To help compensate for lag in Rocket League, new input buffer settings option added to the Gameplay Options menu with the 1.58 patch, but still some players don’t know how to set the best Input Buffer for their game in Rocket League. In this guide, we will cover Rocket League Best Input Buffer Settings for you!
After the Rocket League 1.58 Patch released, one interesting thing you might've noticed with the patch is that everyones ping went down. This isn't black magic, and Psyonix changed what is included in the ping measurement. Now it only shows the time that it takes for your data to travel to the server and back, excluding other things that introduce latency. This was done, because most games do their measurements that way and there were complaints about ping being higher in Rocket League. So the new Input Buffer options has been added in the Options menu on the Gameplay tab, featuring fixing many server issues for various poor standards.
There are 3 options for Rocket League input buffer setting:
Legacy Setting - The default option used in Rocket League.
In the Legacy mode, this is the task of the server. It has the option to either duplicate a previous input to increase the buffer size, or combine 2 inputs to reduce the size. Whenever this happens, there will be a difference between what happens on your screen, and what happens on the server. So we would rather have this happen as little as possible. Generally, it doesn't happen much if you have a stable connection, but with a spotty one it could be different. So, this is where the new methods come in. They maintain the buffer size through your own game. The server will send you the current buffer size and then your game will increase the speed or decrease the speed at which it runs slightly. That will change the buffer size over time, as more or less inputs get generated compared to the default. So, unless the buffer runs completely dry, there shouldn't be a difference between the inputs that you use and the ones that the server uses. This does, however, come at the cost of varied game speed, which is why Psyonix didn't just remove legacy. The difference between the new modes is in how much they enforce the rule.
STS Setting (Sim Time Scaling) - This allows the game server to instruct your client to subtly speed up or slowdown to maintain a smooth input stream.
STS will run at normal game speed the vast majority of the time. Only when the buffer is regularly empty or it missed an input, does it seem to increase the game speed by just under 1%, to fill the buffer up. This is similar to how legacy seems to treat the buffer, so the only difference there, seems to be how it fills the buffer.
CSTS Setting (Continuous Sim Time Scaling) - A more aggressive version of STS. It uses a continuous feedback loop to determine game speed.
CSTS is significantly different. This method attempts, to the best of its ability, to keep the input buffer at exactly the same size. It uses constant feedback from the server to adjust the game speed. On a stable connection, you'll still have the game running at normal speed the majority of the time, and most adjustments are only a 0.3-0.6% differences in speed, but you rarely stay at standard speed for multiple seconds. In a sense, CSTS is a preventative method that will avoid buffer size changes, but that means you get more speed changes.
Both STS and CSTS are newer strategies for latency mitigation. These may be more effective for players with connectivity issues (spotty Wi-Fi, etc.). If you experience connectivity issues during a match, you should try switching from Legacy to STS or CSTS. If you see no improvement, change back to Legacy.
When you play RL online the game will send your inputs to the server, which will then calculate the game state based on the actions, then send the result back to you, so you can confirm that you have the correct information of the online game. Because internet connections are never 100% stable, the game can't assume that every input arrives at the correct time. Packets can take longer or shorter, or not arrive at all. If your game stutters and drops frames, that can also cause inputs to arrive late to the server. In order to overcome this problem, the server will maintain a buffer of multiple inputs. That way, it always has some backup to work with. Always, is not true either of course, because if you have some major packet loss or your ping varies a lot, then that entire buffer can run dry and you have a problem again. The difference between the settings lies in how the buffer is maintained.
If the answer was that simple, then Psyonix wouldn't have given us any options. Still, we spent some time playing around with all of these settings in different conditions to give you an educated recommendation. You can get some extra information on your own connection by opening the network performance stats. In there, you will find a few numbers. Your current input buffer size. The size that the input buffer is trying to target, based on how well your connection has been performing. An input buffer miss counter, that will show you when inputs on the server get duplicated or combined. And lastly, the current game speed, 120 being the default. With my usual solid connection to a private server, all methods felt fine. Legacy and STS have a target buffer size of 7. CSTS targeted a buffer size of 4. Regardless of that, the buffer with Legacy and STS was always significantly below the target, so there didn't really seem to be a noticeable difference in the real average buffer size.
Once the game notices your connection isn't good, which it does really fast btw, it will increase the targeted buffer size to even out the inconsistencies. With this unstable connection, even after the adjusted buffer sizes, there are more input buffer misses, than with the stable connection. Now, there is a noticeable difference in the amount of buffer misses between the methods.
CSTS is the king of bad connections. It do have to make continuous adjustments to gamespeed to achieve that though, some being as large as 2.5%. Overall it can be concluded that CSTS is the best from the networking standpoint. The constant tiny adjustments to game speed, however, have the potential to throw you off by a tiny amount. If they don't bother you, then you've got what you want.
For stable connections, CSTS will probably make unnecessary changes to speed and you'd be slightly better off with STS. STS seems to only increase game speed in the same situations where legacy duplicates inputs. And duplicating inputs is most definitely worse than a 1% change in game speed.
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