Stuttering badly on my PC - i7 7700k + RTX 2080ti

[Fox]

Many things can cause that sort of behavior. What kind of router do you have or are you using the crappy one provided by the ISP as the router? How old is the modem provided by the ISP? Wifi definitely causes network stability issues no matter how new and fancy it is, although they are getting a bit better every year. But signal interferences will always be an issue which is why wifi will never be perfect, even in a 100 years from now. If using copper cable internet, is it still properly grounded or is it caked in rust and falling apart as they often are? Are you using the ISP's DNS or are you using a custom one, like 1.1.1.1 to bypass the ISP's secretive nonsense?

Edited January 6, 2022 by Fox (see edit history)

[Shnoz]

I'd like to recommend turning water and shadows off or down. Note in the game files there is an object limit. This is related to view distance in a sense because the object limit in part is related to what is loaded within your field of view. I imagine you are experiencing lag and choppiness for a wholly different reason than you might imagine. The previous server I played on had an object limit of around 420, 370. I unfortunately know this because I killed it. I killed the server again. If anyone has a related form thread to object limit thresholds I would like to hear it please. I found that my highest contributing factors to crashing were "windows, items, buffs, terrain" which you can see in precise detail in the logs as to how many of each are contributing to the overall server load threshold. Some of the objects that are deemed unimportant are defragmented essentially so as not to contribute to the overall load. I believe that each server has a maximum object limit threshold, and a minimum threshold that will begin to cause choppiness and lag. Zombies animals trees grasses anything in motion that is animated is going to cause massive strain. Water, shadows, and any combination of those things in motion is all having to be calculated within your field of vision and compoundingly within every additional players field of vision as well. One of my favorite ways to see where you specifically are being taxed is task Manager performance monitors. You will consistently see a spike when it is loading those objects in motion. In theory, if you were to bring a massive hoard of zombies to additional players, once the group of zombies gets in range to force those players to load them, there will be a massive Spike of strain suddenly on the server. Any Spike that exceeds the object limit threshold will crash the server. I think there have been thousands of people experiencing this not knowing where the issue resides. One of the first ways I experienced the threshold was through items. Not objects in motion but blocks. Because the blocks were not defragmented as zombies are, the permanence of it simultaneously permanently broke the server, whereas a massive amount of zombies will be purged after you are disconnected so as not to still have the limit threshold exceeded. This means if you were at say 400,000 when the object limit is 420,000, you can only withstand an amount of zombies that are considered to be under 20,000 total objects, or the server will crash guaranteed. There seem to be many booleans that nuke a server like this. If threshold condition is met, destroy the server permanently, as opposed to automatically reverting to backup, or if a player carries a corrupted file or pathway, the server goes down. This seems to be a strange way to handle errors foundationally. I personally have built many massive megaliths that have been ridiculous monstrosities that crash servers often. I think that this should at the very least be publicly available knowledge so that players don't accidentally destroy hundreds of hours of work or worse, more collectively. Surely none of the five people I was playing with told me about it, and that information didn't get from me at any point between downloading the game and crashing the servers that I have. I wonder should that responsibility be placed on the player, or the developer, or if who is at fault is even the right question. I think the solution is to prevent the crash to happen by warning of the object limit if it is guaranteed to crash at that particular threshold. If the warning to a player is not substantial, then perhaps preventing additional blocks outside of the threshold at all would be sufficient. There has to be a way to solve it other than letting the servers die. It sounds like your internet service provider is throttling you most likely during peak hours so as to distribute the bandwidth. I agree with Fox get direct connection and w better router, it will help a ton. I can't recall if this was posted before, what kind of monitor do you have op? 

Edited January 7, 2022 by Shnoz
Adding (see edit history)

[Robeloto]

On 1/7/2022 at 12:52 AM, Fox said:

Many things can cause that sort of behavior. What kind of router do you have or are you using the crappy one provided by the ISP as the router? How old is the modem provided by the ISP? Wifi definitely causes network stability issues no matter how new and fancy it is, although they are getting a bit better every year. But signal interferences will always be an issue which is why wifi will never be perfect, even in a 100 years from now. If using copper cable internet, is it still properly grounded or is it caked in rust and falling apart as they often are? Are you using the ISP's DNS or are you using a custom one, like 1.1.1.1 to bypass the ISP's secretive nonsense?

I am about to give up. I really cannot enjoy playing this game anymore. It stutters and stutters and stutters and I cannot seem to come up with any solution. I use a custom DNS to bypass. I have tried with the ISP dns, but it is the same. Turns out it cannot be the network as 1 other player does not experience any lag on my server whatsoever.

 

This is what my PC scored in benchmark.

