The Steady Degradation Of The Server Connectivity And Client Performance

[Mordeth 1]

When I first found Wurm I spent a few hours walking around looking at random things. All I knew was that in wurm you could build houses and you could even terraform the very land. I was so intrigued that even though I couldn't find a single person in my local, and I didn't know how to do anything, I still logged on several more times that month and just looked around. That was in late 2004. It wasn't long until I learned how to play, joined a town, and fell in love with Wurm.

Wurm has gone through quite a few changes since then. We the players saw, and often suggested, the implementation of horses, large carts, riding horses, hitching horses to carts, ships, stone houses, double doors, breeding, archery, and so, so many more. But, over the years since i first started playing, and especially in this last one we the players have also seen significant increases in lag and client issues.

I Hope this to be a message to the staff not just about my own issues, but about those of the entire player-base. In the last six months or so the number of times I have seen someone mention the word "lag" or "disconnected" has gone up to at least four times a night. This is on a server that usually has about 24 to 50 players on it at a time. I have asked those on my sever to please post here, and I ask anyone else who sees this, and has similar issues, to do likewise.

*** my own issues ***

In the past few months I have gone from being able to run multiple clients at once even in a battle scenario to barely being able to run one client sitting in my house crafting. Of course this does vary from time to time and I can sometimes bring my alt on to tend the horses or imp and repair walls. For most of my time playing wurm I haven't said anything because I understand wurm is an indie game and I have given it a great deal of room for improvement. Recently, However, in September there was a few day period where I could only stay connected for less than a minute at a time. Since then the connectivity has never been the same, and it seems the client has followed in the same path as the server.

Currently between the server lag, and the client's poor performance I am stuck to logging on once a day to either craft or terraform, and anything more is pushing it.

Please take a look into the server and client issues so that I and my fellow wurmians can once again enjoy this great game.

[Shrimpiie 3,665]

Now I had thought it was just me. When I play for a full 10 or so hours,(on the weekends), I end up crashing 30+ times, it is just rediculous. And I don't always get a crash report on it. I can run 2 clients at once however after maybe 25-35min one of them crashes so I have to re launch the client, then soon after the other does, this just goes on for as long as I'm on for. I can never end up logging on and logging off without crashing at least once in a small timeframe...

[fatboy 448]

Game definitly needs opimized and improved in this area. a gtx 460 OC edition, OCed further, with a fx 6100 6 core cpu OCd to 3.7 ghz and 8 gigs ddr3 ram, i should see 80fps+ with this game, but generally i get 25-50 fps. when i get around alot of trees it drops. So yea, definitly needs sum optimization and yes i generally have things maxed, but when i can play crysis on ultra n get good rate n see the difference, wurm doesnt have that eye candy nore should it see fps like this......., Just sayin :-P

[Gaeron 551]

Game definitly needs opimized and improved in this area. a gtx 460 OC edition, OCed further, with a fx 6100 6 core cpu OCd to 3.7 ghz and 8 gigs ddr3 ram, i should see 80fps+ with this game, but generally i get 25-50 fps. when i get around alot of trees it drops. So yea, definitly needs sum optimization and yes i generally have things maxed, but when i can play crysis on ultra n get good rate n see the difference, wurm doesnt have that eye candy nore should it see fps like this......., Just sayin :-P

So you compare an optimised AAA+ title with a fixed landscape which of course benefits from heavy tuning to a small indie team with a totally arbitrary and dynamic landscape layout which can be changed as you are looking at it and you complain about only getting 30 - 60% of the performance of the AAA+ title?

Just sayin.......

[Mordeth 1]

So you compare an optimised AAA+ title with a fixed landscape which of course benefits from heavy tuning to a small indie team with a totally arbitrary and dynamic landscape layout which can be changed as you are looking at it and you complain about only getting 30 - 60% of the performance of the AAA+ title?

Just sayin.......

I am not sure if you know what crysis is Gaeron. When it first came out no off the line machine could run it at decently. For the next few years the big question was "Can it run Crysis". So for his machine to be able to run Crysis at 80 fps it should actually be able to run wurm 130+ fps. We all understand wurm is an indie game, and we all give it leeway for that reason. But, the reason we are posting this, and the point behind fatboy's post, is that even for an indie game it is getting ridiculous.

[Alyeska 2,621]

But, the reason we are posting this, and the point behind fatboy's post, is that even for an indie game it is getting ridiculous.

