near constant lag on server

[Col.Ragman]

Hi fellow survivalists,
 

so our group of three recently started to play Zomboid again with the advent of the vehicle iwbums build. Originally we stopped playing because of lag (around spring of 2017) and we came across that same issue again, now. There doesn't seem to be a lot of recent threads about it So I thought I might ask here, since I don't know what to do anymore. Mainly, I need to know if this is an uncommon issue, a known bug or just us.

the issue: whenever we start a dedicated or non-dedicated server to play on, we experience lag issues. The lag is not so bad for the server creator and the one person connectiong via lan but pretty severe for the one connecting through the internet. Nonetheless we all experience it. The issue is mostly with Zombies lagging around, warping from place to place or stopping for a second. Sometimes it's chunks not loading for people, or people disappearing for a moment.

You can see the issue pretty clearly when you set the zombies to sprinters in settings - then they just teleport all over the place. ( a test case I created to see if certain things affect the lag)

what I already tried/ doesn't seem to be the problem:

- pretty beefy computer running server - shouldn't be the issue (still tried setting up server on other players computer -issue persists)
- dedicated server as well as "host" option in game client
- ssd as well as hdd as install path for zomboid

- with and without mods

- versions tried are iwbums current, stable current, legacy 37

 

Funny thing is, if I start our server settings with mods in solo mode, everything is butter smooth and Zombies move like they should 100% of the time.

Would be glad, if someone has some insight in things.
Sincerely,
Colonel Ragman

[CaptKaspar]

What kind of ping are you and your fellow players getting?

 

We are playing on a IWBUMS server and we get no lag with zombies but some with vehicles, though it's not too bad. 

[Col.Ragman]

On 5/6/2018 at 10:17 PM, CaptKaspar said:

What kind of ping are you and your fellow players getting?

 

We are playing on a IWBUMS server and we get no lag with zombies but some with vehicles, though it's not too bad. 

2 of us get around 30-40 ping and the third is usually around 80.

What is vexing me is that I can't for the life of me figure out what the problem is. To my knowledge, I have pretty much switched up everything that could cause it.

[CaptKaspar]

52 minutes ago, Col.Ragman said:

2 of us get around 30-40 ping and the third is usually around 80.

What is vexing me is that I can't for the life of me figure out what the problem is. To my knowledge, I have pretty much switched up everything that could cause it.

 

Your ping looks good.

 

Have you tried upping the RAM for the server? I also have windows 7 rig with 16gig of RAM and I allocate 10 gigs to my server.

[Col.Ragman]

I usually run my server with 8gb. Just tried it with 10gb and problem still persists. :-/

Thank you for trying to help, by the way :).

 

I just realised that I get kinda like micro-stutter from time to time when running as a server ( but not in solo). While this definitely doesn't happen before each lag, I still thought I'd mention it.

[EnigmaGrey]

Sprinters aren't MP compatible. 

 

They will not update fast enough to be usable.

[Col.Ragman]

Alright, thanks for the quick answer! That makes my testing case useless I see.

However just so we are on the same page. The lag occured/ occurs without any sprinters, too. I just found the sprinter option while browsing what could possibly cause the lag. When I tested it, I saw them lagging more clearly visually and thought it would help me determine WHEN and WHETHER my server lags, a misconception apparently.

Still begs the question if the other server lags are only us, a fixable issue or just a known limitation for now.

 

[EnigmaGrey]

20 minutes ago, Col.Ragman said:

Alright, thanks for the quick answer! That makes my testing case useless I see.

However just so we are on the same page. The lag occured/ occurs without any sprinters, too. I just found the sprinter option while browsing what could possibly cause the lag. When I tested it, I saw them lagging more clearly visually and thought it would help me determine WHEN and WHETHER my server lags, a misconception apparently.

Still begs the question if the other server lags are only us, a fixable issue or just a known limitation for now.

 

Yeah, it can be very hard to tell just where the problem is with a game like PZ. There's no prediction (e.g. You fire a bullet, on the server, it calculates how long it'd have taken to get the packet and how long it'll take for it to send it, and makes its best guess as to where the bullet really is for both yourself and other clients, correcting for its real position later). Without this, any instability in the connection between the client or the server can create issues.

The more info the better.

[Col.Ragman]

You seem to try explaining to me how basic multiplayer concepts like prediction, netcode, ping etc. work. (Apologies if the assumption is wrong)  I am pretty familiar with how multiplayer in games work. It's not the issue here, me not understanding how those things work. The issue is that despite a good ping for all of us,  good performance ( no rubberbanding ) and no apparent connection with mods or specific versions, Zombies lag as if we tried playing on a server with 200+ms ping in any other game. A problem we didn't have over a year ago and judging from not really finding many posts on the subject an either agreed upon "known issue" or just us. I just don't know which.

I am not so sure how to go from here. What more information would you need?

As I tried to convey before, my main issue is not knowing whether it's a solvable issue or if lagging zombies in multiplayer is just how it is at the moment.

pc specs:
Win 7
AMD Radeon 580x Red Devil
AMD Intel i5 4.2Ghz
OCZ High Performance SSD
16GB RAM