If the client’s estimate of the server time is wrong, it holds back freshly arrived entity data as “still in the future” or discards it as “too old.”
Why One client’s estimate of the server time is far off (measured during loading, or after waking from sleep) → Effect The interpolation reference time and the entity data’s timestamp don’t match → On screen Entities appear late or look frozen
After sitting idle, Right after login or maintenance
Owner
Primary owner Game team (Client development)
Game team action items
Redo time sync periodically and reset immediately when the gap is large, don’t use values measured during loading or right after waking from sleep.
On the graph
Outliers only · Server time estimate error per client
Where to look
Client log of the estimated server time, RTT, when time sync was redone, and how many times entity data was held back or discarded. Try to reproduce right after loading or right after waking from sleep
Confirmed if
Only the affected client’s estimate error exceeds the reset threshold (hardResetThresholdSec in Unity, 0.2 s by default), there are records of entity data held back as future or discarded as past, and redoing time sync fixes it right away
Ruled out if
Estimate error is small but entities still appear late: points to per-connection send budget and priority, or loading
Check with
Game server or client logs and metrics
Sources
NetworkTimeSystem class (Netcode for GameObjects 2.5)Unity If the time gap exceeds hardResetThresholdSec (0.2 s by default), the clock is forced into sync; otherwise adjustmentRatio speeds it up or slows it down a little at a time