over 3 years ago - /u/GDFireFrog - Direct link

Regarding this issue with multi-threaded input:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Diabotical/comments/i31g0s/game_started_feeling_slow_or_floaty_is_it_just_me/

We made several improvements and fixes to multi-threaded input yesterday. We have had good results in our internal testing group.

  • People who previously felt ON was better than OFF, now think the the difference is more pronounced and multi-threaded is even better. The qualifier "crisp" has come up a few times.

  • On the side of more objective testing, somebody did 180º flick tests back and forth between versions with and without the fix, and accuracy improved significantly.

  • Some people who were disabling it are now playing with it enabled.

The improvements being reported are consistent with a diminished reproduction of the symptoms being reported by some people in that thread, meaning our testers were experiencing a tiny latency and most of them didn't even realise it until it was fixed yesterday. Some people in that thread seem to be experiencing an aggravated version of that so I'd like to know if these people have their situation completely resolved in the next test. Please post on the bug thread during the next stress test if this issue persists for you. To be clear the issue that we are talking about is "high latency in the input thread" and it could be described as a feeling of "floatiness" or latency when it comes to the camera orientation responding to movement of the pointing device.

Multi-threaded input should feel better in the vast majority of cases. I'm leaving room open for some special situations in which it'd be better to disable it in theory, but it would be a very uncommon situation in which you are experiencing instability from that due to very low specs or faulty chipset/drivers, and you are willing to trade in some latency for stability. Multi-threaded input should never feel more consistently "floaty". In general if Off is better than On for you, there's something that we need to fix and I would like to hear about it in the bug thread during the next stress test.

Also another clarification: there are other things that could be described as "floatiness" that have more to do with physics and friction. This has been pointed out in a thread among other feedback issues and it's being considered seriously, but it's not this issue.

External link →
over 3 years ago - /u/GDFireFrog - Direct link

Originally posted by vsesuki

I made the original thread.

I brought up mouse input because I was thinking along the lines of: wonky mouse input => slowed circle and strafe jumps => game feels slower.

But after the beta on Aug 8-9, and your comment:

described as "floatiness" that have more to do with physics and friction

I'm feeling pretty convinced the floatiness I'm experiencing is in the physics/friction realm.

OK, we might need to subdivide this issue yet again because there's also two things in here that we could be talking about.

The issue that affected mouse input, the one that we think we have improved/solved, also affected keyboard input. That would be conceivably consistent with what you are describing, if so this may also be solved.

To know if the issue is the other thing that I was mentioning in my post (i.e, you find friction is just too low), during the next test, start a custom game pasting this in the Commands field:

phy_surface_friction: 20;

phy_accel_ground: 20;

This is going to make you super grounded, pinning you to the ground as soon as you touch it, kinda like Super Meat Boy. It's an extreme so you can see if that's at the root of your feedback. The ground acceleration is increased in this example to compensate for the increased friction, the value is not exact to keep things as they were, just eye-balled to make it kind of playable.

over 3 years ago - /u/GDFireFrog - Direct link

Originally posted by vsesuki

Thanks. I'll see next test period, and give those vars a try if necessary. I wish I had more objective observations than 'feels like X' :)

For the record, you shouldn't feel bad about that :) We work with both objective and subjective feedback, and sometimes subjective feedback is very important where hard data is incomplete or hard to analyse. In fact I do often ask specifically for "subjective feedback" on changes, like having someone jump around shooting at things for a while back and forth between two versions and just see what feels better. You'd think this is error-prone but it is actually exceedingly rare that a player gets it wrong when it comes to telling which is better between A and B (at least in my experience). The same goes with "feels like X" statements as you mention. There is more commonality with the way we choose to describe sensations than one might expect and it is rare that things are described in a way that is so abstract that you can't make sense of it.

over 3 years ago - /u/GDFireFrog - Direct link

Originally posted by vsesuki

Did not try the cvars, but the multi threaded mouse input felt a lot better. Which is awesome.

Regrading the 'floatiness' I'm referencing, I finally found a found a twitch clip that shows what I'm experiencing

https://clips.twitch.tv/SuaveTiredOstrichStrawBeary

Look at how everything goes into slow motion for a second during the rocket fight. I guess thats the friction/physics impact you were mentioning?

No, I don't think that's what I was mentioning. Going by your description that things "go into slow motion for a second during a fight", I think that these are specific performance issues related to specific gameplay events. When we finish some stuff we need to do for launch I'll analyse some demos of similar fights and try to find the issue. As an aside, when we start storing server side demos it'll be easier for me to find specific fights that people show me and look at what's going on in specific moments and this kind of stuff should improve quicker.