all upset about the current state of DU.

 

I AM upset about the lack of communication and clarity about the future mechanics. Hell, explanation of exactly how current pvp mechanics work would be a start. Don't tell me players have figured it out, ask 10 different people and get 10 different answers.

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21 minutes ago, Mordgier said:

There is quite a bit of unique tech in this game. You really think you can just log into AWS and setup a server mesh that 'just works'. 

 

What DU does is very unique - there isn't a game like DU today period.

True, but I'm not convinced the tech they've made actually works at scale. I'm not saying it is easy, but they've certainly had ample time to develop this core concept.

 

How this fundamental concept performs at scale pretty much is their game. You can't have civilizations and battles without this core being well-optimized and robust.

 

From what I can see, they've been trying to optimize and fix for years now. It is because it is so complex that I am so cynical. Actually no...I'm cynical because life made me like that lol. 

 

21 minutes ago, Mordgier said:

I am not at all upset about the current state of DU.

 

I AM upset about the lack of communication and clarity about the future mechanics. Hell, explanation of exactly how current pvp mechanics work would be a start. Don't tell me players have figured it out, ask 10 different people and get 10 different answers.

Yeah, this....like, I get it if the tech isn't there yet. It's hard. But you should be able to talk about your game and know where the heck it is going!  

 

If they aren't eager to communicate with their players about basic things, it makes me think they are actually afraid. Like they don't want to take a strong design position because they don't want people to freak the eff out (which to be fair...we do all the time about everything lol)

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3 hours ago, michaelk said:

If they aren't eager to communicate with their players about basic things, it makes me think they are actually afraid. Like they don't want to take a strong design position because they don't want people to freak the eff out (which to be fair...we do all the time about everything lol)

Well yeah - people would freak out regarding whatever their answer is regarding Alioth. There is no answer that will please either side.

 

Unfortunately when people don't have an answer, they assume the worst. This goes both ways. I have heard PvP players whine that NQ is too busy appeasing pvers and pvers whine that NQ wants to force pvp on them. (For the record - there is no pve in this game. You as the player do not fight anything besides other player. Your ore nodes have never attacked you.)

 

Same goes for TW, same goes for all the pvp mechanics, industry mechanics etc - the less we know the worse situation we tend to assume - I mean obviously right? If it wasn't bad - they'd have told us right? So it must be REALLY bad!

 

Personally I think that NQ is just well - really bad at communicating and not prepared to deal with the scope that they are tackling - not that they have some awful secrets about the state of the game or ability to implement planned features.

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4 hours ago, Mordgier said:

Well yeah - people would freak out regarding whatever their answer is regarding Alioth. There is no answer that will please either side.

 

Unfortunately when people don't have an answer, they assume the worst. This goes both ways. I have heard PvP players whine that NQ is too busy appeasing pvers and pvers whine that NQ wants to force pvp on them. (For the record - there is no pve in this game. You as the player do not fight anything besides other player. Your ore nodes have never attacked you.)

 

Same goes for TW, same goes for all the pvp mechanics, industry mechanics etc - the less we know the worse situation we tend to assume - I mean obviously right? If it wasn't bad - they'd have told us right? So it must be REALLY bad!

 

Personally I think that NQ is just well - really bad at communicating and not prepared to deal with the scope that they are tackling - not that they have some awful secrets about the state of the game or ability to implement planned features.

I would add two bets. That they have one or two bottlenecks in their decision process. That they finalize decisions when feature they are working on is on the finish line. 
Sum it up with their tendency of underestimating players, use "work time" pragmatic solutions - like our current problems with docking cores is best example, throw in lack of communication about future changes to such pragmatic solutions and, well, as you said, I am worried what the future will bring. 

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Lag is not always bad, but around markets it's always bad.  Like, crash your ship bad or disconnect you bad.   Same thing, to a slightly lesser extent, around large bases.

 

The 'stress test' was always worthless since you needed to test not only a large population but the effect of a large population.

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10 hours ago, Mordgier said:

Well yeah - people would freak out regarding whatever their answer is regarding Alioth. There is no answer that will please either side.

 

Unfortunately when people don't have an answer, they assume the worst. This goes both ways. I have heard PvP players whine that NQ is too busy appeasing pvers and pvers whine that NQ wants to force pvp on them. (For the record - there is no pve in this game. You as the player do not fight anything besides other player. Your ore nodes have never attacked you.)

