The reason why ghostshots happen.

[Ketog 993]

Hello everyone , as the engine upgrade is getting closer to us, i've decided to finally make that video (as the engine upgrade might actually be a fix for this), showing why do ghostshots in apb happen and even how to cause them intentionally .

 

Here is a (quite long) video with me showing everything, for people that do not want to watch it , i will also explain it in text under this video :

 

 

Why do ghostshots happen and how i found out what causes them :

 

Alright so , i was basically trying to make a tap fire macro for the NTEC to see how fast the gun can be fired while keeping maximum accuracy , and I've noticed that whatever i did, i was having an unusually high number of ghostshots when trying the macro on my clanmates, when trying to find a fix for my issue i found this in a guide to make macros work properly on most games :

 

This text above is about the keyboard, but it also seems to be a thing for the mouse input in APB, Basically what that text says, is if you don't hold your keys for more than 15ms  the game won't register it as it checks every 15ms if a key has been pressed.

 

But here's what i found out with APB, while the text above says DirectInput checks for presses every 15 ms, with some experimenting i found that for APB's case this delay is not 15ms but ~50ms which is considerably higher, what this means is , if you hold your shooting key for less than 50ms there is an aproximative 50-70% chance that you will do a ghostshot as the key won't be properly registered (The definition of a ghostshot is you shooting a bullet, getting the recoil from it and also the muzzle flash with a sound effect, but not actually shooting a bullet server side, which means your enemies don't see you shooting, which is also the reason you don't loose a bullet in a mag nor see a hitmarker)

 

Before going further i want to say that i do not condone the use of macros, do not use macros, you WILL get banned if you do, im doing this for educational purposes and the sake of curiosity.

 

In the video shown above, i basically made two macros that does 3 shot bursts of NTEC to achieve maximum accuracy + maximum fire rate;

 

- The first one holds the left mouse button (LMB) for about one millisecond (1ms) when shooting bullets .

- The second macro holds the left mouse button (LMB) for a duration between 150 an 170 miliseconds (150-170ms) when shooting bullets.

 

Here's the results:

 

The first macro with a 1ms LMB hold , generates up to 3 ghostshots in a single 3bullet burst.

 

The second macro with an ~170ms LMB Hold has no ghostshots at all.

 

This shows that if you don't hold LMB for longer than 50ms it's basically a matter of luck if your shots get registered or not, the problem with this is that you don't even need to be need to be an experienced player to produce a click that lasts less than 50ms, and actually most people will without much effort produce a click that lasts less than 30ms. 

 

So in the end, all of this shows that :

Tap fireing someone very fast at close range, will make you very likely to get ghost shots.

If you are someone that's very reactive, and tend to do clicks in quick successions to hit someone, you're also likely to get ghostshots.

Basically any type of fast gameplay can result in ghost shots.

 

 

Here is some more things i noticed :

 

-Those type of ghostshots seems to happen mostly on automatic weapons.

-It can also happen with semi auto weapons, but is much less likely to do so.

-Shotguns are also prone to this problem, especially after switching weapons(might be another completely unrelated issue though).

 

Now as i said above, this issue might be caused by APB running on directX9 which is a very old version of DirectX, as the engine upgrade uses DirectX 11 this problem might disappear or at least heavily be mitigated .

 

Notes ;

Those tests were done with me, playing APB at a stable 101 FPS, and a ping(latency) of 230 with a constant 0 packet loss.

My friend, which tried this the exact same way as i did, had a stable 60 FPS with, a ping(latency) of 30 with a constant 0 packet loss.

 

I am aware that ghostshot do happen due to bad connections, but this thread shows one type of ghostshot that isn't dependent on the stability of your connection .

 

 

So yeah this is it, please take all of this info with a grain of salt as the tests were done with only a few people, while all of them experienced the same results as i did, it doesn't mean that everyone will, thanks.

Edited August 20, 2019 by Ketog
Cleaning up of the topic

[Shui 215]

Cool

Edited March 27, 2019 by Sentaii

[Weeb TheEpicGuyV2 269]

3 minutes ago, Halelulia said:

So .. you are a cheater.

