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STO does not have "UI Lag"
guriphu
Member Posts: 494 Arc User
STO has its problems with lag, but no more so than any other mmo. Most decent connections will typically run STO at under 200 ping, which is acceptable for a game with STO's pacing. Sometimes STO has laggy periods, and those will manifest the same way that they normally do: rubberbanding, feedback delay, etc.
STO does not have a magical monster called "UI Lag" that magically afflicts it with magical tentacles of UI Laggification during normal times. It's a myth that the playerbase has come up with, and that people who ought to know better persist in spreading.
To reiterate: "UI Lag" aka "Input Lag" does not exist.
What STO does have is activation timers and a limited next-activation queue.
On ground, the next-activation queue is exactly one power long. Specifically:
If you have no timer currently running, you will immediately activate whatever power you trigger.
When you activate a power, it also starts a timer that locks out all other powers for a duration. This number is listed on the power's infocard as its activation time. Call this power "Power 1."
If you trigger a power while you have a timer running, it does not activate. Instead, it goes into a queue for your next power activation. This queue holds one and only one power. Call this power "Power 2."
If you then do nothing until the activation timer of Power 1 has finished, Power 2 will immediately activate.
If, however, you trigger a third power (Power 3), while the activation timer of Power 1 is still going, Power 2 will get kicked out of the next-activation queue and replaced by Power 3.
For example:
Captain Picard is fighting the Borg with his pulsewave.
0s: He shoots the Borg with his secondary, triggering a 1.25 second activation timer.
0.2s: The Borg shoots him back for 3/4 of his health.
0.5s: Captain Picard hits his hypo. Nothing happens because he needs to wait 1.25 seconds for his pulsewave timer to finish. Hypo enters the next-activation queue.
1.0s: Captain Picard hits his pulsewave primary. Nothing happens because he needs to wait 1.25s for his pulsewave timer to finish. Pulsewave primary enters the next-activation queue, replacing Hypo.
1.25s: Pulsewave secondary activation timer finishes, and the currently queued action (pulsewave primary) triggers.
Captain Picard's hypo never activates, the Borg smacks him again, and he dies. The Federation is doomed. Captain Picard goes and rages on the forums about UI Lag, even though there is no such thing.
Space is a little more complicated, as it allows two simultaneous power activations and (iirc) another set of two simultaneous power activations in its next-activation queue. However, aside from that it works the same way as ground. The possibility of simultaneous activations and the overall faster activation timers in space make it less noticeable than on ground.
So the next time you are asking for game improvements, remember:
Cryptic cannot change "UI Lag" because it doesn't exist.
What Cryptic can change is power activation timers, simultaneous activations, etc.
This is posted in reference to the thread about kit powers, but as a separate thread because it seems that it would derail the topic away from the OP's questions.
STO does not have a magical monster called "UI Lag" that magically afflicts it with magical tentacles of UI Laggification during normal times. It's a myth that the playerbase has come up with, and that people who ought to know better persist in spreading.
To reiterate: "UI Lag" aka "Input Lag" does not exist.
What STO does have is activation timers and a limited next-activation queue.
On ground, the next-activation queue is exactly one power long. Specifically:
If you have no timer currently running, you will immediately activate whatever power you trigger.
When you activate a power, it also starts a timer that locks out all other powers for a duration. This number is listed on the power's infocard as its activation time. Call this power "Power 1."
If you trigger a power while you have a timer running, it does not activate. Instead, it goes into a queue for your next power activation. This queue holds one and only one power. Call this power "Power 2."
If you then do nothing until the activation timer of Power 1 has finished, Power 2 will immediately activate.
If, however, you trigger a third power (Power 3), while the activation timer of Power 1 is still going, Power 2 will get kicked out of the next-activation queue and replaced by Power 3.
For example:
Captain Picard is fighting the Borg with his pulsewave.
0s: He shoots the Borg with his secondary, triggering a 1.25 second activation timer.
0.2s: The Borg shoots him back for 3/4 of his health.