 

https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/49733990

 

On 1/7/2022 at 1:15 AM, Shnoz said:

I'd like to recommend turning water and shadows off or down. Note in the game files there is an object limit. This is related to view distance in a sense because the object limit in part is related to what is loaded within your field of view. I imagine you are experiencing lag and choppiness for a wholly different reason than you might imagine. The previous server I played on had an object limit of around 420, 370. I unfortunately know this because I killed it. I killed the server again. If anyone has a related form thread to object limit thresholds I would like to hear it please. I found that my highest contributing factors to crashing were "windows, items, buffs, terrain" which you can see in precise detail in the logs as to how many of each are contributing to the overall server load threshold. Some of the objects that are deemed unimportant are defragmented essentially so as not to contribute to the overall load. I believe that each server has a maximum object limit threshold, and a minimum threshold that will begin to cause choppiness and lag.

 

Zombies animals trees grasses anything in motion that is animated is going to cause massive strain. Water, shadows, and any combination of those things in motion is all having to be calculated within your field of vision and compoundingly within every additional players field of vision as well. One of my favorite ways to see where you specifically are being taxed is task Manager performance monitors. You will consistently see a spike when it is loading those objects in motion. In theory, if you were to bring a massive hoard of zombies to additional players, once the group of zombies gets in range to force those players to load them, there will be a massive Spike of strain suddenly on the server. Any Spike that exceeds the object limit threshold will crash the server. I think there have been thousands of people experiencing this not knowing where the issue resides. One of the first ways I experienced the threshold was through items. Not objects in motion but blocks. Because the blocks were not defragmented as zombies are, the permanence of it simultaneously permanently broke the server, whereas a massive amount of zombies will be purged after you are disconnected so as not to still have the limit threshold exceeded. This means if you were at say 400,000 when the object limit is 420,000, you can only withstand an amount of zombies that are considered to be under 20,000 total objects, or the server will crash guaranteed.

 

There seem to be many booleans that nuke a server like this. If threshold condition is met, destroy the server permanently, as opposed to automatically reverting to backup, or if a player carries a corrupted file or pathway, the server goes down. This seems to be a strange way to handle errors foundationally. I personally have built many massive megaliths that have been ridiculous monstrosities that crash servers often. I think that this should at the very least be publicly available knowledge so that players don't accidentally destroy hundreds of hours of work or worse, more collectively. Surely none of the five people I was playing with told me about it, and that information didn't get from me at any point between downloading the game and crashing the servers that I have. I wonder should that responsibility be placed on the player, or the developer, or if who is at fault is even the right question. I think the solution is to prevent the crash to happen by warning of the object limit if it is guaranteed to crash at that particular threshold. If the warning to a player is not substantial, then perhaps preventing additional blocks outside of the threshold at all would be sufficient. There has to be a way to solve it other than letting the servers die. It sounds like your internet service provider is throttling you most likely during peak hours so as to distribute the bandwidth. I agree with Fox get direct connection and w better router, it will help a ton. I can't recall if this was posted before, what kind of monitor do you have op? 

My monitor is an 2560x1440p 144hz g-sync. I use direct connection now, but it is the same unfortunately. And atm I just do not have any motivation, nor time to find out what really is the problem. Thanks for your input.

[Robeloto]

So. If I use this PC as server only and play from another slower PC, there is no lag whatsoever. 7 days to die runs perfectly. But as soon as I run the dedicated server on the same PC as I play on, the lag will be horrible and it seem to happen when zombies spawn. I think they changed a lot in A20 making it lag more. Maybe something with the zombie pathing? Cause I had no problems with different versions.

I have video on my problem. Can post later.

[Beelzybub]

3 hours ago, Robeloto said:

So. If I use this PC as server only and play from another slower PC, there is no lag whatsoever. 7 days to die runs perfectly. But as soon as I run the dedicated server on the same PC as I play on, the lag will be horrible and it seem to happen when zombies spawn. I think they changed a lot in A20 making it lag more. Maybe something with the zombie pathing? Cause I had no problems with different versions.

I have video on my problem. Can post later.

Your first post said you were using it only as a dedi server. It should be fine for that. It's not fine for running the dedi and a client on the same machine.

[Robeloto]

  

32 minutes ago, Beelzybub said:

Your first post said you were using it only as a dedi server. It should be fine for that. It's not fine for running the dedi and a client on the same machine.

 

 

Yes, It was only fine if I ran the dedicated on this computer (i7 7700k + 2080ti) and played on the other PC (i7 2600k + GTX 680).

 I first played on the i7 7700k and had the server on the I7 2600k here at same place on the same internet. That is when it lagged and stuttered all the time. I thought first it was the processor that could not keep up or that it was network lag, but now I dunno.

 

Before Alpha 20 I could run both server and client on same machine without lag. So it is kinda frustrating when it has become this stutter-fest. =/ I love this game so much, but can't really play with friends anymore. Maybe some of my RAM is defect on this 7700k? I have ran memtest86. 12 hours on each stick, but seems I have to do it again and this time and even longer time.

 

 

 

Edited January 26, 2022 by Robeloto (see edit history)

[Robeloto]

I dunno what is up with this game. My friend with a much worse PC than me, can run the server and play without any lag whatsoever.

