Delayed power update

Since the huge user increase, we’ve seen lately I have noticed a very annoying delay in Zwift registering my power reading. When I reach a climb and hammer down I get left behind quick quick because Zwift only realizes that I am gunning it after 10-15 seconds. It is NOT my PC, my internet connection or my trainer. This latency only occurs on zwift. Will zwift investigate it or fix it? Probably not.

Can you post a run down of you setup including computer specs and internet speed test (use a server on the West Coast USA).

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There you go…

Rundown? Wel beside the spec posted below this PC is also used for streaming HD/4K video and playing sim games on ultra high settings. The network is hardwired. Power output to Wahoo is instant as wel as to RTG and BKool. This issue did not exist pre-covid (yes zwift takes forever to load but apparently that is just me) which leads me to believe that they cannot really scale.

Note: Wahoo Kickr calibrated and latest firmware.

That ping times if fairly high and that could be the cause of the delay.

What type of hard drive do you have in that PC, an SSD or spinning rust?

What you could do to test it is start a ride and disconnect from the internet and continue the ride and see if there is still a delay.

The issue is not on Zwift’s end, there have been very few issues reported like yours and they have all pointed to the users internet connection. Zwift server should be able to handle a round 50,000 concurrent users and it has not real gotten close as of yet.

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I have SSD but I see no reason why zwift would lag using any other hardware when it is the only software on the machine to do this. It is the same with the load time - on average 2 minutes to start up and it is the only software on the machine that takes this long, also the only software that goes into a not responding state during this looong load. I will do the test but I already know the result. My question in cases like this is always why only a specific application? BTW there is a difference between ‘should’ and ‘do’ :wink:

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Just a quick update on this issue - Thanks to the virtual TdF I noticed that this is not a unique problem. I paid careful attention and without fail there was a ~5 sec (sometimes more) delay between the rider stopping/starting to pedal and the reaction from the Zwift platform. It was obviously not possible to see what the delay is between coasting at 3w/kg and hammering at 9w/kg but I believe it is safe to say that it would be similar.

You’re saying that you saw a 5 second delay between what the pro rider was doing and what their avatar did? How did you see that, on the video coverage in split screen showing the rider on their turbo and the race? Because I can’t believe this could be true. It would have made a mockery of the race if anyone put the hammer down and it took the others 5 secs to be able to start chasing. I didn’t see any of that.

My own Zwift avatar responds very quickly. I don’t recall others complaining about a similar problem.

I’m afraid that it seems highly likely that it’s something specific to your setup - your turbo/PC/internet. You already mentioned that Zwift takes ages to load, which is suspicious too. It shouldn’t take long to load at all.

Ha ha I’m not sure that this actually warrants a response but here goes:

Correct, I have this little known thing called a television where they actually show the virtual TdF live. Was it isolated i.e. a single incident that could be explained by my crap TV or crap satellite provider? No it was fairly consistent.

Well you better believe it because despite all my best efforts I just cannot get famous like Trump with fake news, but I will keep trying. I’m actually hoping that zwift will offer to pay me off to keep quiet about game-fixing.

Some of us are more lucky than others

Yes I agree. My 1985 56K dailup on the XT8086, 12kK ram and EGA graphic just does not seem to cut it. I think that I will upgrade to an i7, 8Gb ram, SSD, 1060GPU and see how that goes. I will also dedicate it to gaming and upgrade my dailup to 40M fibre. Oh wait, I already did this many years ago.

Oh, and did I mention that zwift is the ONLY app on this machine that respond like this. Not Bkool, Not Rouvy, Not VRide, Not RGT, or any of the games on Steam. Also despite providing zwift ‘support’ with my full PC spec and network tests multiple times, they are yet to show me any issue. Let’s be honest here - zwift graphics is like comparing a 2000 game with a 2020 game and while fantastic graphic is not their objective I’m a bit at a loss of words as to why Assasins Creed or Far Cry works just a charm on the same rig at the highest setting but apparently my setup is not sufficient for one AND ONLY ONE app and that app is called ZWIFT!

If I wanted to spend any more time on a he said she said argument I could get the vTdF from my on demand, capture it and share it here but here is the thing - I’m not really going to be bothered doing it but thanks for your valuable input, I will definitely look at upgrading to a cray and all my problems will be at an end.

Ho ho. Your heavy sarcasm is really helping your case.

I suggest that any delay you saw on the vTdF was as a result of latency differences between the broadcast of the rider’s webcam and the broadcast of the in-race view. So the pro rider in fact saw no such delay, and it’s just that our view of their webcam was slightly delayed in some cases. If it was otherwise, don’t you think we’d be hearing about it?

You say that it’s only Zwift that has this problem for you. I don’t doubt that. One piece of software may be more sensitive to certain issues than another. You haven’t said anything about how this supposed widespread problem is Zwift’s fault and not something at your end, given that no-one else is complaining about this.