 

27 minutes ago, Ketog said:

Before going further i want to say that i do not condone the use of macros, do not use macros, you WILL get banned if you do, im doing this for educational puproses and the sake of curiosity.

Edited March 26, 2019 by Weeb TheEpicGuyV2

[Ketog 993]

12 minutes ago, Halelulia said:

So .. you are a cheater.

Well honestly, that might sound weird and hardly belivable, and im fine if you don't belive me, but yes , i DID use macros to prove my point and yes is was experimenting macros before even discovering this problem.

 

Now i would also like to tell that i love finding all kinds of bugs in APB as im very curious about bugs in apb, while i was actually experimenting with macros, i never planned to use them in PVP as im completely against any type of software advantage in APB or any other games, i'd rather be good with my own hand alone rather than my hand and a software.

 

You beliving me or not ? it's completely up to you.

[MsRaccooN 7]

49 minutes ago, Ketog said:

Hello everyone , as the engine upgrade is getting closer to us, i've decided to finally make that video (as the engine upgrade might actually be a fix for this), showing why do ghostshots in apb happen and even how to make them intentionally .

 

Here is a (quite long) video with me showing everything, for people that do not want to watch it , i will also explain it in text under this video :

 

 

Why do ghostshots happen and how i found out what causes them :

 

Alright so , i was basically trying to make a tap fire macro NTEC to see how fast the gun can be fired while keeping maximum accuracy , and i've noticed that whatever i did , i was having an insane ammounts of ghostshots when trying the macro on my clanmates, i then found this in a guide to make macros work properly on most games :

 

This talks about the keyboard , but it also seems to be a thing for the mouse in APB, Basically what that text says, is if you don't hold your keys for more than 15ms  the game won't register it as it checks every 15ms if a key is pressed, but what i noticed with apb, is that for the mouse that delay is not 15ms but ~50ms which is considerably higher, what this means is , if you hold your shooting key for less than 50ms there is an aproximative 50-70% chance that you will do a ghostshot (which is actually hear your gun fireing, having the recoil of it, and seeing the muzzle flash, but not actually shooting a bullet server side)

 

Before going further i want to say that i do not condone the use of macros, do not use macros, you WILL get banned if you do, im doing this for educational puproses and the sake of curiosity.

 

In this video , i basically made two macros that does 3 shot bursts of NTEC to achieve maximum accuracy + maximum fire rate  with , one that holds LMB for about 1ms delay and the other that holds LMB for about 150-170ms

 

The first macros with a 1 MS LMB hold , generates up to 3 ghostshots in a single burst

 

The second one with a 170ms LMB Hold has no ghostshots .

 

this shows that if you don't hold LMB for longer than 50ms it's basically a matter of luck if your shots get registered or not, the problem with this is that you don't even need to be need to be an experienced player to prduce a click that is less than 50ms , actually most people will without much effort produce a click that lasts less than 30ms . 

 

So in the end, all of this shows that if you are, as an exmple tap fireing someone fery fast at close range, you are very likely to get ghot shots.

 

Here is some more things i noticed :

 

-Those type of ghostshots seems to happen mostly on automatic weapons

-It can also happen with semi auto weapons, but is much less likely to do so

-Shotguns are also prone to this problem, especially after switching weapons

 

Now as i said above, this issue might be caused by APB running on directX9 which is a very old version of DirectX, as the engine upgrade uses DX 11 this problem might disapear or at least heavly be mitigated .

 

So yeah this is it, please take all of this info with a grain of salt as the tests were done with onlt a few people, while all of them experienced the same results as i did it doesn't mean that everyone will, thanks.

macro is banable? KEK'd

[yood 345]

correctly written macro kills any balancing of the weapons . Attaboy! I'm proud of you ! long LO made a new balance weapons ?

1 hour ago, Ketog said:

Hello everyone , as the engine upgrade is getting closer to us, i've decided to finally make that video (as the engine upgrade might actually be a fix for this), showing why do ghostshots in apb happen and even how to make them intentionally .

