Transcript
The full narration, chapter by chapter. Click a time to play the video from there.
Intro
What is tick rate, and why does it make some game servers feel sharper than others? Let's break it down.
What a tick is
A game server doesn't track the world continuously. It updates in tiny steps, like frames in a film. Each step is a tick: the server collects everyone's inputs, calculates the new state of the world, and sends it back out. Tick rate is how many ticks happen every second.
64 vs 128
A 64-tick server updates 64 times a second, about every 16 milliseconds. A 128-tick server updates every 8. In the same tenth of a second, a 20-tick server gets 3 updates, a 64-tick server 7, and a 128-tick server 13.
Why it feels better
More updates means your shots and movements register sooner, fast duels resolve more fairly, and there's less gap between what you see and what the server knows.
The cost
So why isn't everything 128 tick? Because it's expensive. Doubling the tick rate roughly doubles the work the CPU does every second. On a weak or overloaded server, a high tick rate turns into stutter.
Dropped ticks
When the CPU can't finish a tick in time, the tick is late, or dropped. Everyone feels stutter and delayed hits at the same moment. If only one player lags, it's usually their network instead.
Tick, FPS, ping
And don't mix them up. FPS is how often your screen redraws. Tick rate is how often the server updates. Ping is how long data takes to travel. Three different things.
Wrap-up
In the end, tick rate is a CPU question. Fast, high-clock CPUs keep every tick on time. esagames.ro.
