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Post by Awesome Possum on Jun 29, 2018 17:10:34 GMT -5
Even prior to 4.0, game performance can be greatly reduced due to high burst of damage calculation leading to severe lag and few occurrences of game crash.
Now there are even more calculation required...... Boost damage versus boost defense (all the cross boost in squad or everyones individual boosts) . Healing calculation (worse when multiple healing source and targets)..
When they are all in the mix... The game takes a dirt nap and crashes.....
Pretty sure this can be somewhat resolved if Pix optimize their code when they keep adding new "interesting" features. Pretty sure it will not change......
At this point, I bet even high end phones will run hot quickly and lag while older devices keep getting crashes.
Skirmish is the worst right now..... lag and crash wise. I do not crash at all playing random unless I am in full squad.
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Post by kevmac on Jun 29, 2018 19:01:39 GMT -5
Yeah,my gaming has been lag city especially since 4.0 75% of the time it's virtually unplayable and all PIX responses are can you give more information about what you mean by lag?
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dizzydavidh
Destrier
Posts: 10
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Pilot name: dizzy_davidh
Platform: iOS
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Server Region: Europe
Favorite robot: Natasha
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Post by dizzydavidh on Jun 29, 2018 21:58:31 GMT -5
I just got the standard BS 'it must be your device' response from Pix' support.
Presently I can't finish a round of anything other than FFA without a crash.
Sure, I'm running an iPad2 but performance was OK prior to 4.0 despite the carrier map (the one at sea not the crashed one in the desert) was guaranteed to crash.
I tried a round or two on my 5s iPhone to check for issues and that too lags pretty badly on both wi-fi and cellular connections but at least that doesn't crash. The phone does however get so hot during game play that it feels like it might burst into flames as it becomes almost too hot to hold. Needless to say I never intend to play on my phone full time but rather just wanted to gauge if 4.0 was also an issue on that device too.
Ironically I copied and pasted the header section of a crash report from my iPad into a support ticket ready to submit it to Pix' and the app crashed while sending it. The errors where fairly legible and basically said that the problem was that 'Walking War Robots.pixonic.com' took too long to respond which makes me think the fault is server related at Pix' end as there is not absolutely nothing wrong with my solid 220mbps connection and I am lucky to have super-solid wi-fi with no interference.
Pix' need to own up to the fault, sort out their infrastructure problems and get back to squashing bugs like the Tempest/Scourge audio and video frame-rate lag (existed for several releases now and still no fix) and the target lock-on bug (locked target jumps to another target unexpectedly) which has returned again after having previously been fixed two updates ago.
They really don't stress test releases and that seems to be a big part of the problem, that and stuffing in content that was never tested like the boosters.
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Post by Golden Toe on Jun 29, 2018 23:17:46 GMT -5
Lag here makes it impossible to play. Hopefully they get it fixed or there is truly no point in logging on.
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Post by Browncoats4ever on Jun 30, 2018 3:50:33 GMT -5
That explains my glitchy moment in Skirmish when my Tri-Scourge Bulgi just wouldn't fire while moving from 300m to point blank range. Needless to say, I died painfully.
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Post by kevmac on Jun 30, 2018 12:15:51 GMT -5
I just got the standard BS 'it must be your device' response from Pix' support. Presently I can't finish a round of anything other than FFA without a crash. Sure, I'm running an iPad2 but performance was OK prior to 4.0 despite the carrier map (the one at sea not the crashed one in the desert) was guaranteed to crash. I tried a round or two on my 5s iPhone to check for issues and that too lags pretty badly on both wi-fi and cellular connections but at least that doesn't crash. The phone does however get so hot during game play that it feels like it might burst into flames as it becomes almost too hot to hold. Needless to say I never intend to play on my phone full time but rather just wanted to gauge if 4.0 was also an issue on that device too. Ironically I copied and pasted the header section of a crash report from my iPad into a support ticket ready to submit it to Pix' and the app crashed while sending it. The errors where fairly legible and basically said that the problem was that 'Walking War Robots.pixonic.com' took too long to respond which makes me think the fault is server related at Pix' end as there is not absolutely nothing wrong with my solid 220mbps connection and I am lucky to have super-solid wi-fi with no interference. Pix' need to own up to the fault, sort out their infrastructure problems and get back to squashing bugs like the Tempest/Scourge audio and video frame-rate lag (existed for several releases now and still no fix) and the target lock-on bug (locked target jumps to another target unexpectedly) which has returned again after having previously been fixed two updates ago. They really don't stress test releases and that seems to be a big part of the problem, that and stuffing in content that was never tested like the boosters. You sound As if you know a bit about devices, I know very little other than something is very wrong with the game.Pix is so disingenuous and condescending when I contact support. As far as Pixionics owning up forget it,they are the most dishonest and sanctimonious business I've ever dealt with.