 

Here is a (quite long) video with me showing everything, for people that do not want to watch it , i will also explain it in text under this video :

 

 

Why do ghostshots happen and how i found out what causes them :

 

Alright so , i was basically trying to make a tap fire macro NTEC to see how fast the gun can be fired while keeping maximum accuracy , and i've noticed that whatever i did , i was having an insane ammounts of ghostshots when trying the macro on my clanmates, i then found this in a guide to make macros work properly on most games :

 

This talks about the keyboard , but it also seems to be a thing for the mouse in APB, Basically what that text says, is if you don't hold your keys for more than 15ms  the game won't register it as it checks every 15ms if a key is pressed, but what i noticed with apb, is that for the mouse that delay is not 15ms but ~50ms which is considerably higher, what this means is , if you hold your shooting key for less than 50ms there is an aproximative 50-70% chance that you will do a ghostshot (which is actually hear your gun fireing, having the recoil of it, and seeing the muzzle flash, but not actually shooting a bullet server side)

 

Before going further i want to say that i do not condone the use of macros, do not use macros, you WILL get banned if you do, im doing this for educational puproses and the sake of curiosity.

 

In this video , i basically made two macros that does 3 shot bursts of NTEC to achieve maximum accuracy + maximum fire rate  with , one that holds LMB for about 1ms delay and the other that holds LMB for about 150-170ms

 

The first macros with a 1 MS LMB hold , generates up to 3 ghostshots in a single burst

 

The second one with a 170ms LMB Hold has no ghostshots .

 

this shows that if you don't hold LMB for longer than 50ms it's basically a matter of luck if your shots get registered or not, the problem with this is that you don't even need to be need to be an experienced player to prduce a click that is less than 50ms , actually most people will without much effort produce a click that lasts less than 30ms . 

 

So in the end, all of this shows that if you are, as an exmple tap fireing someone fery fast at close range, you are very likely to get ghot shots.

 

Here is some more things i noticed :

 

-Those type of ghostshots seems to happen mostly on automatic weapons

-It can also happen with semi auto weapons, but is much less likely to do so

-Shotguns are also prone to this problem, especially after switching weapons

 

Now as i said above, this issue might be caused by APB running on directX9 which is a very old version of DirectX, as the engine upgrade uses DX 11 this problem might disapear or at least heavly be mitigated .

 

So yeah this is it, please take all of this info with a grain of salt as the tests were done with onlt a few people, while all of them experienced the same results as i did it doesn't mean that everyone will, thanks.

correctly written macro kills any balancing of the weapons . Attaboy! I'm proud of you ! long LO made a new balance weapons ?

you probably Superman who has the perfect custom setup , the ideal location of the residence relative to a playable server and you never promahivayas .

Edited March 26, 2019 by Yood

[Alani 475]

ok

 

but do ghost shots fix hitreg issues?

[Acornie 488]

That is actua- *JOKER AMMO!* very informational. Thank you for this scientific research

[MattScott 14762]

Hi all,

 

As much as I appreciate the banter on the forums, I appreciate the time spent by Ketog to post his findings. 

This is an irritating problem that we have spent months hunting down.

Let's keep this civil and respect, what I believe, was meant to be a helpful post.

 

Thanks,

Matt

[Zolerox 562]

4 hours ago, Halelulia said:

So .. you are a cheater.

He's testing bugs and reporting them , That's like saying anyone who tests bugs/issues with the game (it may take unconventional methods to find and report them in detail) are cheating and should be banned.

 

In that case I should have been banned centuries ago.

 

Anybody remember the Stun launcher during the phase when g1 was doing "different ttk servers" nick named 'Shaw-opgl'.

 

 

[Wewhoo 20]

Cool finding ! Have you tried doing the same macro to get stuck in crouch ? (i.e. standing on client-side, but crouching on server-side)
Also, have you managed to get the client to register a mouse-hold, but not the server ? Like ghostshooting an entire ntec mag.

[MartisLTU 265]

"LO" take notes and fix it... meanwhile now i know why all those kids in FC always have perfect hitreg .... macro with 16ms 

 

 

~I was right all along that only cheaters can have perfect hitreg, ty for proof Ketog.

