APB 1.30 Open Beta has begun

[R3ACT3M 489]

2 hours ago, CookiePuss said:

 

Sorry the 15 minute suggestion I just kind of spit out. 

You both have good suggestions, I guess I just want a bigger consequence.

For sure

[Genobee 143]

Bit impressed that this has reached open testing. I know APB is a layered mess of spaghetti code, and I honestly didn't think this would pan out as a result. I still don't exactly agree with the approach however. Yet if it works then so be it.

 

Hope the rest of testing goes smoothly. Been a long road to get this working and I'm sure there's people that can't wait for this to reach live.

[R3ACT3M 489]

5 hours ago, Hexerin said:

As I've brought up many times over the years, unopposed missions should not happen. They are the biggest contributor to the game's matchmaking issues, and also the easiest thing to fix. Missions should only start if there are at least 2 players on both sides (ideally, 4 players on both, as that's what the game is designed around). This also has the added benefit of making it so that players actually have to play the mission, instead of the unopposed team "preparing" the mission so that as many stages as possible are already completed before opposition is even assigned.

 

I do agree as well that /abandonmission should work in opposed missions, with a penalty system to discourage abuse. Such a system should allow 2-3 uses without penalty, but then ramp the penalties up exponentially on every use beyond that. Additionally, the system should back off each time the player completes a mission normally (ideally a bit more if the mission is a win, to incentivize positive gameplay), so that the player can earn more uses of /abandonmission throughout their gameplay session. Lastly, have a general daily reset, so that players start fresh the next day.

Yea unopposed missions should never be a thing. I feel like they are left overs of an original idea that RTW had. Where maybe criminals needed to be witnessed to start a mission with opposition.
I also think 2v2 missions should be last resort and the game should shoot for 4v4 priority. Hopefully if phasing becomes a reality this sort of thing can be more achievable. Because 2v2s and 3v3s are awful every time. Because if you're even slightly better than your opp it's just a slaughter fest, if you're worst?... That's where abandoning a live mission and putting a cool down on the opp you faced could really help with minimizing repeat matches. I mean a feature for voting for a rematch could also 100% be a thing (might be abusable so maybe no more than 1 rematch per time). As for it backing off per mission should shave off less than given if you abandon a live mission. The feature should really only be there as a sort of last resort if the matchmaking just really screws the pooch again. I also think a weekly reset would be better than a daily. Punishing enough, but not too forgiving (which can encourage match leaving all the time ( > < ; )

[kidi 14]

welp...

KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE @ windows 11

can't boot at all...

[MattScott 15242]

Hi everyone,

I'm watching this thread and taking some notes.
I appreciate the feedback so far from testers.

 

There have been a couple statements from players that certain things are "unfixable" because they are related to the old version of Unreal that APB is based on. I will go on record saying that nothing is unfixable at this point. It may be unrealistic to fix or incredible hard to fix, but we have long given up maintaining upgrade compatibility. So, the team is actively looking at each and every one of the things that have been reported.

For those that have brought up matchmaking and other items outside of stability - that's where we are headed next. I just want to close out this first effort and get 64-bit into production. Then I'll work with the team to create updated roadmap that we can share with the community. We are bouncing ideas around the right format that we can publish in.

Thanks,
Matt

[mojical 160]

Surprisingly, it took very little effort to make this new build run on Linux via Proton/Wine, unlike Live which crashes immediately at the district select screen at best. That alone is a huge step up in my opinion and a great incentive to start playing again, because I have pretty much ditched Windows completely other than a tiny partition to run a few well known benchmarks and overclocking tools.

 

This also means the Steam Deck and devices with a similar software stack should be able to run the game now, though it is obvious this game is best enjoyed with a keyboard and mouse.

 

The (simplified) steps I took for this were to install the game using Bottles and the default Soda runner, install the dotnet48 dependency in the same prefix, then have a separate entry for APB.exe and APBLauncher as the launcher can not start the game on Linux yet. Once 1.30 is out on Steam the process will be much more simple.

