Update 8:
Please follow these instructions to reduce the bandwidth on connections experiencing problems.
Update 7:
For anyone who has experienced bad connection performance please try the latest Live Release 153. This release contains a collection of improvements to the networking in Boundless for both the client and server.
Please give this a try and report how it performs.
If you do experience rubber banding please try reducing the Bandwidth Limit in the game options and try again. Please report if this helps.
Update 6:
We’ve also discovered an issues where a player experiencing large lag can actually make the entire server block and thus everyone else would lag.
We’re now working on fixing this issue but do not expect an update until next week.
Update 5:
We have just released Testing 31 that we recommend all users try and report their experience with latency.
(From the release note.)
We’ve identified that often the cause of lagging and rubber banding is due to the download of chunk data starving the connection that deals with all other player interaction (movement, world interactions and GUI interactions). We added metrics to calculate the average chunk bandwidth so that people can identify if that looks to be close to their connections max bandwidth.
In addition we’ve then added code to enable the game client to better control the rate at which those chunks are requested from the server. By default we’ve reduced this from the level it used to be however it’s still at a level higher than the chunk meshing rate which means users should see a reduction in burst bandwidth but no visual change in the world loading.
We’ve also added a config in the menu to allow users to adjust this to some lower levels so if the default still maximises their bandwidth causing lag they can try some lower bandwidth settings, these lower bandwidth settings could make the world load in a bit slower but still perfectly playable.
Update 4:
The Boundless [networktest] Steam Beta has been updated for Windows and Mac OS X to be compatible with Release 151.
If you experience Networking or Latency issues with Boundless please consider trying the this Networktest build. The build contains networking buffer tweaks and updated networking libraries which we hope will improve performance and stability.
Whilst experimenting with the issue we discovered that Boundless will have significant issues if the game saturates your Wireless or Internet connection. Boundless has 2 types of communication with the server:
- Chunk downloads,
- Player input and entity updates.
If the chunk download #1 saturates the connection then the player input #2 will be stalled. Once this happens the network latency message will appear and rubber banding will happen.
We currently believe that this issue is causing the majority of issues for players. If the issue does trigger, try standing still and waiting for all the chunks to load. The game should then recover.
Please let us know how the Networkingtest versions compares to the Live version for you.
Update 3:
We were not able to get any networking updates into Testing 30. Please give it a try, but we don’t expect it to be an improvement over Release 150.
We’re still investigating and working on this issue - as per the details in Update 2 below.
Update 2:
Whilst waiting for more reports from players about the networking status with the testing build (see below) we’re continuing with the following:
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Updating some of dependent pieces of networking libraries built into the game.
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Creating a simple diagnostic tool that can be included with Boundless to help isolate issues outside of the game. Boundless is extremely complicated and it’s often much harder to workout what an issue is from within the game. The diagnostic tool will allow the user to run some simple tests that will hopefully help them resolve some standard problems, for example not being able to connect to the game servers.
-
Improving the robustness of the game in response to imperfect (standard) network connections.
Please follow this thread and the next set of releases for notifications of any changes.
Update 1:
If you have been experiencing persistent or intermittent latency issues with Release 149 or Release 150.x on Windows then please consider trying a special Steam Beta we’ve published. This can be accessed with the password: SXG7buBiOohbTjQr3nz6
This version is compatible with the latest 150.x Live releases and is only available for Windows.
Please report what effect this has on your playing experience.
Please point players reporting latency issues to this post.
Original post:
Many players have been reporting persistent latency, rubber banding, lag, and networking issues since the Release 149.
This is our #1 priority to resolve and we’re working hard on it. It’s proving tricky to track down as we’ve not been able to reproduce it internally. However, we think we may have finally found a way to trigger something that seems similar to some reports from players.
A few comments to help inform players about what is happening:
-
If the game does display the red “SLOW NETWORK” message - then the game will be unplayable. The game should really kick players that are experiencing this level of latency. If you keep trying to play it will not help. It would be best to stop giving the game inputs and wait to see if the connection will recover.
-
If you do consistently get this message then please:
- Capture a screen shot of the game with the debugging information enabled by pressing “.” (full stop) twice, and share it here.
- Respond to the FAQ thread asking for details about your connection.
- If you normally play via Wireless then try a Wired connection and let us know if this helps.
Thanks for your patience whilst we work this out.
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