Has anyone else noticed?

In the 5 years I have been playing, the biggest problem I had was when my old video card bit the dust. Don't have a lot of lag, crashes or lost conn. Since the last patch I have noticed something that never happend to me before. The best way to describe it is 'twitching' from time to time. (I know what rubberbanding is, but this is much more subtle.) In missions, the villains sort of 'twitch'..sometimes up and down sometimes they will appear a in another spot for a split second then pop back to the original place. (I also suffer from the tp jiggle, listed in another thread.) I also notice that sometimes other's toons will 'glide' for a long distance instead of the normal running animation. It looks strange. The other thing that stands out to me is the sharp, angular look of a lot of the terrain now. Hills have noticable lines and look a lot more blocky, as does sand and grass. It used to be softer and look more realistic. Anyone else see these things?

Anytime there is a new issue on the way, and they begin testing it, there is lag for the live servers.

Every issue, the lead up to the next issue where the live version is say issue 14, and the test issue is 15, it seems that the lag goes up.

Could be coincedence, but as it has been going on since launch of the game, I have to wonder if its a Nemesis plot.

Yeah I see this exact thing.

Netgraph the normal good green with little variations, then spikes of red 1-2 pixels wide.

I have noticed the same thing. It looks like many of the foes are using the purple Prestige Power Slide (without the foot aura). haha

I have also noticed the "twitch" on the map, where even the player arrows will rarely flicker into an alternate location.

Yep, the TP animation is bugged as well.

As for the angular terrain: An example of this is the location you appear in IP from Ouro (the sand just North of the Train). There seems to be a distinct "point" on the ground that I don't remember being there before. The base portal nearby also seems to be slightly covered by some of the terrain. You can notice this by looking down at it from above. There is also a distinct line in the grass where the Field Analyst is standing.

I just found an old screenshot I can use to compare,

Before:

After:


I don't think it's just the lighting that might be different now, and accenting the textures in a different way. Looking at the picture, it seems the terrain appears very similar, but this next picture (side view of the hill on the left side of the second picture), you can see they are bent differently to make "steps". It's hard for me to believe it's always been angled in that way:

This is exactly what I am talking about, and I looked at a lot of my old screenies too..they were never that blocky. Here is the hill right next to the Talos train.

Yep. I see the same thing. If you stand on the billboard sign in your picture and overlook that hill.. that Talos area looks absolutely horrible. I wonder why the maps would change like this.

Did you get a chance to check out the Croatoa locations in the pictures I posted? (click for full size)

I'm just glad that this is not just me. Thought I was going crazy when I noticed the blocky terrain....

Yes I see this same thing, I think. What you are referring to as "twitching" for me is much more pronounced, the npcs when engaged will jump to one side or the other sometimes directly towards me sometimes directly away. Typically it appears the move is 10 to 30 feet. If you are playing a blaster and you are attempting to snipe and suddenly the npc is 3 feet from you bashing you it is somewhat disconcerting. Since they can land blows the game has recognized that they moved and are close to you so it is not a simple animation thing or maybe they gave all the npcs teleport capability I dunno. Haven't noticed the "slide" thing but will watch for it. I have also noticed the much more angular or faceted appearance of terrain especially in Talos and Croatoa and to a seemingly lesser degree in the Hollows. I reported the "twitching" in-game and also in another thread. Back Alley Brawler responded by asking for more details maybe if he reads your post and the rest here, ahhh well... there I go trying to be optimistic again.

my graphics have been like that since i came back to the game. i assumed it was because my graphics are set to minimum and didn't think anything else about it.

Very intresting find Healix.

I just created a new screenshot in a location where I have one from June 08.

The old one, during a raid -

(click for larger version)


And the new one -




Open them both full screen and flip back and forth, you can see the new one is more jagged.

Also, the raid ss is with my old ATI2600xt, and the new one is a 9800GTX+ running full tilt.

Bad day on the hill:



Better day on the hill:


That's on my relatively new GTX 260, settings maxed out, even better than my 7 and 8 series of NVIDIA cards. I originally thought that the hill was rendered in low-poly because of the constant invasions, and that they would scale back to high-poly when invasions went away, but I see the low-poly more often than not.

As for the 'twitch,' I agree with Catwhoorg; it corresponds with my bad network connectivity to the East Coast servers (type /netgraph 1 to see yours). I assume that the twitches and skips you see are the engine on the client side just doing the expedient thing during those red lines and dumping animation frames to 'catch you up' to the action in real-time. Although I need to find the thread about bad netgraph activity and post there for this problem.

Tai

I have been sitting in the same spot a while.. Certain times of day seem worse than others as the sun goes up and down.

Edit -

It does look worse in certain lighting for sure.

I honestly thought a friend of mine that's been away from the game for a while was just jerking my chain when he said this game "looks like crap now". I hadn't even noticed and had no idea what he was talking about. Going to run around a while and see if I notice any more of the "new face of CoH" rearing it's head.

yeah, I've had the "twitching" a lot, and the power side anims too, and not just on enemy mobs but also on players. And yes, as someone else said, being on a blaster and sniping to suddenly have a mob next to you and attacking. quickly select and hit a melee kb power to get them away and they are suddenly back were they started and thus out of melee range.

I've also seen the twitching with KB's foes, they hit hit and fly off in some random direction unrelated to the position of the KBing toon or direction of the attack then snapping back to where they should have KB'd to. And as the KBing blaster having foes being "Knocked back" at you is very disconcerting indeed and have prompted many expletives from me.

Thankfuly, though I've had this problem since I15, it does seem to be settling down now and don't have it as much! just hope it doesn't come back/get worse when I16 hits.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Forbin_Project Then it's time for them to get off the cross, use the wood to build a bridge, and get over it.

First after red name.

Good to know that you got a handle on the problems.

Makes me wonder just how fugly the animation sequencer code is after five plus years of tweaking.

It's a Nemesis PLOT!!!!!

Wait, did he mention lag spikes?? So I'm not the only one suffering thru impossible-to-play lag?

And I've seen this jumping around thing too, where critters will be in one place and then for a moment be in another, like across the room, only to return to their original location a moment later.

Nice to know I'm not the only one. But seriously, the lag is brutal. Pretty much can't play at all anymore.

Oh thank goodness. I noticed the blocky geometry as well but I thought it was just senility setting in. Nice to know it's fixed and that I wasn't going insane.

BaB: somebody deserves a Bug Hunter badge for this thread.