High Bandwidth Servers Rollout In Progress
Posted By:
GamerDating - August 15, 2016
Overwatch launched with a very low 21 updates per second, one of the lowest in the FPS competitive scene. Blizzard responded with introducing a custom mode game with 63 updates per second which was met with a fairly good response. Now this has now been announced as the standard for all and will be rolled out over the next few weeks..
In Overwatch, our high bandwidth option adjusts the game’s client update rate (the frequency at which your client gets updates from the game server) from 21 updates per second to 63 updates per second. This reduces the amount of time between when you complete an action and when your client hears back about the result, which in turn will help make the game feel more responsive.
Since we know that not all internet connections are equal, we’ve also added in tech that will automatically and adaptively scale down your update rate if we find your connection can't keep up. Similarly, because high bandwidth servers (as the name suggests) will increase your bandwidth consumption, we’re also looking to add an option to self-limit your update rate in a future patch.
The update rates link into what is known as the tick rate is the frequency with which the server updates the game state. This is measured in Hertz. When a server has a tick rate of 64, it means that it is capable of sending packets to clients at most 64 times per second. In Overwatch we had the client at 21 and the server at 64. So the client might as well be playing on a 21 tick server. Now this should help stop those near misses when you attempt to run behind a corner and a short delay after, you die.
Tracers cheer, for your time is near!
