stick and skip

[Phytotron]

Alright, here's the deal. There has been this persistent phenomenon that I've been frustratingly dealing with for a long time but haven't reported, figuring that it's just the way it is (and someone would probably condescendingly tell me so if I brought it up, and still might). This, despite the fact that I've asked numerous other players about it, and none have said they get the same thing.

But, today I tried the game on a more recent Mac running 10.4. This phenomenon didn't happen, so obviously something is up.

What is this phenomenon? It's what I describe as a pause and jump, or stick and skip. Whatever. What happens is the game pauses for a brief moment, perhaps half a second or so, but certainly very noticeable, and then skips ahead to the point where it would have been had it not paused, often to irritatingly fatal results.

When does it happen? Every single time, without exception, one of the following events happens:

1) A cycle makes a fairly close/deep/hard grind within somewhat close proximity. At least, that's when it's most noticeable, when it happens in my visual range.

2) A player explodes.

3) A player enters or exits the arena.

Let me put emphasis on the peristence of this.

Latency doesn't seem to be the culprit, or at least a significant one, because this happens no matter the individual pings involved or the server's own latency.

I also don't recall this happening prior to 0.2.8.0 final. I'm not going back as far as 0.2.7.1—it wasn't even happening through sometime in the beta and RC releases.

Something that may be related, or completely unrelated, is something else that only seems to have begun with 0.2.8.0 final (though, again, it may have been slightly earlier). If I go to the Detail Settings and cycle through the Wall Textures, I experience a similar pause and jump as it switches between each.

At any rate, whether this thing is OS and/or hardware related, I of course have no clue. So, if anyone is willing to explore this, what information do you want from me?

[Lucifer]

I assume this is new? i.e. it didn't happen in 0.2.7.1?

[Z-Man]

When you switch the texuring modes, the textures get reloaded. We had a bug in some of the betas that also caused texture reloading on player deaths, but IIRC, that was fixed. I'm getting those freezes too, but not linked to a particular game situation; I always found some other probram responsible for stealing CPU time.

If the problem is on our side, then those sticks and skips must also appear when playing back a recording in, this is important, benchmark mode. In normal playback mode, the skips will be reproduced whether they're our problem or not. Sooo, could you give it a test? Make a recording, wait for a skip, play the recording back. If the skip reappears at the same spot, send the recording over. If it doesn't, look for background programs.

What may help both of us: switch the swap mode to "Finish" in the performance tweaks.

[Phytotron]

Lucifer, right. In fact, like I said, I don't recall it even happening through the 2.8 beta and RC series. Best to my recollection, it began with 0.2.8.0 final.

As far as background programs, I don't believe there's anything new there, not that I would know much what to look for.

I remembered one other event that triggers the "stick and skip." I enter a server, I play for maybe 30 seconds (I'll time it the next few times and see what it actually is, then edit this), and then it happens.

Let me reiterate, the "stick and skip" happens with these events a) without exception, and b) exclusively, not at any other arbitrary time.

I'll check Finish and a recording or two when I get a chance.

[Phytotron]

As I was reminded from previous experience, "Finish" absolutely kills my framerate, knocking it down a good 50 fps. It also causes what look like little lag turns or redraw each time I turn. And the stick-and-skip still happens.

I made a couple recordings. The stick-and-skip was visible in playback. But the overall recordings are kind of large with a fair amount of filler between events and some of the events weren't as prominent as might be ideal (while it's persistent, the severity of it varies). So I'll try a few more times.

[Phytotron]

Just bumping this to remind myself. (It's a bit more of a hassle to make a recording with my OS. Plus, you know, time.)