29 replies to this topic

[CrashBravo]

• Summary: Mech moves even when controls are not pushed. Does not move when controls are pushed.
  
• Steps to Reproduce: Dash around while changing direction and looking left or right. Release controls. Mech still moves without any input. Usually after this issue mech will not move for several seconds despite control inputs.
  
• Frequency: Happens several times every match. Sometimes I will make it through an entire life without it happening, but usually happens once or twice every life.
  
• Severity: 3. The game is playable when it isn't happening, but when this continues happening I have to quit.
  
• Additional Notes: Other players have agreed this is a problem on in game chat. I searched the forums and found only the post on joystick issues. This problem is with mouse and keyboard. Same issue with generic gamepad. The bug seems like the game is lagging so I check every time to see what my ping is like and every time it has been less than 100. Sometimes I can undo the glitch by figuring out which input is stuck and then pressing it repeatedly to make it stop.
  
• Example: Mech continues to strafe right without any inputs from me. I press right strafe button and then release it several times and the mech eventually responds to my input. If I press nothing and wait, the mech will stop after 5-10 seconds.
  
• Example: After mech moving not under my control for several seconds it will stop and I cannot move in any direction or boost or jump but I can look around and fire weapons.
  
• System Specs: Windows 7, 4 gb, Nvidia 560Ti, Netgear adapter and router/modem(I don't recall what model).

[CrashBravo]

More Info:
In game chat lags, and repeats characters. Indicating keyboard input in general is lagging and repeating.
I am using a wireless keyboard and mouse combination pack. Both work fine when not in game. In game mouse works fine , keyboard initially works fine but after joining a match lags and repeats.
Again other players agreed with same issue. Issue is not all the time as stated, it is intermittent.

[Elix]

What's your CPU_

And what's your power supply's wattage_ And are you using a USB keyboard/mouse_

[CrashBravo]

Elix, on January 20 2013 - 03:46 PM, said:

What's your CPU_

And what's your power supply's wattage_ And are you using a USB keyboard/mouse_

I've got..... quad core amd... something something. Why would it matter.....
I have a 500 Watt Power supply..... why would it matter....
I'm using a wireless keyboard and mouse as stated above. Keyboard lags when in match. Even lags when I minimize the game and try to type in these forums.
Keyboard works the rest of the time no problem.
Keyboard shares wireless receiver with mouse which works fine.

[The_Silencer]

The first issue he mentions in his/her OP happened to me too. Not many times but I've had 4 or 5 times the same issue during th entire OB1.

You may cancel it by pressing the opposite control key (if you move forwards then press your key to move backwards and then press jump and release all control keys. Repeat this procedure until everything goes back to normality..) At least that's how I solve the situation when that occurs to me.

In-game chat lags upon a time, that's a fact. Sometimes you type a message and it's not immediately shown on the screen. Sometimes, it may take almsot a minute until it's shown on screen. In the chat window may occur that you type a message and it does not appear , as if it were not typed by you..

All these oddities will hopefully be fixed by upcoming patch. Minor bugs, IMHO..

Hope this helps.

[The_Silencer]

Forgot to say this: Clean your keyboard upon a time as well. ( in case that this might be somehow relevant in here.. )

[Elix]

CrashBravo, on January 20 2013 - 04:13 PM, said:

Elix, on January 20 2013 - 03:46 PM, said:

What's your CPU_

And what's your power supply's wattage_ And are you using a USB keyboard/mouse_

I've got..... quad core amd... something something. Why would it matter.....
I have a 500 Watt Power supply..... why would it matter....
I'm using a wireless keyboard and mouse as stated above. Keyboard lags when in match. Even lags when I minimize the game and try to type in these forums.
Keyboard works the rest of the time no problem.
Keyboard shares wireless receiver with mouse which works fine.

Because your power supply has to feed your entire system. Your power supply is the minimum that Nvidia specifies for the 560Ti. If your computer doesn't have enough juice to power its pheripherals constantly, do you think that weird things could happen_ And, when you say they're wireless, what... Bluetooth_ WiFi_ Or do they connect wirelessly to a USB-connected base or something_

If you don't want to give people potentially-relevant technical information when you're filing a bug report, don't expect people to be able to help you. Even if you don't know why it matters, it could matter a whole lot.

