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TurboTired has 9 Years of Shadows

Mar 27, 2023 @ 3:36pm

Stuttery scrolling

Posted in the pinned thread, but gonna make a thread here to see if more people are experiencing the same.
Long story short, the "framerate" is very stuttery and not smooth, even though the game is locked at 60fps with vsync.
It is very evident on backgrounds in long scrolling corridors. I play a bunch of other 2D games and they don't have this issue, they are buttery smooth. I've tried a plethora of setting combinations in the Nvidia control panel to no avail (even forcing vsync off resulting in over 600 fps in game!)
Anyone else having the same experience?

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Originally posted by rsknight:

I just found the real cause for the stuttering!!
Sonnenrad is correct, it's not the way the camera works as I thought first. Actually the game is rendering at 50Hz!! Just change the refresh rate on your PC to 50Hz and the stuttering disapears!!!

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Showing 1-15 of 26 comments

Crusta Pipocondria Mar 27, 2023 @ 4:19pm

I see this problem show up a lot lately in 2D indie games. It always shows as a perfect 60 fps lock but the actual camera and internal framerate is a stuttery mess (the games Grime and There is No Light are good examples). Seems like developers these days don't care about the most basic requirement for these type of games which is smooth scrolling. This is important.

I was interested in this game but knowing that this annoying problem is here as well, i'll pass. I'm sick of it.

Last edited by Crusta Pipocondria; Mar 27, 2023 @ 6:04pm

TurboTired has 9 Years of Shadows

Mar 27, 2023 @ 4:27pm

That's unfortunate because this game plays SO GOOD, everything feels tight and fluid then when you're moving from screen to screen it's almost like it's frame skipping or something.

rsknight

Mar 28, 2023 @ 2:57am

I'm having the exact same problem with this game (stutter), and tried solving it doing the same things in the Nvidia control panel with no success. I can't play like this. Also noticed this problem with other recent indie games too.

rsknight

Mar 28, 2023 @ 11:21pm

I think I found out the problem causing the scrolling stutter, and it's not a bug, but a design mistake.

The game runs at perfect 60 fps, no problem there.

The movement of the character (Europa) is not smooth, especially when moving horizontally. This by itself should not be an issue, but the camera is following Europa as if it is directly connected to her, so the camera inherits the lack of smooth movement. If you need proof just watch any gameplay video of 9YoS in YouTube at 0.25x speed and it's cristal clear.

So the solution, I guess, I'm not a game developer, is to create and independent scrip for the camera to follow the character, but with out being directly connected to the character.

I hope this gets fixed soon, and also I don't get why most people don't notice this issue.

TurboTired has 9 Years of Shadows

Mar 29, 2023 @ 1:14pm

Unfortunately I think there's more to it than that. You can stand still and watch a moving platform and still see that it is slightly stuttering across the screen.
I think the reason more people aren't noticing it is because most people, specifically ones that only play indie games like this, have NPC-tier brains that can hardly distinguish between higher refresh rates or more than 100ms of input lag, let alone a slight stutter in frame rate/frame pacing.
They will undoubtedly jump to the conclusion that it is a problem on the user's end, not with the indie game which can do no wrong.
The fact that there are so few people acknowledging the frame pacing issue with this game leads me to believe it probably won't be fixed any time soon, if ever.
Maybe once the crashing issue is fixed (which I haven't actually had, ironically), more people will start noticing the stuttering issue.

Pravus Mar 29, 2023 @ 6:50pm

Originally posted by Sonnenrad:
Unfortunately I think there's more to it than that. You can stand still and watch a moving platform and still see that it is slightly stuttering across the screen.
I think the reason more people aren't noticing it is because most people, specifically ones that only play indie games like this, have NPC-tier brains that can hardly distinguish between higher refresh rates or more than 100ms of input lag, let alone a slight stutter in frame rate/frame pacing.
They will undoubtedly jump to the conclusion that it is a problem on the user's end, not with the indie game which can do no wrong.
The fact that there are so few people acknowledging the frame pacing issue with this game leads me to believe it probably won't be fixed any time soon, if ever.
Maybe once the crashing issue is fixed (which I haven't actually had, ironically), more people will start noticing the stuttering issue.

I just wanted to chime in and confirm the frame/stuttering issues you mentioned. I really enjoy the game, but I'm contemplating refunding it because I keep getting frame dips that get me hit in combat. (I'm not trying to be a sensational troll here: I just would rather get it on console, if it comes to them, to avoid this.) It's pretty easily replicated for me: all I have to do is jump when one of the spiders is shooting. I have a pretty solid gaming rig, so I am confident that it's not a hardware limitation.

The author of this thread has indicated that this post answers the original topic.

rsknight

Mar 29, 2023 @ 11:28pm

Last edited by rsknight; Mar 29, 2023 @ 11:29pm

TurboTired has 9 Years of Shadows

Mar 30, 2023 @ 12:09am

Originally posted by rsknight:
I just found the real cause for the stuttering!!
Sonnenrad is correct, it's not the way the camera works as I thought first. Actually the game is rendering at 50Hz!! Just change the refresh rate on your PC to 50Hz and the stuttering disapears!!!

You are the man!
This makes absolute perfect sense and should actually be very easy for the devs to fix. I'm guessing the devs live in a PAL region?

Crusta Pipocondria Mar 30, 2023 @ 10:51am

Originally posted by rsknight:
I just found the real cause for the stuttering!!
Sonnenrad is correct, it's not the way the camera works as I thought first. Actually the game is rendering at 50Hz!! Just change the refresh rate on your PC to 50Hz and the stuttering disapears!!!

this is horrible, my monitor doesn't have 50Hz mode (like many)

I mean what is this? PAL tubes from the 90's?

Last edited by Crusta Pipocondria; Mar 30, 2023 @ 11:51pm

T3rminator Mar 30, 2023 @ 12:01pm

This is a problem that is becoming common in platform games.

Especially if the game was made in Unity.

It is possible to fix this with an update and I hope the creators fix this.

Last edited by T3rminator; Mar 30, 2023 @ 12:03pm

#10

MiguelHasson

Mar 30, 2023 @ 1:00pm

Thank you all for your comments! I read every last one of them. I will personally see that the issue is resolved and report back. Thank you all for your valuable feedback and for getting to the source of the issue.

#11

TurboTired has 9 Years of Shadows

Apr 2, 2023 @ 3:50pm

Looks like this didn't make it into the first patch...here's hoping for the next one!

#12

TurboTired has 9 Years of Shadows

Apr 8, 2023 @ 10:51am

cmon guys this still isnt fixed...

#13

Pravus Apr 8, 2023 @ 12:01pm

Originally posted by Sonnenrad:
cmon guys this still isnt fixed...

That's disappointing. I'm holding out to keep my playtime under two hours, just in case it isn't addressed. I'm still hopeful, though. Thanks for the update.

#14