What causes the lag in Dynamis D and what can be done about it?

[Pixela]

Dynamis D has a lot of serious lag issues for some people, do the developers have any idea what can be causing it?

I can press a macro and the spell won't go off for 1-2 seconds often and sometimes it won't go off at all and I have to keep pressing it, and when it does it skips half the animation.

Could this be some kind of overload of data due to mog wardrobes and other things? I know FFXI has a hard cap on upload / download speeds.

Could it be graphics related with some kind of glow effects not working correctly with certain drivers? I'm tempted to think it's related to this because I have far worse lag on one computer than another

Could it be a server issue with certain zones?

Is Dyna D instanced in some fashion or is it one single zone and when someone is in it, nobody else can enter until they leave? If it's instanced that would explain it.

[Tsukihika]

Seconding this issue.

Many of the linkshell members I play with also report heavy lag during Dynamis Divergence content to the point of actions not executing until few seconds later from pressing said action and enemies, especially the statues literally warping from point A to point B.

There have also been some theories going around about the "RP" system being the culprit of this severe data transfer lag. Can we have some official statements from the developers regarding how Dynamis Divergence and the recently added Sheol: Gaol, that both utilize the "RP"-based augment system are coded to work exactly?

[Alhanelem]

I've been in Dyna D before and while it does have "lag" (it's really low FPS, not lag), it really isn't much worse than anywhere else in the game that I see a similar number of PCs/mobs in one place. But Maybe I'm just lucky (or just not bothered as much since I'm used to the game's lackluster performance regardless of PC hardware)

[Pixela]

Seconding this issue.

Many of the linkshell members I play with also report heavy lag during Dynamis Divergence content to the point of actions not executing until few seconds later from pressing said action and enemies, especially the statues literally warping from point A to point B.

There have also been some theories going around about the "RP" system being the culprit of this severe data transfer lag. Can we have some official statements from the developers regarding how Dynamis Divergence and the recently added Sheol: Gaol, that both utilize the "RP"-based augment system are coded to work exactly?

I have a very real worry this is exactly what the issues is, the game has strict limits on upload / download capacity and they are flooding it with a mass of data from neck RP.

If you're in a shell doing Dyna D, it would be interesting to tell everyone to take the necks off for 10 minutes and put them in another inventory space to test it.

[Alhanelem]

It certainly seems plausible. I don't have my relic weapon's augment unlocked yet, so maybe that's why it isn't as bad for me (or because not many people were doing it in the runs I did)

Thing is, delve does this kind of thing too doesn't it? you just don't accumulate your progress inside delve directly.

(Guess I answered my own question ikind of...)

[Tsukihika]

Honestly, I would personally take the "fps drop" any day over the input lag caused due to packets dropping or moving slowly between player and SE servers, supposedly. Watched a video just now of someone playing a game on 5 fps and that is nothing like, at least me personally, experience in these laggy situations.

Our dynamis group tends to pull rather large amount of monsters at once, usually several statues worth, and sure enough some monsters tend to warp from point A to point B when pulled in such massive numbers. This is no much different from Domain invasion Mireu not spawning for every player. It is totally understandable, that the game server has some difficulties dealing with such immense amounts of data requests all at once. Doesn't bother me so much at least, as I don't usually get the input lag in dynamis divergence at all. They can only do so much when it comes to ffxi old gen hardware limitations...

It's not like the macro palettes, menus, etc. pop on screen delayed (as they would in low fps situations). The real bothersome part really is when you press said macro, or send any input SE server way really, and absolutely nothing happens. Until maybe 10 seconds later when the action finally returns from servers and executes on player screen. Hoping of course that it hasn't dropped the entire packet of that action while on the way to servers, causing the action to never happen at all on player side. Now this is naturally nothing but speculation from my part as I haven't managed to find any concrete information how this communication between player and ffxi servers actually works. Just something that feels sensible to me given the information currently available.

Oh, and in regards to the "RP" system. As I understand it, this system has actually been in place long before dynamis divergence related necks and weapons were even introduced into game. Back when dynamis D. was fairly new, there was a hidden point system called "Reinforcement Points", as SE called it back then, running in the background. Counting the damage done to wave 3 boss of dynamis divergence. This gauge in-game nowadays even looks exactly same as the weapon and neck point gauges. Add to this the fact, that this system appears to be in place from start to finish considering that you can see said wave 3 boss damage-dealt-gauge right after entering dynamis divergence. If in possession of the temporary key item needed to make the gauge visible. Perhaps this "Reinforcement Point" system is running on background all the time, regardless whether player has even unlocked it or whether they have the required key item to make the gauge visible? And possibly pinging SE server every frame for new "RP" input in order to update the data on both sides. This happening 18 times in the case of 18 event participants would sure create a lot of constant data flood. But again this all nothing but my own speculation and observations. Would be extremely helpful to get more informative answers from ffxi developers regarding this particular issue.

