Last post on stutter from me! - DX9 Vs DX11 differences explained!

[Animl-AW]

As I say, a cpl things can be true at once. The fact it's only in the MA, seems to suggest the server side is not setup for what the DX11.exe is sending/requesting.

HT explained it started as soon as the DX11.exe was made. Also, the only reason for DX11.exe is VR, AH doesn't use anything else from DX11.

It's rare to hear players using VR complain about it. That's a flag to me. DX9 doesn't have VR. According to above that's the only different. Do VR users see it when VR is off? And why would that affect the server end, if so? Is there a timed check for VR?

Not trying to throw anyone off the trail, but it is a consideration. Looking at any angle. We're all looking from the outside in, with zero input.

I would think HT would have to compare settings for the other arenas to the MA to see what's different. It does suggest it's an MA setting different than the rest of the arenas if it doesn't happen in other arenas.

We've been waiting 4-5 months for 2 new maps, so....

[Animl-AW]

When you have one of these does everything,  all planes, zig zag for a second or just the plane you are flying against...

I get the occasional split second zig zag from a plane I am flying against but it does not affect the other planes flying nearby and doesn't happen every 10 seconds..more like just the rare interruption of usually smooth interactions..

I have always thought this was just the odd internet connection hiccup though sometimes it happens just at the right time as if the zig zag can be caused with a connection interrupt but don't have any evidence such a device/ setup exists...

My in the boonies starlink connection has more oddness like this than the cable connection I use at home..

Eagler

That sounds more like a connection issue on their side.

[Animl-AW]

steely07 UDP is stateless.

A firewall will maintain a session table for UDP, and that will have a timeout value. But that is different to aging out. I cannot find anything about UDP aging out. Also I would expect if a UDP session aged out you would see the AH UDP error switching to TCP message.

The clock thing does my brain in. I would not have thought the clock hands would act like an tracked object in the arena?

.nm

[Animl-AW]

I did a few tests just now... it seems the 10 min cycle starts at arena entry; when I first experienced it, it reminded me of the old ISP activity checks dinging your connection.

Interesting, because, my host does timeout and drop the connection in game sometimes if I'm not doing anything in the tower. But not all the time. There is a timeout thing happening somewhere.

[Shane]

Interesting, because, my host does timeout and drop the connection in game sometimes if I'm not doing anything in the tower. But not all the time. There is a timeout thing happening somewhere.

And as I remarked, it occurred after some kind of tweaks with Frontier about 2 weeks after the initial swap; when something was, iirc, "fixed."

[steely07]

steely07 UDP is stateless.

A firewall will maintain a session table for UDP, and that will have a timeout value. But that is different to aging out. I cannot find anything about UDP aging out. Also I would expect if a UDP session aged out you would see the AH UDP error switching to TCP message.

This is an excellent point, another reason I'm glad you're helping to dig into this!, it's possible it's not so much a drop and re-establishment, more of an internal re-negotiation within the device in front of the gameservers, as it happens very quickly, and there aren't any dropped packets, wireshark shows the packet sequence numbers stay in the correct order during the spike.

Also thank you for confirming the DX9 exe doesn't have the problem!, apologies, I didn't get a notification the thread had been updated, just jumped back to check manually

[steely07]

@Vulcan

Do you think we can rule some stuff out, in light of what we're seeing with DX9 V DX11?, in my opinion :

It can't be network routing, as that's going to be the same for each (as in, if I run DX11, then I log out and run DX9, the network traffic is going to flow the same way, the difference being the port the traffic is terminated on at the HT equipment end

It can't be directx itself, as the network traffic is ignorant of your graphics drivers or DX version, it's just packets on a wire

It's fine in SEA2 with DX11, so it must be possible to look at configs and make it go away, and probably wouldn't take very long if HT has the access

Shane and I can clearly state it only started after the move to Frontier, my suspicion is some kind of new box was put in place at that time, I've been playing since the year 2000, and I know for sure we didn't have cyclical freezes before the change, and it was only afterwards people started commenting about it.

If all of the above is true, it is affecting all DX11 users, even if they don't notice it, or have just gotten used to it.

That also means any new Steam user will be affected, as well as all current Steam users.

And that means (to me at least) it needs to be looked at, even though it doesn't make the game unplayable at all, at worst, can cause folks to miss shots or hit trees (both have happened to me)

Anyhoo, that's it for the day, I'ma get a beer!

Thanks to all helping out with this, I hope HT sees it (I'm too shy and far away to call him and chat hehe)

[Vulcan]

imho there are two (or more) separate issues.

You have clearly identified one issue, the 10 minute spike on DX11. I believe it is so infrequent and small in effect that most players don't notice unless they're told to look for it (like me).

I think the issue is with DX11 itself, possibly something in the network stack. DirectX includes a component called DirectPlay - a network comms library.

DirectPlay is a 'legacy component' on Win 11, deprecated. So I did a quick check, it is not installed in my non-gaming PCs, but it is installed on my gaming PC. That PC has very few games on it, AH3, some Oculus games, and Arma Reforger.

It would be interesting to hear from HT whether AH3 uses directplay.

[steely07]

Interesting, DirectPlay not enabled on the machine I've done most of my testing on, it IS enabled on my main gaming machine, which has 15 or so games installed, so we can probably write that off, although it's a good find!

Both machines have the stutter on DX11 of course

If others want to check - open the Start menu, search for "Turn Windows features on or off," and expand the "Legacy Components" folder. If the "DirectPlay" box is checked, it is installed

[Eagler]

Last thing I heard where the game was going was its conversion to Vulkan programming...

Would that have fixed this issue with dx11..

Eagler

[SNO]

I see the 1 second pauses in VR, I don’t know if they are there non VR. I see the spikes in the net status. I recently excluded the HT and AH folders from defender running win11 and that setting so far has almost eliminated the spikes and stutters for me.

[Animl-AW]

And as I remarked, it occurred after some kind of tweaks with Frontier about 2 weeks after the initial swap; when something was, iirc, "fixed."

For you, not for some.

[Shane]

For you, not for some.

Has any dx11 user been found to *not* experience that 10 min net spike, regardless of whether it's visually discernable while playing?

[steely07]

Has any dx11 user been found to *not* experience that 10 min net spike, regardless of whether it's visually discernable while playing?

This is a good question, the problem is it's quite difficult to get folks to actually test it!

I'd bet every DX11 user will be getting the spike, I'll get back to work on the testing app I'd mentioned earlier on, and see if we can get more data

[steely07]

Version 1 of the Analyzer is published on github (my first release!)

https://github.com/steelington/Aces-High-Network-Analyser/tree/main

If you want to give it a try, just follow the instructions, it requires python and wireshark to be installed in their default paths (ie, don't change the the install path)

For Python, make sure to choose "add python to my PATH when installing)

For wireshark, make sure to choose install npcap during the install

To capture :

Start Aces High either with DX9 or DX11 exe's

Alt tab out

Right click and "run as administrator" on the aces_analyzer_v3.py, or doubleclick the START_ANALYZER.vbs

Make sure to choose the right config to match your setup (DX11 in MA, DX9 in MA, DX11 in SEA2 etc etc)



Follow instructions on github page, use README.html or README.txt for instructions



You can let it run in the background, and game as normal, it'll stop automatically after 35 mins and create a graph for you which you can upload here