 

Performance is comparable to Frosi's results on Windows and there are no issues with the anticheat, both BE and EAC support Linux by now.

 

Here is a frametime plot complete with test specs and settings:

https://flightlessmango.com/games/1338/logs/3621

 

I saw this being requested by someone else in the AMA so I hope others (especially with Nvidia hardware) give this a try and check if it works on their setup as well.

 

 

[AlienTM 138]

4 hours ago, MattScott said:

For those that have brought up matchmaking and other items outside of stability - that's where we are headed next. I just want to close out this first effort and get 64-bit into production. Then I'll work with the team to create updated roadmap that we can share with the community. We are bouncing ideas around the right format that we can publish in.

with the final release of 1.30 the game also needs the threat districts back and the 2 new contacts

Edited February 2, 2023 by AlienTM

[Flaws 1033]

I haven't had time to test it extensively and I have not used any tools to track exact fps values so I'll just give some rough numbers. I'm averaging 230-250fps while driving around Financial, depending on whats going on in the area and the amount of other players present. In completely empty areas it would go up to 320+ fps while in very stacked places where lots of people are blowing stuff up, shooting and such it would drop to 150-170fps average. The boost in fps is significant across the board.

 

Aside from things already reported in the thread I do not believe I have come across any other bugs and issues with the build. I saw people reporting that they were still getting RTX crashes but I have not had that happen after playing a few missions and driving around a bunch. The performance/fps hits the game takes should be looked at if possible. Restarting the game every time you swap district or alt-tab a bunch of times shouldn't really be a requirement. Last but not least, getting rid of the garbage collection stutters, if at all possible, should be one of the top priorities before this hits live servers.

 

Additionally I would argue that if LO could create some kind of built-in benchmark that has several scenes of fights happening in different areas of each district where you can test different builds/hardware in the exact same in-game environments would be very beneficial to getting some concrete numbers.

 

Vanilla/stock maximum graphics preset, native res

1920x1080, 280hz

i9 12900k (stock clocks)

RTX 3080Ti

32GB RAM 3600MHz

Windows 10 and APB installed on an M.2 SSD

[R3ACT3M 489]

4 hours ago, MattScott said:

Hi everyone,

I'm watching this thread and taking some notes.
I appreciate the feedback so far from testers.

 

There have been a couple statements from players that certain things are "unfixable" because they are related to the old version of Unreal that APB is based on. I will go on record saying that nothing is unfixable at this point. It may be unrealistic to fix or incredible hard to fix, but we have long given up maintaining upgrade compatibility. So, the team is actively looking at each and every one of the things that have been reported.

For those that have brought up matchmaking and other items outside of stability - that's where we are headed next. I just want to close out this first effort and get 64-bit into production. Then I'll work with the team to create updated roadmap that we can share with the community. We are bouncing ideas around the right format that we can publish in.

Thanks,
Matt

I for one was definitely more curious of the next steps over this foundational change.

[RandomAPBplayer 30]

well compared to Live the 64 bit is an improvement with little to no lag. The only issue ive experienced so far is I still get the infinite "connecting to district"

[Annette_Sasha 8]

I had a cyclic sound lag once when shooting and a video driver crash.
There were also invisible doors.
Cyrillic in chat does not work.

[Hexerin 1142]

10 hours ago, R3ACT3M said:

I mean a feature for voting for a rematch could also 100% be a thing (might be abusable so maybe no more than 1 rematch per time).

So long as initiating that vote caused it to ask for everyone on both sides of the mission to put in a yay/nay, that could be a great feature. Would need to run on the logic of "super majority" though. For those who don't have this in their gov't, "super majority" means that simple majority isn't enough to pass something. An example of simple majority would be only needing 51 out of 100 votes. A super majority, however, would need at least 67 of 100 votes. So in the context of APB, a rematch would need at least 6 yay votes to pass, in a mission of 4v4 (8 total votes).