While the plasm system in delve does have some similarities to "RP" system, there is one distinct difference between these two systems. Plasm system is rather static variable that gets updated every time a condition happens in-game. Not much different from any of the other currency systems in ffxi (conquest points, cruor, etc.). In the case of plasm, defeating a monster inside delve, or using a plasm crystal item, gives fixed plasm value, that is then added to plasm currency value. Whereas the "Reinforcement Point" system is tied to dynamis divergence wave 3 boss health value. This value increases based on health lost by wave 3 boss. One could even call it a dynamic variable that has to be updated in extremely swift fashion in order to keep up with the hundreds of thousands damage per second players are dishing out inside dynamis divergence when poking said boss. Multiply this by 18 participants that each have their own personal "RP" meter running and have to wonder how server even handles all that calculation and sends it without delay back to player... Mere speculation again of course, don't take what i said here too seriously. Hoping the developers grace us with more comprehensive information.

The newly added Sheol: Gaol also utilizes a monster health tied "RP" value that gets updated based on health lost by enemy. And there are multiple boss monsters in there that EACH have their own RP value updating based on lost health. And personally, I get freaking insane input delay in there, no fps drop or loss whatsoever, while outside areas have no such issues anywhere...

Also, some of our linkshell members have mentioned "lagging" less those times we happen to have a lot less, than full alliance of participants present. Gotten a lot of positive feedback from runs that have less than 12 people taking part. In regards to the event being laggy and unresponsive anyway.

[Alhanelem]

Okay, I thought this was ppl complaining about getting like 5-10 FPS in intense circumstances, which is stupid but not really unusual in this game A lot of people somewhat erroneously call this "lag" (it's really the system skipping frames to *avoid* lagging behind), instead of reserving the term for delays in user input / server response. As I said, I hadn't really noticed any serious network lag the last time I ran dyna D, but this was admittedly a fair while ago and we didn't do the wave 3 boss. Your experiences would seem to corroborate with the theory that this system which has the server processing additional actions with every single incidence of damage being influcging would certainly seem to dramatically increase server stress.

In Sheol: Gaol, have you tried entering with varying numbers of actual players? Because I would hope this system isn't calculating these things for trusts and thus if that's the culprit, there should be a significant difference between 6 people and fewer people with trusts.

[Tsukihika]

The term "lag" is indeed quite ambiguous term and can be a little misleading, as people tend to use it in rather generalistic manner.

There is also the option of these in-game delays being a simple matter of latency. Considering that no similar delay is experienced anywhere else in Vana'diel, except these newly added zones, perhaps the developers have indeed placed these zones into a whole new server where the player connects from original game server. Exactly what Pixela mentioned earlier on this thread. This additional (necessary?) server hop would naturally add even more latency into the connection between player and ffxi. And thus making the game respond to server requests slower (and skipping frames to keep up as mentioned). Perhaps these new contents are created in a way that is really pushing the limit of latency required to smoothly run the game from vast distances. Like in my case northern eu, and many other eu players have reported similar delays. Who knows.

In regards to Sheol: Gaol battle content. I have indeed tried various different setups to reduce or eliminate the experienced delay. Everything from entering solo to full party, to calling no trusts at all, to resetting whole network at home, to testing with several different computers using the latest software updates, to no avail. Considering that this is issue that many other people are experiencing, not even solely specific to Gaol, but also Dynamis divergence, it is rather unlikely that the core of this problem lies on player side.

It appears they have recently taken Sheol: Gaol area down for maintenance, following these bug reports people have left. So hopefully the issue will remedy itself soon!

[Pixela]

If the developers know they have capped data allowance, (upload and download is capped at 56k speeds still due to the client right?) why do they keep adding content that floods the connection? Something you'll notice very often is, you don't lag until people in your group engage (which implies this is the state where a mass of data gets sent). Not only does it need to deal with the event data but there is also a mass of anti cheat stuff there too, that constantly keeps track of your inventory etc to stop duping (and the more inventory spaces the more it has to keep track of).

Why does Domain Invasion need to feed so much data about everyones performance in such a complicated way and then give them points during the fight, why does it need to not only upload this mass of data (crit, dmg, healing, etc) but then also download data to inform you how many points you got during the fight. Why not just simply it, don't tell people how many points they are getting and just tell them at the end. Don't have complex systems, just have 2 or 3 tiers of interaction instead and once someone passes that point of the best tier....stop sending data. It's Domain Invasion.

If you have a system that has 18 people in it and every single person is wearing a neck, that's a mass of constant streamed data back and fourth (not only does it need to give points for the kills but it needs to send that data back so it's updated on the neck for you to see). This is totally unnecessary if it's causing a mass of lag. Also, do monsters in dyna give xp/cp? if so remove that so you are minimizing data being required to be sent back and fourth.

This is the problem (assuming this is the issue), the developers are content creators and do not concentrate as much on performance, it's like someone modding their car with fins and all manner of "cool" looking stuff and then he realizes his fuel usage doubled cause of all the weight / drag.

Players that are in a group doing Dyna D really need to try and lock down exactly what is causing the lag, instead of complaining about it and nothing being done.