Edited March 26, 2019 by MartisLTU
adds

[Rade 46]

@Ketog

 

If you are using Windows 10, can you try disabling dynamic tick and see if it has any impact?

 

Open a command prompt as admin;

 

bcdedit /set disabledynamictick yes

 

Reboot

 

To remove the above, open command prompt as admin and type;

 

bcdedit /deletevalue disabledynamictick

 

And reboot.

 

[CookiePuss 5230]

Ketog never ceases to impress. 

 

Shame that most will twist this info so as to reinforce their own beliefs. 

[neophobia 214]

While this seems like one reason - I'd be highly surprised if this was the only - or even the main one. 15ms is a *very* short time and this does not fully explain all ghostshots (e.g. when actually autoing).

Good finding though.

 

using macros to gain a competetive advantage is bannable, we get it. (also jeez the amount useless fullquotes of op. (attaboy yood too xd))

 

"bannable" also does in fact not mean "will be banned", it (always) lies in LOs jurisdiction.

 

(I suppose once they get their serversided AC up and running, this might be one thing they address. i think battleye also already kicks when AHK is running?)

Edited March 26, 2019 by neophobia

[Zolerox 562]

17 minutes ago, neophobia said:

(also jeez the amount useless fullquotes of op. (attaboy yood too xd))

 

another thing yood does that ticks me off.

 

I had someone who full quoted my entire Guide (1 quote took up half the page.)

[Lign 360]

It happens more usual on semi-auto rifles than on automatic. If you make a macro with 1ms delay and try to shoot with obir, you gonna experience every 2nd burst gets ghostshotted. I can make a video showing it. Same happens with csg and oscar. Actually this thing rarely happens if you don't use macro, that means it might be very helpful against macro users.

Edited March 26, 2019 by Lign

[Clandestine 390]

Now it makes sense why it wasn't registering so many shots of FBW with autofire

[Talla 73]

One of the best threads I've seen in a long time. Very informative and well explained.
Thank you for sharing this Ketog.

 

[yood 345]

why are you trying to set this as a rule ? macro is a technical abuse . 

 

dude writes . I used a macro, I shot better . let's all put my macro configurations ! are you serious ?

 

Edited March 27, 2019 by Yood

[neophobia 214]

57 minutes ago, Yood said:

macro is a technical abuse . 

 

no, using a macro to gain a competetive advantage is.

he used it outside of a mission, outside of anything at all.

it is technically still bannable according to the ToS (and technically speaking, everything can be bannable either way) - but it definitely is not abuse of anything.

2 hours ago, Zolerox said:

another thing yood does that ticks me off.

 

I had someone who full quoted my entire Guide (1 quote took up half the page.)

ugh, yeah... i mean you can click the thingy in the bar where it says your name to hide it - but you really shouldn't have to

 

 

Edited March 27, 2019 by neophobia

[yood 345]

Just now, neophobia said:

no, using a macro to gain a competetive advantage is.

 

 

 

no, using a macro to gain a competetive advantage is  and macro is a technical abuse : same thing.

Edited March 27, 2019 by Yood

[KnifuWaifu 499]

3 hours ago, CookiePuss said:

Shame that most will twist this info so as to reinforce their own beliefs. 

I have no idea what you mean

9 hours ago, Ketog said:

Hello everyone , as the engine upgrade is getting ClOser tO us, i've decided to finally maKe that vIdEo (as the engine uPgrade might actually be a fIx for this), Showing why do ghostshots in Apb haPpen and even hOw tO make them intentionally .

 

Here is a (quite long) vidEo with me showing everything, for people thAt Do not want to watch it , i will also explain it in text under this video

Thank You Ketog, Very Cool!

Edited March 27, 2019 by KnifuWaifu

[apbstuffs 54]

Very interesting. I never would have expected something like this to effect ghost shots.

Doing some tests by recording my input while I played, I was able to see that I almost always had over 15ms of hold time for my shots but very regularly under 50ms.

[Deftonez 113]

appreciate you going out of your way to visualize/explain this issue

 

you're the hero we need but don't deserve