I thought your post was about server lags, fatboys is about fps - I don't think the two are related. While I do experience occasional server lag, I'm not having any crashes nor do I have any issues with my framerate. My crashrate got severely reduced after the simple tip of "delete your configs folder and let it reset itself" and my fps greatly improved by simply messing with some options (specifically pbuffer). And my pc is a couple of years old, not a super duper freshly new built one

[Gaeron 551]

I am not sure if you know what crysis is Gaeron. When it first came out no off the line machine could run it at decently. For the next few years the big question was "Can it run Crysis". So for his machine to be able to run Crysis at 80 fps it should actually be able to run wurm 130+ fps. We all understand wurm is an indie game, and we all give it leeway for that reason. But, the reason we are posting this, and the point behind fatboy's post, is that even for an indie game it is getting ridiculous.

Yes I know what Crysis is and its history thank you

Personally I have no issues with graphics performance in Wurm but the statement actually still stands, you are comparing two very different types of beast with two very different heritages and you cannot just say if X does this then Y has to be able to do that.

No doubt the Wurm client team work on both functionality and performance but right now functionality has a higher priority anyway, animations, character customisation and such are things that have been demanded for years. Once we have them, then maybe I'll start worrying about frame rates if they drop far enough. If I have any gripe with the client its that I find it to be too memory hungry.

In response to the OP's post though I think you should look at your issues individually.

You quote server lag, which server and at what times? is it all the time or only at specific times, are all other users complaining when it happens or is it just you? Do you have exclusive use of your internet connectionn or do you have to share? Wired to the router or wireless? Often network lag gets bundled in with server lag and its not always easy to differentiate between the two. If you can share some details it may be possible to offer suggestions.

[eyerobot 202]

I can understand the steady increase of cpu load on our systems as the game client increases in size and dexterity. But lately since the multi story house code was corrected, I have been getting 99% cpu usage constantly after only only a few minutes playtime. This makes it impossible to do anything in the game But stand there and wait for it to move again. I have tried every setting and trick mentioned on these forums, And none of them work. Due to the fact that this is an actual mistake in the game code. Please find the mistake, Or wurm 1.0 is going to be a crippled release.

[Mordeth 1]

Yes I know what Crysis is and its history thank you

Personally I have no issues with graphics performance in Wurm but the statement actually still stands, you are comparing two very different types of beast with two very different heritages and you cannot just say if X does this then Y has to be able to do that.

...

I get the feeling you are just trying to make it impossible to make our point. YES it is possible to compare the computer usage of two diff games with two different languages and coding teams. BUT, let's throw out the other games. Take a look at wurm itself. Wurm has been getting more and more resource hungry, and the server has been getting more and more laggy. There is no denying that.

...

You quote server lag, which server and at what times? is it all the time or only at specific times, are all other users complaining when it happens or is it just you? Do you have exclusive use of your internet connectionn or do you have to share? Wired to the router or wireless? Often network lag gets bundled in with server lag and its not always easy to differentiate between the two. If you can share some details it may be possible to offer suggestions.

It is actually quite easy to tell the difference between server and network lag. All you need to do is open another internet connection, say google chrome, and check the connectivity. We have a broadband connection that runs at about 12-18 mbps. Wireless will shave off a few mbps but not enough to cause wurm to lag like it is. And even if I had four other people online, which I don't, that still leaves me a few mbps. I have played countless online games on a ~1-3mbps dsl wireless connection, including wurm before it went screwy and others online, and had no issue.

Today was a perfect example of the strangeness that has been going on. I logged on and got on my large cart and was picking up piles of dirt while chatting in pm and with people on kchat. while I did that I noticed my friend reconnect several times, which his game does every time he plays. After a little bit I couldn't pick up the dirt anymore and right clicked to check and sure enough it just sat and loaded the right click menu. I could still chat just fine and even had chrome open and could load pages perfectly fine. I waited for about an hour but I could still not interact with wurm. I asked on kchat and others were having connectivity issues as well.

I currently have every single setting that can be turned down in the settings set to absolute minimum. and have posted in a few other threads and given specific information asking for help.

I can understand the steady increase of cpu load on our systems as the game client increases in size and dexterity. But lately since the multi story house code was corrected, I have been getting 99% cpu usage constantly after only only a few minutes playtime. This makes it impossible to do anything in the game But stand there and wait for it to move again. I have tried every setting and trick mentioned on these forums, And none of them work. Due to the fact that this is an actual mistake in the game code. Please find the mistake, Or wurm 1.0 is going to be a crippled release.

This is exactly what I am talking about. It isn't just a steady and equal increase of both quality and resource use. It is an outrageous overuse of system resources to accomplish such a small increase in functionality or quality that you wonder why it wasn't corrected before release.