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Post by Divine Thunder on Jun 30, 2018 13:20:11 GMT -5
I believe the OP is correct about the sheer amount of calculations going on. And Pixonic is correct, it is our devices but it is their code.
Consider all the changes made over the past year. Does anyone believe they started with a blank sheet? No! They have been patching the code to get all this new stuff in. The recent update is 4.0. Why? Because they did want it to be 3.10. That would confuse their bookkeepin. 4.0 is just patched 3.9, not a brand new code. Otherwise, we would either see all kinds on new gliches and problems. Plus, I hope Pixonic would test the crap out of virgin code.
Now, if they are patching, than the code is most likely full of “jump to’s” and duplicate calculations. I have seen mulitply modified code, not pretty.
Thus, our problem - Pixonic really does not care anout the legs of this game, otherwise they would invest on a new rewrite. No, just cash flow concerns them.
And they do not care that they are pushing us out of our devices. Another upgrade or two, most of us will not have the ROM or RAM to run this game.
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Post by BigBear on Jun 30, 2018 13:36:28 GMT -5
There is no way Pixonic can do a new code rewrite,their original code writers are working on another project now BoT.
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Post by sm94 on Jun 30, 2018 13:50:35 GMT -5
This has been going on since the 3.9 update for me. Never had issues with 3.8 and the ones before. The game literally has been laggy and crashing non stop since the moment i downloaded 3.9.. I cant play a single game without it crashing 5 minutes in. Update 4.0 comes around and its even worse. I spent money on a game i cant even play anymore.
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Post by Divine Thunder on Jun 30, 2018 14:51:41 GMT -5
There is no way Pixonic can do a new code rewrite,their original code writers are working on another project now BoT. Yep, exactly my point. The code is a mess and that is why we are having lags and crashes. Our devices have limitation but Pixonic has not taken that into account as they push more content in. I have started to notice a lag on my device and it is pretty much common across the board. Be interesting to start to track the devices, models, types and so forth who are having problems and the nature of those problems. We might be able to coordinate with devices are affected and which are currently usable so we can advise this community. Forget telling Pixonic because if they cared, they would already been trying to fix it. Soon, and very soon, Pixonic is going to find that most of their customers are gone, not because we quit, but because our devices could not handle their code. And it will be a sudden event.
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Post by Awesome Possum on Jun 30, 2018 16:01:15 GMT -5
If you value your phone's life..... play War Robots on emulator or a cheaper tablet that can still run it.
Melting cell phones is not fun at all. I would switch to emulators if I could, but I am stuck on Amazon server. My cheap Fire tablet is slowly melting away... Good thing is it only cost me $30. Bad thing is War Robots now feel like old mmo pvp. Bots skipping around, control stop responding for a few sec here and there on a good day. On a bad day.... Crash Crash Crash.
Good thing Amazon does not have LPQ or I might just end up there from all the "tanking" from crashes.
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Post by Danny Linguini on Jun 30, 2018 16:30:35 GMT -5
Causes? Gross incompetence.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2018 16:46:00 GMT -5
If I had to guess it's the GPU not keeping up. Phones, tablets and other portable devices are limited by battery size so GPUs have to be scaled down. If I'm not mistaken in last patch Pixonic improved graphics textures and that alone can lead to lag, deterioration in frame rate.