[The_Silencer]

Looks like his/her GPU poerformance jumps from a lower level to a higher for no reason... thus that would be one pretty odd case, I've to admit..

[CrashBravo]

Quote

Because your power supply has to feed your entire system. Your power supply is the minimum that Nvidia specifies for the 560Ti. If your computer doesn't have enough juice to power its pheripherals constantly, do you think that weird things could happen_ And, when you say they're wireless, what... Bluetooth_ WiFi_ Or do they connect wirelessly to a USB-connected base or something_

If you don't want to give people potentially-relevant technical information when you're filing a bug report, don't expect people to be able to help you. Even if you don't know why it matters, it could matter a whole lot.

Apologies, you are right.
The keyboard and mouse share a usb 2.4Ghz receiver. I will try plugging in a usb wired keyboard and see if that rectifies the issue.

I don't have an alternate power supply handy to install to see if that's the issue. I will run on the assumption for now that since my pc functions fine in other ways that it isn't the issue though I admit it may be.

I appreciate you taking the time to make sure I've done my due diligence in having a proper hardware setup before reporting bugs.
Cheers. Will reply with result of wired usb keyboard and mouse.

[Elix]

I'm less concerned with your keyboard and mouse being wireless and talking to a 2.4GHz USB receiver, specifically, and more concerned that your PSU might be basically browning out your USB hubs in short bursts because it can't meet demand under heavy load when the video card needs a ton of juice to draw the game.

I'd like you to try turning your resolution down one or two notches and lowering the quality setting by one step. Take it out of fullscreen if this makes the game look pixellated and ugly to you. See if the same input lag occurs. Lowering the resolution lessens the load on the GPU by simply requiring it to spit out less pixels in bulk. Hawken won't be looking as good, but this is for testing purposes, not a permanent solution. This way, you don't have to go buy a new PSU in the hopes that that's the problem. For all we know, it could very well be a bug on Hawken's part and there's nothing wrong with your system, but your PSU's wattage rating is what is leading me down this path of investigation.

Thank you for your cooperation, as well.

BTW, you can see your frame rate by hitting F5 to bring up the console and typing 'stat fps'. If you get over 60fps in normal circumstances in game, for the purposes of testing, I want you to enable vsync, if you're not already using it, which will lock your framerate. If you're getting under 60, vsync will lock your framerate to 30. Again, we want to see if the GPU is being worked too hard for the power supply. If the input lag goes away, slowly push all these settings back to the way you had them, one at a time (move up one resolution step, test; disable vsync, test; move back up to normal resolution, etc.) and we'll see when (if) the weirdness comes back.

Edited by Elix, January 20 2013 - 05:11 PM.

[CrashBravo]

With wired usb mouse and keyboard the problem seemed to not occur until just now while I am typing this there is some lag in the keyboard input. I will try lowering the resolution and getting fps stats then I will read the rest of your message.

[Elix]

Wait. So there's keyboard lag in your browser_ Or are you reporting that this just happened in Hawken, but you didn't start with the problem immediately, it just jumped in after a little while_ Because if so, that doesn't surprise me; I don't think the difference in power draw between the wireless receiver base and the two corded USB devices is going to make a huge impact, much less than lowering the GPU's workload would.

Thank you for your cooperation and patience, CB.

[CrashBravo]

The setting I was using.
1280 x 720 FPS = ~50   ( slightly lower when surrounded, higher when walking around alone. )
lower settings but with Vsync are about the same.
I don't perceive the lag problem with wired mouse and keyboard. At any setting.
I will try different resolutions with wireless keyboard and mouse later.

[Elix]

Maybe the problem is wireless spectrum interference. Lots of things use the 2.4GHz band, so it's a pain to hunt down definitively.

[CrashBravo]

Indeed! how tricky. I don't feel it's a power draw issue based on my reasoning so far but I'm trying to realistically isolate factors:

1) Cheap equipment, in terms of my wireless keyboard and mouse, though it doesn't crop up in other programs or games. (... and other people have agreed with this problem in game, but we may not have been talking about the same thing...)

