I just want the **** lag fixed

[reverentsatyr]

Now that I'm not the only one experiencing severe lag on console, I would really like it fixed. I bought this game to play with my brother on spit screen, but we don't even bother with that anymore because it's too excruciating to rubber band all over the screen. I feel ripped off, so please fix the lag. Most of my previous attempts to bring up this issue just seemed to go unnoticed

[bizziboi]

Hi, 

I have been trying to track down this issue but we've up to this day been unable to reproduce this issue, so I do have a few questions.

To be certain, I want to make sure we're talking about the same 'lag' issue. The reports I have are with offline splitscreen, the 'bad connection indicator pops up' and one player can play fine while the other, freezes for multiple seconds and then rubberbands allover the place for a bit and picks back up. Is this what you mean?

We added some code that should have reduced the lag - based on our best guess on what's may be going on since we are unable to repro it - have you tried the latest update to see if it still happens, if not, could you, and let me know if it improved anything?

If not - how often would you say this happens? Like, does it happen 10 minutes in consistently or is it more a it happens occasionaly, and sometimes not for a whole game session kinda thing (and I know this is hard to answer objectively because even if it happens once it's frustrating, but I am trying to figure out if our attempts at reproing it were just lucky).

Also, I assume you're on XBox One, as far as I'm aware it seems to only happen there - is this correct? If so, are you one an Xbox One X?

Thanks, I'm truly sorry you're experiencing this, and I'm really trying to track it down.

 

[reverentsatyr]

15 hours ago, bizziboi said:

To be certain, I want to make sure we're talking about the same 'lag' issue. The reports I have are with offline splitscreen, the 'bad connection indicator pops up' and one player can play fine while the other, freezes for multiple seconds and then rubberbands allover the place for a bit and picks back up. Is this what you mean?

From what I remember, yes.

15 hours ago, bizziboi said:

We added some code that should have reduced the lag - based on our best guess on what's may be going on since we are unable to repro it - have you tried the latest update to see if it still happens, if not, could you, and let me know if it improved anything?

If not - how often would you say this happens? Like, does it happen 10 minutes in consistently or is it more a it happens occasionaly, and sometimes not for a whole game session kinda thing (and I know this is hard to answer objectively because even if it happens once it's frustrating, but I am trying to figure out if our attempts at reproing it were just lucky).

Sorry, I guess I should have tried it again recently to see if it still happens for me personally, I just assumed that it would be the same since I know most people on console have similar issues. But last time I played splitscreen, it lagged hard on both sides every 3-5 minutes, and the bad connection indicator came up a lot. I'll check again.

15 hours ago, bizziboi said:

Also, I assume you're on XBox One, as far as I'm aware it seems to only happen there - is this correct? If so, are you one an Xbox One X?

I'm on Xbox One X  I'm on Xbox One S

Thanks for the quick reply!

[bizziboi]

Thanks, yes, if you get a chance try it on the latest version and let know. As I said, I can't say if it's fixed or not, but we did add code to address a potential cause.

>>on both sides every 3-5 minutes

Yikes, yes that definitely has not happened when we tried to repro.

 

[DidUReboot]

On 8/11/2019 at 9:39 PM, bizziboi said:

Thanks, yes, if you get a chance try it on the latest version and let know. As I said, I can't say if it's fixed or not, but we did add code to address a potential cause.

>>on both sides every 3-5 minutes

Yikes, yes that definitely has not happened when we tried to repro.

 

When you say you guys can’t reproduce the lag, is that on your computers with debug tools or by sitting down and plugging in a console and just playing it? I have Xbox one X that I solely bought for this game thinking it would make the lag issue more bearable than what I was experiencing on a ps4 and it was a million times worse. 

The host or p1 player sometimes lags but usually it’s the p2 player. I never had lag issues playing offline single player mode. It was mostly experienced when opening chests, digging up items (dude would pull shovel back.... think about it... and put shovel back) and chopping trees. 

I started to notice it (consistently) if p1 was at a relatively built up base (50-100 days, 20 chests, 30 farms, tree area, fenced in area with 20-30 rabbits 15-20 drying racks, 75-100 fertilized grass, similar size twig farm) and p2 tried anything, anywhere (walking would suffer). However I’ve also had major lag simply walking upon an area of the map on day 5 that had spawned with 10(ish) pig huts, and a few of their berry farms and random hallowed nights items on the ground.

I haven’t played in about a year because of the lag and the perception of lack of support. “We tried” just never seemed to be realistic when the issue was so obvious. Practically 3/4ths of the reviews in the Xbox store specifically mention lag as the main issue so it’s not exactly a one off thing. Maybe everything is all better but there’s some more info that hopefully narrows it down. Another symptom is the save on dawn would progressively take longer and longer to the point where it is almost dusk and it’s still attempting to save. I just ask if trying it on an Xbox has actually been attempted so the issue could be seen firsthand and would help narrow down what to debug. May be easier than relying on others to describe the issue and reproduce it on a non console, if that’s what is being done. 

[bizziboi]

I know a coworker tried reproducing it on a legit X1 back when it was first reported, and was unable to repro it - which is why I added the function to upload a save because we assumed it was related to the world in question, but having tried most of the saves we realized that was not the issue.

The problem with reproing it on a regular console is that it would give us no info to work with, we can't add debug code to track anything, nor code to attempt to fix it since we can't deploy a build to a regular console - the debug kits we use are supposed to act like a regular console for that purpose, they are not faster, nor use more memory (unless told to do so), but I admit it's a different unit and I will try to repro on a regular kit once more.

But all reproing on a regular kit would tell me - if it happens - is that it is true and what it looks like. but I know it is true and I know what it looks like - you yourself have documented many instances of it. I was able to artificially create similar behavior which is why the change that went in went in and another one is on the way, but without a repro on a devkit it's really hard to analyze what can be causing it.

JoeW and I talk about this issue regularly and it is still being actively investigated. I tried some things recently but we didn't want to contact you until we were reasonably certain that we would see an improvement.

[DidUReboot]

@bizziboi thanks for the explanation. I get what you’re saying. It would be the equivalent of disabling breakpoints and trying to hunt things down. My hope was the experience could be pseudo cloned with debug tools once experienced. 

[bizziboi]

Unlikely, since there really seems no correlation between gameplay circumstances and it happening, but as I said I will attempt on a real console again because it's a fair question and one never knows what ideas may be sparked.

It's definitely a bug that keeps me up at night, it has me extremely puzzled - generally one has a hunch, this one has baffled multiple programmers in a row. And I really really don't like that.

[DidUReboot]

9 hours ago, bizziboi said:

 but as I said I will attempt on a real console again because it's a fair question

Well for whatever it may be worth, I’d recommend turning off the hounds, giants, winter, & summer so focus could be centered solely on exploring and base building. Granted that’s probably a trivial suggestion to the makers of the game, but it may speed up finding the root cause without spending time on some of the tasks needed to overcome those features. I rarely had those on as I played with my spouse and she enjoyed the base building aspects over the survival aspects. 

Additionally if the underlying issue is discovered I’m curious if world size had anything at all to do with it. I mention this because you guys removed the “large” or “huge” world size on the xbone a while ago in hopes that would resolve an issue with lag. If the world size isn’t the underlying issue maybe that could be re enabled for consoles that are beefy enough to support it.