10 hours ago, R3ACT3M said:

As for it backing off per mission should shave off less than given if you abandon a live mission.

Oh, absolutely. My thoughts (in a much longer post I was writing up, but ultimately discarded in favor of the simpler one I posted) were something like needing to win at least 3 missions to gain a single /abandonmission usage. It would run on a total points system, which means that you also couldn't "save up" a bunch of uses and then abandon like 10+ missions in a row without penalty. You'd only ever be able to have 2-3 consecutive abandons before penalty kicks in.

[eue 5]

15 hours ago, MattScott said:

I will go on record saying that nothing is unfixable at this point

then there is another thing, the enabled interface reduces performance by up to 50%. might make sense to rework

[R3ACT3M 489]

8 hours ago, Hexerin said:

So long as initiating that vote caused it to ask for everyone on both sides of the mission to put in a yay/nay, that could be a great feature. Would need to run on the logic of "super majority" though. For those who don't have this in their gov't, "super majority" means that simple majority isn't enough to pass something. An example of simple majority would be only needing 51 out of 100 votes. A super majority, however, would need at least 67 of 100 votes. So in the context of APB, a rematch would need at least 6 yay votes to pass, in a mission of 4v4 (8 total votes).

Yea, agree, I mean. It also doesn't have to match make those who don't want to rematch. it could just try and pull in new players as a replacements.

[MiffyJupiter 8]

16 hours ago, mojical said:

Surprisingly, it took very little effort to make this new build run on Linux via Proton/Wine, unlike Live which crashes immediately at the district select screen at best. That alone is a huge step up in my opinion and a great incentive to start playing again, because I have pretty much ditched Windows completely other than a tiny partition to run a few well known benchmarks and overclocking tools.

 

This also means the Steam Deck and devices with a similar software stack should be able to run the game now, though it is obvious this game is best enjoyed with a keyboard and mouse.

 

The (simplified) steps I took for this were to install the game using Bottles and the default Soda runner, install the dotnet48 dependency in the same prefix, then have a separate entry for APB.exe and APBLauncher as the launcher can not start the game on Linux yet. Once 1.30 is out on Steam the process will be much more simple.

 

Performance is comparable to Frosi's results on Windows and there are no issues with the anticheat, both BE and EAC support Linux by now.

 

Here is a frametime plot complete with test specs and settings:

https://flightlessmango.com/games/1338/logs/3621

 

I saw this being requested by someone else in the AMA so I hope others (especially with Nvidia hardware) give this a try and check if it works on their setup as well.

 

 

I can't seem to get APB running under MacOS

[jmiIos 24]

Removing VFX is still allowed...hopefully all the files will be locked when 64 bit goes live. Even ini edits shouldn't be allowed since its's possible to have wallhack and lower muzzle flash intensity just with ini edits.

Also you should implement all advanced launcher settings into the game and add some extras which are not there. Like turning off texture streaming which is a big fps boost. Also minimum texture for environment should be 64 and not 16. Fps boost is minimal while making the game look like PS1 graphics, it's disgusting watching someone's stream and just seeing textures like that. When Pokie was streaming and showed his friend's stream everyone was making fun of how ugly the game looked. At least on 64 it looks somewhat decent.

[Weaboos 89]

I remember Matt mentioning they wanted to release the open beta to public on February. I was sceptical about such an early date but I am pleasantly surprised when LO actually delivered, kudos for that.

 

Anything that helps to improve the performance of this God awful lag fest of a game is welcome. Hopefully the next step will be an UI upgrade as the current one is known to cause performance issues... Every little bit contributes to a better user experience.

 

I hope for the sake of APB and all that hold it dear, the journey of upgrading to 64 bit will be smooth and no unforeseen consequences or perhaps some other darker matters will pose an obstacle for dev team.

 

Peace.

