Hero (Retired)

Re: WHAT MAKES APEX TICK: A DEVELOPER DEEP DIVE INTO SERVERS AND NETCODE

That was an interesting read. Never expected Respawn to be so open about this. Very cool!

TLDR; servers are complex stuff with lots of variables and lots of issues. Progression is made to enhance the player experience where possible and most effective.

@BaldWraithSimp

The numbers they used for that are:

Server tick rate
Player ping
Frames per second that you see

None of these numbers seem to be specific to Apex Legends. I think you could safely do this same calculation for other games.

But, keep in mind the other part: Apex Legends sends out massive chunks of information. All players, abilities, skins updated every time from the whole map. I can imagine Volerant to be a very small portion of that. Increasing the tickrate of Apex Legends from 20Hz to 60Hz does not only decrease the frame delay from 5 to 2, but would also boost the bandwidth. Meaning you get more jittering and is a possible worse experience.

8 Replies

BaldWraithSimp
5 years ago
@DYSPROssium For a bigger map, I assumed it's better to not update or render the whole map at once(at least after dropping) . Even if you take sniping into consideration, 600-700 m is the most a sniper tries for.

I mean if I am in docks, does it matter if the game doesn't update the Bonsai plaza for me? Render wise or internet updation wise?

Besides it gives me another reason to switch to Arenas, cuz less players/smaller map is less strain on my trash internet.
DoYaSeeMe
5 years ago
@DYSPROssium They talked about these before Apex. Found a lot of information online, so this blog post is more of a confirmation, to be honest. Glad that some things are finally made official.
DYSPROssium
Hero (Retired)
5 years ago
They indeed talked about the package sizes before, @DoYaSeeMe. But never as in-depth as this article!

@BaldWraithSimp That is really far away from each other. Though, there are tools and things that require complete map updates in Apex. As they explained, Respawn is able to make tools that require those. I've tried to put some more example cases here:

The update of usage of respawn beacons on the map.

The update of trident locations in Olympus.

The notification - and amazing far - transportation of a player in the phase runner.

Sniper shots on long distances.

Gibby/Bangalore ults raining down.

Flyers that fly over/loot bot that you can see from the dropship.

The World Edge train, obviously.

Like you wouldn't want to sit in Fragment East and suddenly the train pops out of nowhere because the server only decides to show that one in a certain range.
DoYaSeeMe
5 years ago
@DYSPROssium

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o41kxJE3cuw&ab_channel=TitanfallOfficial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p72GaGq-B_0&ab_channel=Multiplay

https://www.reddit.com/r/titanfall/comments/4v36zj/tickrate_is_about_ai_and_not_about_player/
DYSPROssium
Hero (Retired)
5 years ago
Thanks for the links, @DoYaSeeMe. My monkey brain thought you were referring to Apex but I see you mean "before apex". Time to go to bed. :'p
DoYaSeeMe
5 years ago
@BaldWraithSimp Server has to process all the data anyway, because it's not just computing stuff solely for you. Only a very small percentage of projectiles make it past a few hundred meters, so eliminating these cases would have an insignificant impact on performance. Bandwidth saving by sending only relevant data to each player poses a big risk of a very unreliable simulation on the client, resulting in players or bullets appearing out of nowhere or teleporting around.

As for the arenas, yes, there will be less bandwidth usage, but server performance will probably stay about the same. This is because there will be more arena matches per server than br matches.
asukojo
5 years ago
They already did bullet prediction for every bullets that being fired, that means they can detect cheater using aimbot since day-1 !!!
And still DO NOTHING about it ???
* ME OFF.
DoYaSeeMe
5 years ago
@asukojo No they can't. An aimbot doesn't correct projectile trajectory after it was fired. It directly sets the projectile to spawn on an already adjusted trajectory.