Arbitrary Game Freezes, High CPU-usage the cause?

Technical Support
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Besides the Latency issue past the router - where someone actually took even the effort to actually delete my forum entry - I have another issue, that seems less common?

Hots maxes out one CPU-core. While not optimal, i would be ok with it. However, not sure if it is actually related to it, but my game too freezes in arbitrary intervals and get a hold on to in a few seconds after.

This combined with the packet-loss which makes the game feel “slow”, this is an actual freeze of the game and not related in any timely manner to my internet, so my next culprit would be a resource-bottleneck and since Hots maxes out a core by its own, there are chances it may be it.

Core-Spec Ryzen 7 3700x 8-Core / 16 Threads
Nvidia 1070
32GB DDR4 3600MHz RAM

I haven’t noticed any flashing indicators others were talking about, so not sure what to look for

On paper, it should just be in the spec. Have read about similar issues from posts of 2-3 years ago, but guess these problems have been fixed by now, right?`

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Hey Thriem,

I see one other forum post from you on the US forums here. Is that the post you were looking for perhaps?

If your recent WinMTRs still look like the one posted there, then I would lean more towards the game freezes / stuttering being caused by the latency spikes after your router. More on that later.

With the specs that you gave, that system should definitely have no problems running the game smoothly as long as all of the hardware is functioning properly.

Due to the way the game engine for HOTS works, it will indeed use 1-2 cores for the majority of the game’s performance rather than spreading out the load more equallty between all cores. This itself is not a problem, unless the CPU is thermal throttling or downclocking itself due to some other issue. I would make sure that you’re using the latest BIOS and chipset drivers for your motherboard, since there can be bug fixes and stability improvements with new BIOS versions.

Going back to the connection and the WinMTR results. If your packets are being delayed and taking 4 seconds (4300ms in the worst column from the WinMTR) in some cases, that type of delay can definitely cause the game to visually lock up and freeze. HOTS uses a lockstep style engine, which basically means if your game client isn’t receiving data from the server in a timely manner then all movements/actions freeze until it updates. This is why packet loss and high latency spikes can cause freezes that appear visual performance related, when they are usually connection related.

There were a couple of informative posts on Reddit years ago when the game first released, if you’re interested in more information about how the game works and what you can potentially do to help with issues like that.

Reddit: A dive into Heroes’ networking and performance

Reddit: Why your game stutters, and what you can do about it.

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Hi Jambrix;

Hardware seems fine. While I haven’t measured temps in specific or monitored frequency during games, I see little chances that hardware cause - since you said it should be capable. Though, I did test thermals and health-condition of several components (CPU, RAM, OS-SSD, GPU) during an explicit 30-60 min stresstest of each component with barely hitting 50°C. Even CPU temps rise to about 70°C to under all-full-core stresstest.

The system is not overclocked at the moment, with exception of RAM - which was not detected at its supported speed of 3600MHz, which the Motherboard also supports with some Bios-update along the way.

BIOS update is manually updated (since these automatic ones… forget about it).
Regarding the Chipset, I check out with the Microsoft-Default ones - since I do not experience any weird behaviour that would lead me to think it would be the chipset - except HotS in that regard?

Well, I agree to it. I am not quite sure what causes it - first i thought my mobile connection could be it - however, HotS is the only known thing to me, that struggles that much when it comes to internet traffic. Overwatch, guess you have heard about it, in example functions playable fine with high ping (for competitive play at least - 80-100ms) but it remains constant with very rare (every second game once) noticable spikes. And Overwatch recovers quite quickly.

As a matter of fact, I too play StarCraft 2, occasionally, but never experienced an issue that was worth to mention / remembering.

However, I the freezes are definitely different than those “lag”-issues. These “lags” happen a bit gradually, where you feel the commands just take longer to be processed and respective action is executed - maybe even end in a total freeze - but then the game actually says “Player has returned to battle.” - which is for me the indication the game registered me as disconnected.
But these actual freezes happen in an instant, last consistently longer and do not end with such return massage mentioned above.
PS.:

Admitted, it was. As I posted it I bookmarked it, functioning at the time. However, if i use it now, it says that this post had probably been deleted or moved.
For this I am sorry, but I neither could find it later using my browser-history, ending with the same moved-message - and neither found it using the forum search.

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Howdy Thriem,

You mentioned packet loss but based on the WinMTR test you provided, it wasn’t consistent throughout the entire test. If packet loss is only happening on certain hops, then it is typically due to throttling happening on those servers and doesn’t normally affect the normal game data that passes through. One thing I noticed though is the high latency spikes happening early on:

This may be causing some issues so if possible, I’d suggest testing the game while using a wired connection and bypassing any routers, extenders or adapters. If this persists, please provide an updated WinMTR test. In the mean time, you may also want to try testing another network temporarily to see if there’s any change.