0.5s: Captain Picard hits his hypo. Nothing happens because he needs to wait 1.25 seconds for his pulsewave timer to finish. Hypo enters the next-activation queue.
1.0s: Captain Picard hits his pulsewave primary. Nothing happens because he needs to wait 1.25s for his pulsewave timer to finish. Pulsewave primary enters the next-activation queue, replacing Hypo.
1.25s: Pulsewave secondary activation timer finishes, and the currently queued action (pulsewave primary) triggers.
Captain Picard's hypo never activates, the Borg smacks him again, and he dies. The Federation is doomed. Captain Picard goes and rages on the forums about UI Lag, even though there is no such thing.
Space is a little more complicated, as it allows two simultaneous power activations and (iirc) another set of two simultaneous power activations in its next-activation queue. However, aside from that it works the same way as ground. The possibility of simultaneous activations and the overall faster activation timers in space make it less noticeable than on ground.
So the next time you are asking for game improvements, remember:
Cryptic cannot change "UI Lag" because it doesn't exist.
What Cryptic can change is power activation timers, simultaneous activations, etc.
This is posted in reference to the thread about kit powers, but as a separate thread because it seems that it would derail the topic away from the OP's questions.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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The function of which is somehow affected by connection lag, and it has gotten worse somehow since roughly LOR's release.
Agreed, what ever the culprit actually is, there are too many times where i will try to activate abilities, both with mouse and key, only to have nothing happen. Mostly it DOES happen when trying to activate multiple abilities in a row, but some times even just aiming for one will fail. It's not the connection or my pc, and other games don't seem to have this issue for me, including CO and NW. To be honest though, with every thing that is horribly broken on the UI like the chat window, channels, boff placement, boff jobs, broken exchange search, broken... we'll just leave it there for now before this becomes a rant, i wouldn't doubt if there were some deeper issue that just cast time or activation. When abilities are refusing to fire at random, instead of the same ability constantly as indicative of a timer, than i'm more inclined to think something is wrong with the system.
The same system that is already horribly broken and only breaking further instead of being fixed at all.
Bingo Bango give the man a cookie. Even if doing it from keys it has problems, not just clicking.
If they had this mechanic in game, it should show ingame that you cannot hit the next power. Like oh i dont know, something like when a power goes off CD, you get that scrolling line over it.
It sucks when you are trying to stay alive by hitting your powers that arent on CD and none of them activate and you die because the game said oh the 1 second from your TT has gone away...... Thats Bull***t
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Opinion versus proof ^^ = proof always win.
I never had UI lag in ground combat strangely.
Play sci ground and trying to save your skin in a pinch....:cool:
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
There was once a lengthy post stating that the activation timers were a global. They aren't.
"If they had this mechanic in game, it should show ingame that you cannot hit the next power. Like oh i dont know, something like when a power goes off CD, you get that scrolling line over it."
That would be.
EDIT: I can't really be sure what steps, if any, Cryptic takes to discourage scripts, bots, or otherwise discourage player automation of the game. "Magical UI Lag" could be one of those steps. Not saying it IS, just saying it could be.
DOUBLE EDIT: Wow. I've approached Virus levels of boredom, and Antoinocelery ratings of pomposity. Good times. Maybe I should actually go play STO.
Well he is not exactly wrong on this one point.
The best device to see this with is the Party poppers. They have a 4 second cool down. If you hit it once it starts to shoot but when you hit it a second time the coloring changes to indicate that it is queued. or you can hit your hypo after as well. Either way you will see it. Only on ground though.
Yes it does.There have been a few times where I hit an ability, the click does the "you clicked it" animation over it and then it does nothing. Doesn't activate the ability or the cool down.
As much as I would be inclined to suspect bugs or lag, it just feels to me like this UI in general isn't a good match for the pace of the game's combat. It seems especially noticeable on ground combat, which is probably one reason why ground combat is so disliked in this game. A better UI instead of content may help improve player's perception of it.
