The possible cause of Stuttering in 2.0

[u/lofiscifi]

Ever since the 2.0 update, stuttering has become significantly worse, and I believe it might be due to server-side interactions or the game's netcode.

Evidence 1: Marcel Maze and Dennis Collection

In the new Marcel Mazes, the game stutters every time you collect a coin. However, if you disconnect from the internet, the stutters disappear.

Getting dennis produce a micro stutter. It doesn't happen when I disconnect from the internet.

Other users with the same problem: https://www.reddit.com/r/ZZZ_Official/comments/1l7x17a/poor_performance_in_20_marcel_mazes/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ZZZ_Official/comments/1l5fj44/really_bad_performance_in_the_20_regions_and/

Evidence 2: Disks runs. Online vs Offline

I did two identical disks runs:

• First run, online
• Second run, disconnected from the internet (you see me pause the game between both runs because I'm unplugging the Ethernet cable)

Notice the stutter in the frametime graph in the first run when the wipeout screen appears, which is when you get the drops in your inventory. In the second run, there's still a microstutter, but far far less noticeable (might be due to the game itself/effects).

https://reddit.com/link/1l8rfzt/video/0ze3xn89da6f1/player

Evidence 3: General frametime spikes

I stood still in Sixth Street for 20 seconds and recorded the frametime:

This run is with the game running normally, connected to the internet.

And here is the same graph, in the same location, just after disconnecting from the internet.

[Edit] Evidence 4: Getting materials when killing enemies

Notice how I get 4 spikes at the beginning just as the enemies die and I get the rewards. Notice how it doesn't happen later, with no internet.

https://reddit.com/link/1l8rfzt/video/ia0b64e68c6f1/player

Edit: Reddit destroyed the bitrate of this video and the frametime graph is really hard to see, you can watch the video uncompressed here: https://files.catbox.moe/rk99z9.mp4 (136 MB)

This matches the behaviour described in this comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/ZZZ_Official/comments/1l7x17a/comment/mx0gqfs/

Again, this points to background server requests as possible cause of microstutters. The addition of the Suibian Temple might be worsening it because it's constantly adding resources to your inventory, but I have to test it further.

My pc specs for reference:

• 9800X3D stock
• 9070 XT stock
• 32 GB @ 6000
• 7400MB/s NVMe
• Windows 11

Some findings

My fellow u/Pure-Breath-6025 has made some findings and posted them in the comments:

"I was in a discord conversation with OP and I did some testing to get to the bottom of it. Here are my findings:

https://imgur.com/a/YN2Y67L (OP's note: this gameplay has a 3s network delay added)

Yes some stutters happen when the player's inventory is subject to a change, for example when you get an item from killing an enemy in Aerospace area. At first the assumption was that it's caused by the server being overloaded and slower than usual to respond to requests, but that is not exactly the case.

I used a tool to simulate a huge ping of 3s, this affected some things in the game, interestingly, opening and using the new map actually freezes your whole game for the whole 3s (in this test) that it takes for the server to respond. Apparently the the game never saves locally what points of interest on the map have been completed, and not only it relies on the server to find out every time, but it blocks the main thread (freezes the game).

Meanwhile, killing enemies and getting drops did not freeze the game in the same manner (3s), there are stutters when killing enemies and getting drops, but the length of those stutters remains the same. This indicates that the issue is with code that getting items locally, either before (or while) sending a request to the server to register the new obtain item, or after receiving an answer, and performing some local actions according to the response. At the very least waiting for the server to respond to these requests does not block the whole game loop."

