Extreme lag/stutter every second when hosting or joining an online server

[dogedogego]

Has anyone else experienced this as well?

CPU: 5950x
GPU: 3080ti

Makes the game almost completely unplayable on multiplayer, only minor stuttering on singleplayer.

[Armagenesis]

Maybe the server isn't adequate enough? You need 4GB of free RAM to host a server if I recall.

[dogedogego]

8gb of ram on the server, zero zombies, no mods, totally fresh server and game. Happens when I join another publicly hosted server as well.

Happens mildly in singleplayer, but playable with no zombies spawned, no real change with zombies, but like a 1-5fps dip. fTPM issues fixed as well, latest bios and drivers. PZ is the only game that has this issue.

[dogedogego]

Yes, this is a direct connection not through Steam and also no mods were ever used in this process.

I’ll try uncapped on singleplayer with no v-sync, but I haven’t seen too much a difference (it’s a similar lag, just faster).

Power management is set to high and OpenGL rendering target has been set to the GPU previously as well.

Monitor has also been plugged into the GPU as always.

I’ll try and post a video, it’s an extremely consistent stutter every second as if it’s on a server tick or some sort of timed cycle.

The surprise was this happened when joining a low ping, no mods, and online multiplayer server that essentially had the same issue as a locally hosted one. Ports were already forwarded from the router to allow for discoverability so I don’t suspect it’s some looping issue and other people can connect to the server with no lag.

If there’s some issue locally with my settings, I’d love to figure out how to do a debug dump as well to aid in figuring this out.

[dogedogego]

M.2 SSD Samsung 980 PRO
64 GB RAM. 3600MHZ stable
Liquid Cooled System 360 AIO
9 Fans (side of computer opened)

It's definitely not hardware as the issues only happen in PZ

[dogedogego]

Videos:
SP: https://clipchamp.com/watch/xNd9apjV8PD
MP: https://clipchamp.com/watch/a7Wx9fOdfDT

Watch carefully for the background for SP, for MP it's super obvious and hard to miss.

[dogedogego]

This happens when not moving too, does this load the map as well?

Also, what do you mean by AV in this context?

[dogedogego]

Thanks again for debugging this with me as well!

[Shady Allie]

Originally posted by dogedogego:

Also, what do you mean by AV in this context?

He is asking about Anti Virus here. It might be hogging resources while it scans files or packets.

[dogedogego]

No AV and real time scanning is disabled. Already have the Zomboid folder in exclusions to no avail.

[dogedogego]

Again, the strange thing is it’s only happening on my computer. My brother’s bootcamped old Macbook on Windows runs faster than my desktop, which is odd to say the least.

[Beard]

Can you share your logs.zip file found in C:\Users\YourUserName\Zomboid?
You can use any file-sharing website of your choice or a temporary one like tmpsend.com for example.
Just so we can check if there are any hidden mods perhaps enabled in the game logs. Additionally I would recommend you go to your game options and set "Blood Decals" to 0 percent. Since that is the only setting that I can think of that would have a big impact on servers, specifically on servers with older saves.

[dogedogego]

Here are the logs: https://tmpsend.com/eWzgxNhD

We play on super chill settings to get friends eased into the game, but I don't see why that would affect it.

I can test blood decals to low, but it's odd that my brother can run them almost on max with no issues on an old mac. We're on a fresh and brand new server, so it's additionally super strange.

[dogedogego]

Holy sh*t, -novoip works amazingly. What could have been causing the feedback loop? I'm gonna test if it's the mic itself somehow and unplug it (it should disable elgato wave).

It's possible because the default mic is wired up to NVIDIA Broadcast, so the issue results from that affecting the graphics?

[dogedogego]

Just confirmed, the mic unplugged is now working fine as well. Gonna test a few variations.

[dogedogego]

Looks like I'm unable to replicate the issue, every variation no longer lags even with VOIP re-enabled. Super strange and hard to explain, but I'm stoked it's now fixed!

Looks like I just needed to turn it off and on again?