What’s up guys, Rogue-9 here!
During the mini patch update for Rainbow Six Siege on last Thursday (14/12/2017) Ubisoft
announced the rollout of a 60hz tick rate for servers across all platforms!
Hurrray!
But wait, haven’t I heard this one before?!
I think we need to take a closer look at what the tick rate has been in the past before
taking a closer look at what the most recent changes really mean!
The objective of this video is not to give you a full netcode analysis (if you are after
something more detailed, I’ll include a link to a technical analysis video at the end).
Instead of duplicating that info, what I want to do is to briefly lay out the difference
between past updates and the one we have received just now, as well as to explain what these
changes will mean for most players’ in-game experience and what you can do to get the most out of the update.
For those of you who are not familiar with the concept of a server’s tick rate, it
is basically the frequency with which the server can send or receive information from the game clients
(that's the software running on a PC or games console) of each player.
A tick rate of 60hz means that the server will send and receive information 60 times
per second or once every 16.66ms (whereas for instance a server with a 30hz tick rate
can only update once every 33.33ms).
Why is this important?
Well on a very basic level, the slower the tick the more processing time is added on
top of the time it takes for your PC or console to send and receive information from the server
This communication delay is shown in game as your ping.
So a combination of a lower ping and faster server tick rate will result in better hit
registration and less issues with “peeker’s advantage” or dying behind cover.
Now the 60hz tick rate servers for Rainbow Six Siege have been continuously announced
and re-announced for basically the entire lifetime of the game and so if you are a little
confused as to what was updated in the past and what this new update changes, don’t
worry, I think we’re all in the same boat here.
It’s actually kind of funny that the game was released on 01/12/2015 and only two weeks
later, on 16/12/2015, patch 1.1 was rolled out that (and according to the patch notes) included
a 60hz tick rate for certain regions.
Over the years, the patch notes for patches 1.2, 1.3, 2.3, 2.3.2, 2.4.0 and now recently
2.4.1 all indicated further updates to improvements to things like the tick rate, hit registration
and lag compensation.
So these magical 60hz servers have been promised again and again for over two years; does
the patch 2.4.1 finally deliver on this promise?
Well, the short answer is: “Yes!”
Up until the latest patch, the tick rates for the servers were variable.
That means that whenever nothing was happening on the server (nobody was moving) the information
send rate of the server was only around 16hz.
Once you started moving your character, the send rate of the game client (i.e. you PC
or console) increased to 60hz but crucially, the send rate of the server only ever increased
to a maximum of 50 updates per second.
So we never really had the full 60hz rate but with the new patch, the servers and clients
run at a constant 60hz tick rate delivering a slightly better gaming experience for most players.
There are a couple of exceptions though.
One issue is linked to the performance of the game client.
If on PC, you have your graphics settings so high that your frame rate dips below 60
fps, then your game will only be able to send updates at the current frame rate you are experiencing.
For instance 40hz if your frame rate is 40 fps.
Ensuring a decent frame rate of course, has become especially challenging for some players
on PC after the latest Windows 10 update, which I suspect is causing the recent framerate
problems for players across all kinds of games.
But to get the best possible experience with the game, you need to make sure that your
frame rate always stays above 60 fps.
If your game dips below this number, I would recommend playing around with the graphics
settings and maybe checking for a solution to the windows update frame drop problems.
Another, somewhat more difficult issue to fix is the ping you can get to your nearest
Rainbow Six servers.
This depends on your internet speed as well as your location; the slower your internet
is and the further the information has to travel to the server, the longer it is going
to take, resulting in a higher ping and if you are suffering from a high ping, you are
still likely to experience issues in the game, despite the server side net code update.
So there you have it, as long as you can keep your frame rate above 60 fps and you can get
a decent internet connection to the nearest servers, you should be having a slightly better
online experience with Rainbow Six.
And this conclusion was supported by a little YouTube poll I ran a couple of days ago.
You could argue that an update from a 50/60hz variable rate to 60/60hz fixed rate is quite
minor and so it is not surprising that almost half of the 10 thousand respondents indicated
that they did not know about the upgrade and have not noticed a difference.
But at the same time, more than a third of respondents have noticed an improvement while
18% knew about the update but are not seeing it translate into a better gaming experience.
I hope this little insight has helped you better understand what the 60hz upgrade in
patch 2.4.1 means for you.
If you want a more detailed insight into how the update has effected communication between
your PC/console and the servers, check out the link to the video by Battlenonsense
coming up in the end card.
And before I sign off, just a quick reminder about the Year 3 Season Pass giveaway I’m holding right now.
Use the link in the description to take part and set yourself up ready for next year!
And that’s it, how has the game been running for you since the December 14th patch?
Let me know in the comments section below and while you’re there, you know the drill, the like
button is for those of you who liked the video, the dislike button shows me that this video
was not up to scratch!
As always guys, thank you for watching, I hope you enjoyed the video and I will see you in the next episode!