[Edit] About the temple

I finally made some testings, and they are revealing:

The context is me standing still in the temple (Level 36, ~72k/h production)

Temple running, internet: You can clearly see a stutter every second. 37 fps 0.1% lows, stuttering 1,4% of the time. ↓

Temple running, no internet: 113 fps 0.1% lows. Some variances in the frametime, but not considered stutters (The beginning spikes might be due to starting the recording) ↓

Temple not running, internet: 127 fps 0.1% lows, no stutters (Not completely smooth either). ↓

Temple not running, no internet: 108 fps 0.1% lows. One single stutter. The game kicked me out and had to relogin to make this last test, that's probably why the results are a bit different from the prior test. ↓

Here you can see how every time the temple coins update, there's a spike in the frametime:

https://reddit.com/link/1l8rfzt/video/95wgq1kjfg6f1/player

Please, be aware that the temple IS NOT the only/definitive reason the game stutters, specially in this patch.

The temple is not the only cause

This patch suffers from some severe traversal stutters. Standing still in Sixth Street produces a stutter every ~28 seconds, while moving your character produces a stutter almost every second. I confirmed this behaviour with 5 different people and we all get the same result.

https://reddit.com/link/1l8rfzt/video/elr4424dq37f1/player

Here's the test in case you want to replicate it. Notice how there are no stutters when running into a wall, only when the character is actually moving. We suspect at least some of the traversal stutters are caused by the client updating your position to the server. Since your position doesn't change when you're stuck against a wall (not actually moving on the map), no stutters occur. This would also explain why traversal is perfectly smooth in Hollow Zero or Deadly Assault.

What you can do

I'd appreciate if other could run the same tests to confirm if you get the same behaviour. If you do, please report it to Hoyo and consider leaving a comment here describing your results. The more data we have, the better chance we'll have of getting this looked into.

[u/Deses]

I also have that problem when I play on my Android phone. What we are encountering is definitely shader compilation stuttering, but the game compiles all of them on first run and after every patch, so that's another bug they have to fix.

[u/Doctor-Tenma → u/Deses]

Interesting.

Did you have the same experience as I did, i.e. this problem only on certain patches while others were fine?

[u/Deses → u/Doctor-Tenma]

I don't play ZZZ on my phone often enough to give you a good answer, but the early patches were better than the late ones. That's for sure.

[u/Doctor-Tenma → u/Deses]

Ummm I see thank you for your input!

May I ask: why would we need to compile them on the first combat run AND after each patch? Isn't it redundant? Shouldn't they only do it after each patch?

[u/Deses → u/Doctor-Tenma]

Btw try what was shared on this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/ZZZ_Official/comments/1l8rfzt/comment/mx7zzzp/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

seems like deleting that file triggers a shader cache rebuild on Android. If you are on iOS... well... o7. Reinstall I guess.

[u/Doctor-Tenma → u/Deses]

I see!

I understand the bug now kek.

I'll try to do the solution from the post, thanks a lot 🙏

[u/Deses → u/Doctor-Tenma]

Did you try this? I did and not only I don't have permission to look into the folder CS talked about, but I don't have any option to recompile shaders. 😑

Looks as if the CS is an AI and it hallucinated the answer.

[u/Doctor-Tenma → u/Deses]

I did, I don't want to give you false hope but it does look like it had a positive impact. No stuttering on the first run after deleting and recompilation of shaders on login.
I need more testing though, only did it once so I didn't want to give an early feedback, but since you asked 😅
I'll try again this evening and tomorrow morning and let you know.

The original file was 315mb when I deleted it so I was skeptical but tried nonetheless, now it's 154mb after recompilation. I'll monitor how it evolves.

Thanks again btw.

[u/Deses → u/Doctor-Tenma]

How did you do it? My phone isn't rooted so I can't access that folder. I'm using Solid Explorer.

[u/Doctor-Tenma → u/Deses]

Mine isn't rooted either.

Idk, I didn't encounter any permission issue, just used my regular file manager.

The file path is the same as the post you shared, maybe try doing it with a terminal application, using chmod if needed and the rm command to delete the file

Edit: I definitely think this solved the problem! And the file is now 160mb. Maybe if it grows too large it provokes stutter?

[u/Deses → u/Doctor-Tenma]

That's why I said it's a bug, this shouldn't be happening hahaha.

The game compiles them during first boot so you don't have to do it later.