 

Same goes for TW, same goes for all the pvp mechanics, industry mechanics etc - the less we know the worse situation we tend to assume - I mean obviously right? If it wasn't bad - they'd have told us right? So it must be REALLY bad!

 

Personally I think that NQ is just well - really bad at communicating and not prepared to deal with the scope that they are tackling - not that they have some awful secrets about the state of the game or ability to implement planned features.

I do have to disagree on that PvE bit. It does not strictly mean you against Mobs (PvM), it means Player Versus Environment. Crafting, building a construct, terraforming, mining, flying, setting up your industry, all generally seen as PvE activities where you interact with your environment.

Same as PvP does not simply mean shooting people these days, but every action you take against another player.

 

As for the Topic at hand. I do not have any issues, outside of Alioth districts, where the massive needed load can get fps down quite a bit, yet never unplayable. I am pretty sure it heavily depends on your machine while the game is still in this not optimised state.
Also mining on Alioth can give a few pending operations here and there, but on other planets/moons this has not happened for me, yet.

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It is also down to the user, different users not only have different pc spec (making performance widely different) but also very different ideas of what is acceptable.

 

For me performance in this game is acceptable, even most of the time around markets, they always load in for me before I get there, apart from at the weekends when the server gets busy.  Sometime then i have to slow down, park and relog, then everything is there, for me that is part of beta.

I only need functional performance though, I removed my FPS counter years ago because a few stutters dont bother me, I am not driven by graphics / performance, I am driven by gameplay and DU is giving more of a sandbox world than ANYTHING I have played before, and I have played a lot of sandbox games in the last 30+ year.

15 hours ago, michaelk said:

DU can be a lot of great things, but it isn't going to live up to the rambling ambitions of an inexperienced developer. The pitch was a "virtual civilization"...after all these years, we can mine stuff, make buildings, and make ships...that's great

You can become a hauler, a trader (both goods and commodities), an manufacture, you can start a racing team or open a chain of petrol stations, a meganode hunter, the owner of a space station casino, the choice is yours.... there are already loads of paths to take in the game, if you play within the community.

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Thanks for all the comments, I guess I'm not alone in this and that is sort of comforting.

Let me say this: I didn't want to nag and I'm positive none of you want to nag about performance, but what we all want is a great game.

Let's all hope (and support) Novaquark for now and see if they can improve things.

 

My wish for the coming months and heartfelt advise to Novaquark: I hope DU will become the greatest game ever and I hope Novaquark will read and listen to topics like these. The playerbase is like a thermometer. Please act on what your players are saying to what's important for them and performance is rather major. Do not focus on e.g. entensive character creation or features or lore that is not there yet. We do not care in this phase of the game. Please focus on the performance of the game, because if the FPS is bad, people will simply take their loss (in my case 60 euro for silver founder) and find a game which will run smooth. If you buy a very sick looking car with big wheels and silk upholstery or whatever and the engine is crap... enough said... Go for it Novaquark!

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27 minutes ago, Saedow said:

Thanks for all the comments, I guess I'm not alone in this and that is sort of comforting.

Let me say this: I didn't want to nag and I'm positive none of you want to nag about performance, but what we all want is a great game.

Let's all hope (and support) Novaquark for now and see if they can improve things.

 

My wish for the coming months and heartfelt advise to Novaquark: I hope DU will become the greatest game ever and I hope Novaquark will read and listen to topics like these. The playerbase is like a thermometer. Please act on what your players are saying to what's important for them and performance is rather major. Do not focus on e.g. entensive character creation or features or lore that is not there yet. We do not care in this phase of the game. Please focus on the performance of the game, because if the FPS is bad, people will simply take their loss (in my case 60 euro for silver founder) and find a game which will run smooth. If you buy a very sick looking car with big wheels and silk upholstery or whatever and the engine is crap... enough said... Go for it Novaquark!

One thing I would say is, also check your processes for conflicts.  I used to get CRAZY lag freezes, which would last for a while, which I always put down to the game, then noticed my wallpaper engine was spiking my GPU whenever the lags occurred, since i turned this off I have not had them at all.

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  • 2 weeks later...
1 hour ago, Saedow said:

I'm having a great time with DU at the moment.

Have you tried flying any ships? Lagging while pressing movement buttons makes them stuck until you relog so your only options are crashing and losing everything or alt+f4 and losing all momentum. Is this your idea of a great time?

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