 

Any other games run flawlessy for me. So it is something with 7 days to die and 2080Ti cant handle it. So weird...

 

edit: I have no clue on what the problem was. But I formatted my SSD and reinstalled windows 10 and now there is no more lag. I am so very happy. Wish I knew what it was, cause I have the same programs and software installed again. And none of those were the culprit. I really hope the problem is gone for good now.

 

edit2: The stuttering is back  again lol. If I spawn 25 zeds, at first there is no lag, but if I go around walls. That is when the stuttering starts and that is also probably when zombie pathing activates. The more walls or things in the way, the more the stutter. It stops stuttering if I go out in the open or killall.

 

Edit3: Haha, it sounded smart what I wrote in my edit2, but in reality it's just me being dumb. I disabled G-sync now and most of the severe lag is gone. But not gonna say it is fixed yet.

Edited January 28, 2022 by Robeloto (see edit history)

[Robeloto]

So after disabling G-sync. I have much much less lag. But then it happened today at a random POI. It was around 6-7 zombies that spawned. The game started stuttering badly, like freezes every second. So I logged out and back in again. Then the lag was gone. It was only lagging for me and not for anyone else.

 

I have capped framerate to 60 and it is more smooth than ever. But that lag happened again. Even if it is rare now, I really need to know why it is happening. So this is partially solved, but not completely...

 

Edit: So now I have tested some different methods to make G-sync work. Only tested for about 1 hour without any freezes. So cannot say this solved anything...yet. I have tried with both vsync on and off. But I noticed some freezes with vsync on, so I turned it off. In game it is off also.

 

This is my setup for graphics:

 

And by setting my GPU to about 73% max usage , rather than 100 made a difference.

 

Edit2:

 

Tested again, but this time with low latency off. I spawned about 80 zombies and there were almost no freezes and the fps were around 50-100 fps. I was alone on my own dedicated server. Graphic card are working alright.

Most of the lags are happening when we are more than 2 players. I am becoming a bit sus on the CPU.

Edited January 29, 2022 by Robeloto
update (see edit history)

[Robeloto]

I think it is the CPU. On bloodmoon, we were 3 players. About 30 zeds spawned and I had like 40 fps and it dipped frequently down to the 19s back and forward. I use G-sync off now and it is better. But the lag can come any time. On bloodmoons it is horrible ofc.

 

I played some Dying Light 2 today and I updated my nvidia drivers and then when I looked around these horrible stutterings came just like in 7 days, but it then went away after some minutes and did not happen again. 7 days to die is mostly a CPU game so that is why I think there is something wrong with the CPU. I know it is very rare with CPU problems, but what else could it be? The motherboard? the completely new PSU? The display? The ram? It cant be the graphic card as it performs very well in other games. Just not in this game. My temps are fine and GPU is never hotter than 70c and CPU reaches around 80C maximum.

 

What I am gonna try next is memtest86 again for longer hours. So I can completely rule out any defect ram.

[Beelzybub]

On 2/15/2022 at 9:19 PM, Robeloto said:

what else could it be?

Any overclock of the cpu or memory in the bios?

[Robeloto]

1 hour ago, Beelzybub said:

Any overclock of the cpu or memory in the bios?

Of course. I use XMP on. It is way worse with XMP off.

[Robeloto]

I had some days now without lagging. And even on bloodmoon there was no lag. All the bloodmoon zombies were inside the building I was on top off. Then when the morning come and I needed to get the hell out of there. It started stuttering so badly. Like every other second. When I got out from the place and all the zombies. The lag was gone.

So it definitely is something with many zombies and being close to them that starts the stuttering.

[Shnoz]

1 minute ago, Robeloto said:

I had some days now without lagging. And even on bloodmoon there was no lag. All the bloodmoon zombies were inside the building I was on top off. Then when the morning come and I needed to get the hell out of there. It started stuttering so badly. Like every other second. When I got out from the place and all the zombies. The lag was gone.

So it definitely is something with many zombies and being close to them that starts the stuttering.

If that is the case, please reread my previous suggestion

[Robeloto]

1 hour ago, Shnoz said:

If that is the case, please reread my previous suggestion

 

Yes, but still my older PC can run without any lag which is weird. It can run both the server and play at the same time without any stuttering at all. So it definitely something wrong with this new PC. Still haven't found one single error and it is only with 7 days to die it does this.

I have an LG ultragear 2k @ 144hz. On my older PC I use an old Samsung 120hz from 2008.

[Star69]

I agree it sounds like cpu bottleneck. Have you monitored cpu use when this happens? This game rarely bottlenecks the gpu unless it’s very low grade card, it’s always the cpu.

 

An aside, I bought the LG 4k Ultragear 144hz and boy was it a pain to get the picture to look nice. Besides gaming I’ll watch movies and I bet it took a total of 4 or 5 hours to find the right drivers and Windows settings on top of LG’s settings. Finally 4k looks like 4k. Very nice monitor once it’s set up right.