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Post by windcaster on Jun 30, 2018 21:22:58 GMT -5
The textures would generally see an across the board slow down, the game plays as good as it ever did on my phone.. except it's not dropping frame rate.. it's quite litterly pausing in a jerky fashion.. not 30 fps.. 20fps... dips down to 10fps.. no it's 30, 0, 30, 0, 30, 0
It can't be just a upscaling of textures, it's more.. my guess it's CPU bound, something they messed with in the code not game assests..
Android says War Robots used a max of 504mb of ram, my phone has 2gb, 1.1gb-900mb free at any given time My phone is not loaded down with running apps either about 800mb of ram is just the OS, with only a few 100mb's for services/apps (google keyboard, a tracker app, calling recording service, etc) I can't cut those, but if your device starts running low it'll scale back services that aren't in immediate use to free up ram.. but at least in my case it is not running out of ram.
I'd be real shocked it if wasn't a fast/tight running loop they added or they modified some dusty (but stable) code. Like painting a mustache on Mona Lisa.. and hell no I ain't comparing this game to the Mona Lisa.
What ever it is they need to address it. mobile games need to be humble, yes there are some truely powerful devices on the market but most people aren't packing top end stuff.. They're gonna find their market shrinking but then again maybe they want people with 1,000 dollar phones to go along with their 100 dollar robots, I dunno.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2018 22:42:59 GMT -5
The textures would generally see an across the board slow down, the game plays as good as it ever did on my phone.. except it's not dropping frame rate.. it's quite litterly pausing in a jerky fashion.. not 30 fps.. 20fps... dips down to 10fps.. no it's 30, 0, 30, 0, 30, 0 Problems with textures being rendered would not necessarily show up across the board. It all depends on number of moving objects it has to render, it so it could run fine until you see 2-3 or more bots and then frame rate would drop. That's what I've seen happen on my kindle. Also, the performance decline doesn't have to be gradual. A lot of what I see on my kindle reminds me of old days of PC gaming where graphics would always push the envelope of the hardware. At any rate, if you are correct then it's good news because maybe they'll be able to fix it with another patch. If they are hitting hardware boundaries then it's bad news for people like me who are not going to upgrade the device for War Robots game.
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Post by ranchpig on Jun 30, 2018 23:13:24 GMT -5
I'm no tech guy but whatever the reason, it's out of hand. Game is almost unplayable. Stealth bots are useless. I'm seeing hits register well after 3 seconds (i know you can get hit, but not by target lock weapons like scourge) Emptying entire weapons only to have the bot die 5 seconds later.... just the worst.
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Post by windcaster on Jul 1, 2018 0:34:43 GMT -5
Problems with textures being rendered would not necessarily show up across the board. It all depends on number of moving objects it has to render, it so it could run fine until you see 2-3 or more bots and then frame rate would drop. That's what I've seen happen on my kindle. Also, the performance decline doesn't have to be gradual. A lot of what I see on my kindle reminds me of old days of PC gaming where graphics would always push the envelope of the hardware. At any rate, if you are correct then it's good news because maybe they'll be able to fix it with another patch. If they are hitting hardware boundaries then it's bad news for people like me who are not going to upgrade the device for War Robots game. See that's the thing it's not even a frame rate drop unless you consider 0fps a drop.. that's a freeze imo. The game plays as well as it ever did when it's not freezing, Although I will admit it's better in FFA, half the bots, and the freezing is at it's peek during high action.. but I still think it's not a graphic issue. I don't know though Im just guessing here. Also If they're pushing the boundry of common mobile hardware.. that would be something for a 4 year old that does not seem like it made a jump in graphics during the last version. Some people on here with some NOT cheap hardware are having the same issue.. so for Pix sake I hope it's not a case of working as intended.. because if it is a lot of people don't have 1k phones and tablets to meet the sudden surge in requirements. When I started playing in Jan my 2015 moto E2 (1gb ram, about 300mb free) ran the game pretty well.. maybe some slow down sometimes but no freezes. So the requirements 6 1/2 months ago was pretty modest for them to change something to make a leap where even recently released devices are struggling.. that's bad business for a mobile game dev. And when I say bad business I mean "bite them on the 「bum-bum」"
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Post by Шɑɡɡɪή on Jul 1, 2018 11:08:35 GMT -5
. I've got a 1 year old iPad Air that is clean and up to date (which I explained each time) and after 4 emails to these guys about this ridiculous lag issue on 4.0, here is what I get :
Honestly, I give up !