My character Tsin'xing
Well thats the thing I run Max graphics setting no issues anywhere in game atm, except in Winter Wonderland, occasionally, and that is only with the interacts popping up tray activations work fine.
Wherever there is latency, there is a lag. UI or not, does not matter. Your client may acknowledge that you just clicked on an ability, but if the package got lost on the way, your server will never acknowledge you clicking that ability. BAM! UI lag right there.
Elite Defense Stovokor
You have simply no idea what you are talking about.
The UI is Hardware accelerated by the GPU, all the transparency effects and stuff are. Framerate can simply not be limited by this factor.
However, the underlying background processes that actually defines where all the objects are:
- Buffs that appear,
- Disappear,
- Your tray counting down buffs on cooldown
- Your shield
- the Minimap with dozens of objects
- Moving Reticles on the screen
- Damage numbers above npc's/players you're shooting at
- Your shields which are constantly moving.
Do you think these things all happen magically? There is some process involved in the background and that process has to recalculate the position of ALL these factors
EVERY.
SINGLE.
FRAME.
Most modern CPU's (I'm talking overclocked i7's here) cant even keep this game up on a consistent 60+ fps basis, go into a CCE with some decent people that actually use their stuff constantly, your FPS will drop insane, even on lowest of the lowest graphics quality (Like i said, its mainly CPU bound) will not keep your from dropping below 60.
To make things worse, this process is done on 1 CPU thread only, and possibly shared by other tasks at the same time. Go figure.
There IS UI 'lag', and its massive. And since this game evolved so much with all the new abilities and buffs and debuff icons added to it (Not even mentioning pets etc) it has only grown worse.
You cant explain why tons of people report a FPS increase of 100% or more when fully disabling the UI in certain conditions. Seperately disabling UI components also slightly increase FPS each time.
Its just a bad system and they cannot keep this up or in 2/3 years even the most extreme PC's will have trouble playing this game fluently.
Another fact is that the Devs are not really taking it very strict with Quality control of their engine and core systems. Like the fact that DX11 once gave a rough 25% performance boost (Well on Nvidias anyway): http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/01/17/star_trek_online_dx11_performance_review
In this current state of the game, going from DX9 to DX11 actually drops your FPS (Independent of Graphic settings) and increases your CPU load without any benefit what so ever.
Not even mentioning the horrible sound pops and clicks and stutering people are encountering when the game is overloading. (DSP or no DSP). Hell, DSP doesnt even work here anymore, once it added Reverb, Chorus and other effects in certain areas, its simply broken. At least for me.
There, it had to be said.
Cryptic knows about this and is unwilling to face this long standing problem(s), but they can be assured this will only grow worse and worse.
The only solutions I can think of are the following:
Option 1:
- Add an option for 3 or Quad core PC's, where this task is shifted to one of these cores which are still free.
This is the most difficult way of alleviating some of the problems, will be a hard job to seperate this from the main process.
Option 2:
- Make an option for us to skip the processing of the UI for every other frame, or more if need be. The greater this number will be however, it will also make the UI more jerky, and especially with reticles and stuff that might become quite annoying to some.
And no your right about one thing. There is activation time on most, but not all, abilities. usually .25 or .5 of a second. Some are even higher, like 1 full second like Proton Barrage and FOMM i believe. Long activation time never the less, and aborting this activation before it fully ran thru the activation timer will abort the whole thing occasionally.
Also when usin binds, abilities can 'fight over each other' on who needs to be activated first. Most of these issues can be alleviated with some smart bind tricks. (TrayExecByTray in a ladder, mirroring the whole bind line)
Google and you will (eventually) find out how.
ps. The people that dont find anything wrong with performance in this game are simply not picky about their system, have bad eyes, or simply arent used to anything better. Also remember that the enjoyment of ones gameplay is subjective and one will be happy with 20 fps and low quality settings, others crave for even better visuals and speed.
Still doesnt take away the fact that this game is heavily CPU bound and severely under-utilizing most system hardware, especially compared to never games.