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Koochi-Q's avatar
Koochi-Q
Not applicable
6 years ago

Re: Some Interesting Bits Regarding Apex Servers & Netcode

@DoYaSeeMeWhat about the battle nonsense one? It compared it to blackout, H1Z1, fortnite and more

You can have multiple server side packages sent, but if it doesn’t update on the client side, you get discrepancy.

The way I understand netcode is comparing it to a laser shining in your eye and blinking. Lets say you have a laser pointed at your eye and it flashes 6 times a second. If you keep your eye open the whole time and nothing’s wrong with your perception, you see (get the packages in the analogy) 6 times.
You can of course (in)voluntary close your eyes without a problem... if it happends when no light was shining you don’t miss anything, but you wont know that (any hiccups in system that the emd user isn’t aware of). If you close your eyes, look away or anything happends which causes you to not see that light shine 6 times and only 4 times, you miss certain information.

This is what happends if there’s a discrepancy between server and client from what I gather from impromptu networking info lesson months ago.

9 Replies

  • DoYaSeeMe's avatar
    DoYaSeeMe
    Not applicable
    6 years ago

    More interesting stuff: https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/opinions/apex-legends-how-video-game-supported-million-concurrent-players-its-second-day/

    "Apex Legends’ network model and netcode was developed by a team of just three people" - Wow! 

    "Google Compute Engine sites are easy to identify by the ‘GCE’ tag – the rest are a combination of facilities from AWS and Microsoft Azure, plus some bare metal servers." - Hmm, maybe this makes the experience different, depending on the server you connect to? 

    @Koochi-Q There were changes done after Battle(non)sense's reviews. Besides, the guy doesn't consider that some of the games have unique complexity or technical limitations. In some cases, game engines and network models need to be replaced / rewritten, but who would be willing to put their game on hold for a few years?

  • Koochi-Q's avatar
    Koochi-Q
    Not applicable
    6 years ago
    @DoYaSeeMe After which one? They said that they did something different after the first time, yet his vids months afterwards seemed to disprove that.

    Also, I don’t think it’s the guys prerogative to talk about technical complexity since all games have that element and you can’t just simply deduce that by way of networking.

    Game engines are usually updated while games are being made. It takes a lot of work but no game company is that stupid to not update their engine while also making games. Some just take too long to do it for whatever reason. Look at the CoD engine... it still ‘held up’ after almost a decade of no significant updating. A good one is Unreal Engine. It seems like that thing gets several significant updates a year. An example of Engine going bad is the one Telltale Games used. They hadn’t updated it since one of their first game and wanted to do so... unfortunately they went belly up.

    I of course have no solid info regarding the matter, I go based by what I read from several links.
  • Fr3dY2's avatar
    Fr3dY2
    Rising Ace
    6 years ago

    You can add +cl_showfps 1 to launch options to see some info on the screen, including network stuff.

    As far as I know tick rate is still 20 and Devs are not considering that a problem.

  • pastaclown's avatar
    pastaclown
    Not applicable
    6 years ago

    I highly doubt anything has changed. Recent videos from Shroud have multiple clips of hitting static / moving targets (big or small) and getting multiple no regs, as well as consistent game crashing, getting downed behind cover, and audio issues. 

    Biggest offender of no-reg is a tie between a clip of Shroud shooting at a purple shield Wraith, hitting multiple times with a Wingman but not downing the target despite hearing and seeing shots hit. That or the static Gibralter who hadn't noticed he had entered bubble, which Shroud then shot with a PK, only to see half the PK pellets hit give blood and VFX yet have multiple pellets not reg, and the other half to pass right through and hit bubble instead. 

  • DoYaSeeMe's avatar
    DoYaSeeMe
    Not applicable
    6 years ago
    @Koochi-Q Last Battle(non)sense video on Apex dropped June 17th. The patch that came June 20th fixed the update rate of the client, raising it from 20 to over 60 per second, after it was accidentally left low when fixing some hitreg related issues. As for the reviewer not talking about the difference in complexity, I disagree. Complexity can heavily affect the data that needs to be sent, the time it takes for a simulation tick to get processed. Sending updates multiple times to account for packet loss is also eating bandwidth and it's not hard to determine that increasing the server tickrate would load the bandwidth significantly.

    Apex uses a heavily modified Source engine, which is very capable, but some say it's a bit hacker friendly (and it shows, isn't it?).

    @Fr3dY2 Client update rate is set at over 60, with certain updates sent multiple times. I don't think it' s a bad thing that the servers are at lower tickrate, because this allows them to get more data from the clients, resulting in more accurate predictions and simulations, with less missing data due to packet loss or lag spikes.

    @pastaclown Seeing and hearing shots hitting are the result of client side predictive nature of the simulation, but the server will not confirm those hits if there is desynchronization, as it runs its own simulation. This can happen because of lag spikes and packet loss. Low tickrate can lead to multiple shots coming at once, but I believe a good simulation can smooth that out as well. It happened to me in Apex, but with very rare occurence.
  • GRiPSViGiL's avatar
    GRiPSViGiL
    Seasoned Ace
    5 years ago

    Not sure how I missed this thread last March...probably the whole shutdown thing that is destroying the economy.  Anyway, I have to say I appreciate the mentions as you guys know what is important to me.  It is nice to be known for such an important issue!  Thanks EA forum cohorts.

  • GRiPSViGiL's avatar
    GRiPSViGiL
    Seasoned Ace
    5 years ago
    @pastaclown I definitely doubt 60Hz is the tick rate even seeing clips now let alone since the beginning of the year.
  • DoYaSeeMe's avatar
    DoYaSeeMe
    Not applicable
    5 years ago
    @GRiPSViGiL Welcome back! 🙂

    Server updates are most probably not 60Hz, but the clients do update the server at 60Hz. 128Hz means a massive jump in costs for hosting (possibly 4x higher or more), while also risking some instability , especially since not all are dedicated, high end game servers.

    If you want to understand the efforts, here's Valorant's example: https://technology.riotgames.com/news/valorants-128-tick-servers . Note that Riot games is like 5-10x bigger than Respawn, while Valorant has 5x less players on a map that's many times smaller, with simpler mechanics and slower movement.

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