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Post by windcaster on Jul 1, 2018 11:53:58 GMT -5
that's what everyone gets back.. It's never their fault. If the game doesn't run well you must have a problem with your device.
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dizzydavidh
Destrier
Posts: 10
Karma: 8
Pilot name: dizzy_davidh
Platform: iOS
League: Diamond
Server Region: Europe
Favorite robot: Natasha
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Post by dizzydavidh on Jul 1, 2018 19:39:38 GMT -5
The biggest tell about the issues being caused by badly optimised code is that most folk who experience the problem can still play FFA mode. There are half the players and so half the number of player updates to process and consequently half the number of effects etc. to render.
I started to suspect the issue was related to the complexity of the tick-rate (the frequency with which player updates are returned to the server and clients updated with the server's processed results) when the very linear map of the floating carrier map was introduced.
All matters related to tick-rate and server/client updates is referred to as 'Netcode'.
In the case of the floating carrier map (sorry, I don't know its name), pretty much the entire map full of scenery, players, weapons fire and display overlay (player tags, health bars etc.) is usually in front or behind you (ask yourself, when did you last look side-on on that map, ie. out to sea?) and that means there is likely way, way more processing required for each update or 'tick'. Coming back to FFA mode, with its anything up to half the amount of moving assets in motion the client and server should have an easier workload and consequently that is why I believe we are seeing FFA more playable than other modes.
When it comes to v4 I am of the belief that there have been more issues introduced by way perhaps of some dodgy code that hasn't been optimised properly, or perhaps the same issues of the floating carrier map found their way into the other maps as part of a code update/re-write but in any case the problems have gotten far worse with all maps being affected but still FFA still remains playable far more often than the other game modes, again I believe because of the reduced workload with less players etc. in that mode.
Even in older versions of the game a lot of people have reported experiences with apparent audio issues too such as Tempest/Punisher fire of close-by players causing stammering. Those two weapons in particular have the highest rate of fire or at least are likely to put some of the most work on CPUs, GPUs and DACs and so it is possible that such weapons add credibility to the argument that the cause could again be netcode related in that they likely create far more work for a client server both audibly and visually as well as by way of having to process the data related to every round fired.
When all is said and done, if the server-side of War Robots is at fault it should be fixable with a server-side update or perhaps just more servers to process client updates (they likely have a virtualised farm and so expansion could be done quite quickly) but if the client code is at fault the chances are that a new app version is the only likely fix and that isn't going to get to us any time soon.
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Post by Moosi on Jul 2, 2018 5:30:26 GMT -5
Lag is so bad that it happenned that two or three seconds after I finish shooting at a red with no kill notification (I assume a teammate got the kill), and I go about some other business, a kill notification is made.
My rolling of my eyes and saying "what the &$^^&$^&$?" really hurts my play.
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Post by Awesome Possum on Jul 2, 2018 12:09:20 GMT -5
Also out of all the maps... Rome is reallly bad (I know my tablet is crying uncle when Rome loads). I would say Rome is probably the most detailed map in game and it just contribute to all the other crap making everything worse.
Yes, the map is awesome..... when you start seeing bots warping around... not so awesome at all.
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Post by killjoy on Jul 11, 2018 15:04:10 GMT -5
I think you guys are correct on all the extra calculation need. I have a Samsung Tab A with 2gb of ram (1.2gb free at start of game) and tones of storage space and since 3.9 I get lag. But now the game just freezes 80% of the time. This is even if I clear the cache, remove all other software. I even spot all other mem software before I start the game.
Pix just has added to much to the game that even a 2gb of ram can't seem to handle.
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Post by shivaswrath on Jul 11, 2018 15:07:12 GMT -5
iOS with 150MB/second internet and no lag.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 11, 2018 15:56:45 GMT -5
iOS with 150MB/second internet and no lag. When I play with my best phone (OctaCore 2.2Ghz/4GbRam/GpuAndreno 508/40Mbps internet) no lag but theres device heat and battery drain. Its not worth it to mollest my new phone.