2) 2.4 Ghz band interference ( I know a little about this band, there is always a chance something is interfering but I feel it would affect mouse as well as keyboard, where mouse has never been the issue. I genuinely don't think there is anything interfering either. )

Lag in browser indeed happens when I minimize hawken to access this forum. This lag was more pronounced with the wireless equipment.
It is barely noticeable with the wired equipment. This may be related to the fact that hawken sucks resources while idling in the menu, which it is right now. When I quit game lag disappears...

Ok , thanks for the ideas and help!

[Elix]

Microwaves and cordless phones use the 2.4GHz band (although newer cordless models usually use other frequency ranges to avoid this interference).

I'm perfectly willing to be wrong in terms of what the issue actually is. However, the important factor in troubleshooting is narrowing and the process of elimination. Wireless interference is a tricky thing to capture accurately unless it's a pretty darn clear-cut interference case, or you have monitoring equipment to measure the signal levels in the air and the physics background necessary to determine what constitutes an unacceptable level of interference on a channel. Testing the power supply by lowering the settings is easier than relacing bits of hardware, and it's easier to quantify "that power supply is the minimum" over "there might be wireless interference in your house" because you can't just see interference.

The menu seems to run with less caps on the graphics output. While actually playing the game itself, Hawken has a configurable soft cap, and a higher, much less flexible cap, on framerate. Without tweaking, it'll basically cap the game at 90fps. The game menu doesn't have that same cap, and even my junky computer managed bursts of 200+fps on the menu. And if there's input lag then, this is a resources and horsepower issue more than anything.

I don't want to start this argument again, but long story short, Hawken doesn't run quite as well on AMD CPUs as it does on Intel CPUs, and here's why: AMD's strategy for the past few years has been to throw more CPU cores at the problem and harness the power of multithreading to accomplish a lot at once. Intel's strategy, on the other hand, has been to use less cores, but to tune the bananas out of them to provide superior performance and a smaller power demand. These are two different approaches to solve the same problem, basically.

AMD's approach is bad news for Hawken because Hawken does not make full use of lots of cores, and many games have the same limitation. This is not always true, but where you typically see a program capable of calling up four or more separate cores for itself to use is in professional tools, like video editing/production or animation rendering or heavy data crunching. Hawken can run on multiple cores, but by design most of its work is being put onto one core, and it's difficult to break that work apart so you can spread it around the cores.

AMD is not a bad company, they're just designing chips with certain goals in mind, and the problem is that gaming's not the most efficient at using their strategy.

[CrashBravo]

Yesterday I played without any issues with any peripherals.
Today the issue has returned after ten minutes of playing with wireless keyboard and mouse.

[Elix]

This is sounding more and more like we've got it. But we need to do some conclusive A/B testing to be sure.

Here's my suggestion. If the issue happens when you're on wireless, immediately switch back to wired. Like, be prepared and have your spare mouse and keyboard ready with their cables already near the ports (if you have to get under your desk to swap back ports, that is). If you suddenly get the problem and it continues long enough that you're sure it's happening, yank the USB receiver out and pop your wired peripherals in (and respawn, probably, lol). See if it's different. Alternatively, if you have enough USB ports, keep both sets plugged in and just be prepared to rearrange your desk on the fly.

If you do keep them all plugged in, this will also give us a chance to see if my power-supply theory has any merit or if we can shoot it in the head and move on.

[CrashBravo]

I'll try to arrange that soon.
I turned down the graphics settings to low after this was happening. This brought framerate expectedly back up to ~120 fps ish.
The issue disappeared.
I will try to setup some hot swap for keyboard next time I'm on. Put graphics settings back to high, then if it happens swap out.

[CrashBravo]

Today I played for less than 5 minutes on low graphics settings with a low ping and high fps before the issue cropped up.
The game is not lagging as near as I can tell, other players are moving around as normal. My mech does not teleport or rubber band or anything like that.

I will try the wired keyboard hotswapping with both plugged in next I guess. It's very inconvenient for me to use a wired keyboard, which is why I have been using wireless...