A YouTuber who specializes in networking claims that Blackout’s netcode is worse that both Fortnite Battle Royale and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
The video, uploaded by Battle(non)sense, breaks down exactly how Blackout’s netcode works, and compares it to Fortnite, PUBG and the normal Black Ops 4 multiplayer.
Chris, who runs the Battle(non)sense YouTube account, uses a program called Wireshark to learn and analyze the networking capabilities of various games such as Fortnite, Battlefield and Ironsight.
When testing out the Black Ops 4 multiplayer beta, Chris was able to find that the beta ran at a tick rate of 62Hz. However, when he tested the Blackout beta, he found that the game ran at a tick rate of only 10Hz when players landed, and saw just a slight improvement as the game went on, as it reached a peak of 20Hz.
Chris then goes on to reveal that these are similar problems to ones that both Fortnite and PUBG faced when they launched, but that they have since been able to improve their tick rate to a more consistent level, sitting around 30Hz.
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Tick rate is an important factor in online multiplayer games. The tick rate determines how often the server can ‘see’ things changing in the game. A lower tick rate, like the 10Hz in Blackout, means that the server only updates and makes changes 10 times per second, while games like Fortnite are updating 30 times per second.
Low tick rate can affect players’ abilities to perform at a high level as it means there may be frame rate delays, and even the possibility of your accuracy decreasing as the server fails to update after every bullet.
While the Blackout beta may have had a low tick rate, there’s a chance that Treyarch could work to improve it before the mode officially releases on October 12 alongside Black Ops 4.