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Post by zer00eyz on Jul 11, 2018 15:56:51 GMT -5
Even prior to 4.0, game performance can be greatly reduced due to high burst of damage calculation leading to severe lag and few occurrences of game crash. Now there are even more calculation required...... Boost damage versus boost defense (all the cross boost in squad or everyones individual boosts) . Healing calculation (worse when multiple healing source and targets).. When they are all in the mix... The game takes a dirt nap and crashes..... Pretty sure this can be somewhat resolved if Pix optimize their code when they keep adding new "interesting" features. Pretty sure it will not change...... At this point, I bet even high end phones will run hot quickly and lag while older devices keep getting crashes. Skirmish is the worst right now..... lag and crash wise. I do not crash at all playing random unless I am in full squad. In a general sense I think your on to something. However modern CPUS the sort of number crunching that your talking about isn't going to be an issue. In all my recent experiences a phone reboot fixes the issue for me. That would point to an issue that is memory (or GC) bound. Adding the calculations pushed it over the edge - it isn't the math going on it is the data being moved and where it is moving from and to. Because of how modern QA gets done it is unlikely that what ever testing pix is doing (automated or otherwise) is probably done on a fresh device. If "rebooting" and Not running anything gets performance back, and you have a higher end device it is a pix problem. I think a few of us could come together to file a bug report that is fairly reproducible at that stage.
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Post by Awesome Possum on Jul 12, 2018 8:27:05 GMT -5
If we are talking about crunching numbers on a single computer then yes, even the worse written program will not suffer any noticable performance hit.
But when you have 12 clients in a networked game, even a small change could have a huge impact. Boosters might not be the full cause but it certainly is the catalyst that broke the game. I can certainly notice the difference when I am in a small map and everyone is clustered together, that is when it would lead to connection lost or even game crash (both rare). Booster calculations could add significant client server load if it is not optimized and I really doubt Pix test for optimization in their QA process.
Another issue could be numerous memory leaks added as they updated. Since people have reported crash issues as far back as 3.8 and numbers of occurences increased as updates progessed until 4.0 where I guess it has hit a critical tipping point. Observations from other posts often includes people saying game performance deteriorates if they play multiple games is also another indication.
People keep saying it is a hardware issue and technically they are right but if Pix just keep letting memory leaks get through their QA process, Everyone will have some "hardware issue" no matter how highed your device is.
There is no real way to know unless we get to look at source code and their rented server farm. All I know is that 4.0 broke something where almost everyone got hit. Out of what was added in 4.0, boosters is the only change that could possiblely require Pix to mess with client server update codes.
At this point I am done talking about this because we will never really know for sure. But one thing I am sure is that Pix need better programmers and QA.
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Post by ʂωєєтცяєα∂ on Jul 12, 2018 12:20:47 GMT -5
...Sure, I'm running an iPad2 but performance was OK prior to 4.0 despite the carrier map (the one at sea not the crashed one in the desert) was guaranteed to crash. I tried a round or two on my 5s iPhone to check for issues and that too lags pretty badly on both wi-fi and cellular connections... No offense, but you are using devices that are between 5–7 years old. So in your specific situation, I get it. What doesn't make sense to me is that I'm playing the game on a new iPhone X, and even I often have terrible issues with the phone overheating causing frame rate drop, and overall lag issues that have plagued the game but have gotten worse. I often disconnect during games (usually when I'm on the attack for some reason). All the while I'm using strong and stable wifi connections both at work and at home. I can't play the game without the 'poor connection' symbol constantly flashing or indicating 'no connection' in the upper-right corner of the game screen. It's been a joke since 3.9, but 4.0 is a disaster.
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Post by Awesome Possum on Jul 13, 2018 18:36:23 GMT -5
Guess there are optimization issues because Pix claims it will be fixed in 4.1. All the people keep saying get a new phones can go eat some crow.
As to is it really going to be fixed by the genius team whom caused the issue in the first place remains a question.
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Post by Шɑɡɡɪή on Jul 23, 2018 8:35:30 GMT -5
. 4.1 eh ? I think they were telling me that 4.0 would fix it when I was 「female dog」in' about the lag with 3.9. And look where 4.0 has taken us ...
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