I never said it was your PC specifically. That’s one component, sure. But there are many others outside Zwift’s control at your end and at your ISP. It doesn’t matter if maybe you don’t see a problem when playing a different game. That doesn’t prove that your end of things is ok.

If I was you I’d be starting to try and eliminate different things. But you’ll probably just reply with more sarcasm, so I’m not sure how you’re expecting anyone to actually help you.

Hi Anton - can you dump a log file into Zwiftalizer and let us see the result?

@_Dean Great, at last, a constructive recommendation (thanks for that), wondering why ‘support’ never asked me for a) my log file and b) to do this analysis :thinking:

I’m not sure how to share the results, don’t see a share or save option but everything looks great except for my Ant+. It revealed that the ANT+ signal “was up and down like a fiddler’s elbow.” with 6 weak signal events during the 2:38hr ride. I’m going to work through the recommendations to see if I can get rid of those. I’ll first make sure I’m using a ‘powered’ USB port since I’m using an extension to get the dongle right next to my kicr.

Thanks again for the suggestion.

The only delay that I have experienced is when I stop pedaling and coast on a downhill to get into the supertuck. I will stop pedaling and watch the watts on Zwift go from 300 to 200 to 100 to 0 in a matter of a few seconds, maybe 3 or 4 max. The only explanation I can think of is that while I’m no longer putting any force onto the pedals there is still momentum and power being generated from the flywheel speed on my Kickr Core.

I don’t experience this when ramping up my power say for a sprint or the start of a race, only when I stop and coast.

screen shot or snipping tool is the only way I think.

I working on my ANT+ for now since that seems to be the only issue zwiftalizer flagged. I moved my ANT+ dongle from a USB 2.0 to 3.0. Will test and see how that goes and if there is any difference.

You can also try getting a USB extender cable so you can place the ANT+ dongle right next to your trainer, this helps minimize interference especially if your computer is a few feet away from your bike

He is already using one

@Anton_Oosthuizen_ZHR - thanks Anton. A snip /screenshot if you can (but may not be necessary given you comments. Funnily enough, I’m a network person so was expecting you to mention lots of network errors, not an ANT issue!

You may also have wifi congestion which could hit your ANT+ signals. This can be caused by “neighbours” all broadcasting in the same channel range, or could be someone just blasting an over-powered signal on purpose or otherwise which ensures they get a good signal at the cost of yours. Easiest way to check would be a wifi analyser that you can download onto a phone - the congestion that may upset ANT is the 2.4GHz range and Channel 10 (ie, move everything you can off Channel 10).

This may address the ANT+ errors but not sure if it will address the lag.

The 2 min load and slow speedtest result (ping/latency) suggest to me that something else is going on but cant think of an easy “dump a file on this website” to draw out the meaningful data thats probably required like Zwiftalizer does for Zwift logs. But one thing at a time I suggest.

@_Dean I live on a large property with my router the only one close enough to be a consideration but that is two rooms away with the channels for both 2.4 and 5 well removed from anything that can interfere with ANT+. I have also stopped using wifi more than a year ago on this PC and it is hardwired via cat5.

The slow load has been a mystery since I started using zwift years ago. When I started out I had it isntalled on a data drive and after many many meaningless conversations with ‘support’ I just accepted it for what it is. But since I have rebuilt the machine (formatted all drives) and installed zwift on the OS drive but that did not help. Again zwift is the ONLY app that behaves like this on the machine. And here is the really funny thing - Once in-game, except for the lag, nothing points to any performance issues i.e. like you would experience with a resource heavy game using setting above the ability of the machine such as jerky graphics. I have also tried everything from the lowest to the highest graphic settings in zwift with no difference at all.

But I agree, one thing at a time. Later today I will test after moving my ANT+ to a different USB port.

Correct. When I started using zwift I experienced the odd power dropout so I move the ANT+ close to my trainer, literary right next to it.

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@Anton_Oosthuizen_ZHR I’m probably at the limit of any skills I might think I may have that can help. I’ll keep watching this thread and if anything comes to mind I’ll offer support. Good luck, must be very frustrating - I have known bugs with Zwift and still they dont fix them (only impact a few people) so cringe when I see people with obscure issues. I am convinced that Zwift isn’t architected very well (just need to check FB groups to see the increasing volume of ppl with obvious scalability issues) and so that much rumoured UI update evidently delayed by C-19 that will be released soon could well be your saviour. Hopefully people here can help you work through your issue before that.

That load time though … hmmmm.

The only other thing I will offer up is that I’m n New Zealand and we dont have an AWS datacentre local (you do but I’m unsure if Zwift is configured to utilise it) so I find your load time/ping at odds with mine given I am the same/further away from resources than you you.