Game Lag White Paper › L1 Client game process

Client crash Client crash

Cause ID cg-crash · Primary owner Game team (Client development) · Also External (External)

Open the interactive card with figures and simulations →

An unhandled error closes the game. To the player it looks like a disconnect, but the server is fine.

Why Null reference, out of memory, graphics driver error → Effect The game process is forcibly terminated → On screen Reports of “I got kicked out” while everyone else is fine at the same moment

Symptoms

Disconnect

Factors

Stall

Who’s affected

Just me

When

During specific actions, Randomly

Owner

Primary owner Game team (Client development) · Also External (External)

Game team action items

Collect crash reports, break down stats by device and driver, fix the most frequent errors first.

External action items

If crashes cluster on a specific graphics driver version, tell players to update their driver.

On the graph

Outliers only · Crash count (by device, graphics driver, and build)

Where to look

Crash reports and the Android vitals crash rate by device, driver, and build. On players’ PCs, Event ID 1000 in the Event Viewer Application log (faulting module name) and “Display driver stopped responding and has recovered” entries

Confirmed if

A crash record exists at the reported disconnect time, and other players on the same server are fine at the same moment. Crashes cluster on specific devices, driver versions, or modules

Ruled out if

Connection dropped with no crash record: “NAT mapping expiry” or the connection side

Check with

Game server or client logs and metrics

Sources

1. Crashes Android (Google)
   A crash is when an app exits unexpectedly because of an unhandled exception or signal (SIGSEGV and so on); tallied in Android vitals in Play Console
2. WDDM Support for Timeout Detection and Recovery (TDR) Microsoft
   If the GPU can’t finish its work within 2 s (default), Windows resets the graphics driver and the GPU
3. The application or service crashing behavior troubleshooting guidance Microsoft
   Event ID 1000 in the Application log is the actual crash record and includes the faulting application and the faulting module (Faulting module name)

See also

Same layer: L1 Client game process

• Frame time spike
• Client garbage collection
• Synchronous loading and shader compilation on the main thread
• Slow storage delays asset streaming
• Rendering load from large crowds
• Packet processing bottleneck on the main thread
• Missing or too-short interpolation buffer
• Excessive extrapolation (dead reckoning)
• Client-side prediction mismatch
• Fixed-timestep catch-up spiral
• Clock sync error
• Float time precision loss
• V-Sync and the render queue
• Client memory leak
• Anti-cheat scans

Same symptom (Disconnect), other layers

• Mobile app sent to the background L2 Client OS and device
• Wi-Fi ↔ LTE/5G switching L2 Client OS and device
• Throttling when the window is minimized or unfocused L2 Client OS and device
• Overlay software interference L2 Client OS and device
• NAT mapping expiry L3 Home network
• Underpowered or overheating router L3 Home network
• Cell tower handover (while moving) L3 Home network
• Weak mobile signal and dead zones L3 Home network

View the interactive card with figures and simulations