Edited February 3, 2023 by Weaboos

[CreatiiVeDE 0]

Sadly there's no way for me to download the launcher.

 

I don't know what's the matter but everytime i click on the link which is supposed to start the download nothing happens.

 

I'm using Google Chrome, maybe that's the issue here?

[Gothina 22]

So we can not use our characters on 1.30 or is it just me......?

I had to start a new one. I had like 256 mails tho.

[Sgt Drayke 149]

Hello, Do we know if the OTW server is down at the moment? 

end of character creation / select server, EU is showing with a ping strength but an overlay box appears stating is down?  NA is shown as not available.  iv checked my end to make sure non of my apps is blocking the game.  

 

 

?

 

[CookiePuss 5382]

52 minutes ago, Gothina said:

So we can not use our characters on 1.30 or is it just me......?

I had to start a new one. I had like 256 mails tho.

Yes you will need to make a fresh character. In your mail you will find various weapons, vehicles, clothing, etc as well as a bunch of weapon mods, money, and joker tickets.

36 minutes ago, Sgt Drayke said:

Hello, Do we know if the OTW server is down at the moment? 

end of character creation / select server, EU is showing with a ping strength but an overlay box appears stating is down?  NA is shown as not available.  iv checked my end to make sure non of my apps is blocking the game.  

 

 

?

 

Testing is NA only.

[Gothina 22]

29 minutes ago, CookiePuss said:

Yes you will need to make a fresh character. In your mail you will find various weapons, vehicles, clothing, etc as well as a bunch of weapon mods, money, and joker tickets.

Testing is NA only.

Thank you!

[yourrandomnobody74 108]

9 hours ago, eue said:

then there is another thing, the enabled interface reduces performance by up to 50%. might make sense to rework

 

This has plagued the game ever since they've partially updated the UI, changing the /fps counter and partially changing some in-game menus.

Most of the game runs on Kismet, while the added parts run on Scaleform, which we were supposed to move to completely with the UE3.5 upgrade thus unifying all UI elements. For now, it does seem like it isn't happening and they've been quiet on this topic for a while now.

Let's hope Matt addresses this after the 64-bit release and other gamebreaking road-blockers, since as per his post, nothing is unfixable now.

[Amayii 398]

3 hours ago, CreatiiVeDE said:

Sadly there's no way for me to download the launcher.

 

I don't know what's the matter but everytime i click on the link which is supposed to start the download nothing happens.

 

I'm using Google Chrome, maybe that's the issue here?

Hello CreatiiVeDE, 

 

We've made a change to the original post that should allow you to download the installer, can you try this again?

 

~@mayii

[Sgt Drayke 149]

 

Thank you @CookiePuss, that little very important missed detail explains a lot .   

 

Now  I am in, from across the pond, I can report back that it is butter smooth..  sure I'm getting a tiny bit higher latency , but client info. after a 34minute session.

client is stable, no red flags from os environment when installing launcher, game loaded in 100% no issues. even the main menu animation was smooth. 

cpu is not even seeing 20% usage  - my system was using the cores better with the 64 version.

system memory still hit 3.166.5mb , but never above 3.2GB 

no fps drops / spikes  (rtx4080 hasnt got any issues with the game. Nv control panel is set to vysnc all apps with 60fps to match monitors.) 

very very rarely it drops to 54 fps but I think thats just render distance ?

Ran the game in 4k & 2k at max settings , with and without "eye lash & AA" game was fine. 

tested gpu in "automatic" performance mode, and at "maximum" mode no issues.  Gpu avg in "automatic" 24% usage. clocks not even hitting 1ghz. 

[max mode clocks at 2.76ghz game was no different from the auto mode)

The new Engine/graphics tweaks minor but make a difference over all,  ( I had to check the files to make sure i wasnt going mad.. .) 

also..

new sound design ?? is EPIC.  I spent a good minute listening to a drain, and the contact voices at start of missions are great. although a little flat sounding... 

Overall Great step in the right direction