FWIW I’ve been put on the new home screen now (not sure why), and it doesn’t improve the CPU issues. Exactly the same; there’s something going on causing a huge additional load, which damages frame rate performance. It might be the new UI, who knows. A cynical person might wonder if this is the real reason why those older iGPUs were sacked off, rather than the assumed aspects that people like me were in agreement with (namely progress, and freeing up support).
The worrying thing is, these optimisation and performance issues are starting to add up.
Hopefully it’s one and the same thing, and can be resolved soon. As ever I’m happy to provide logs and stuff relating to the issues I’m seeing, if necessary.
In short, there’s a newly observed increased amount of stress/load on the CPU side, which is causing frame rate performance to be much lower than anticipated on known capable hardware, and load times to be noticeably higher than they have historically been. The timeframe seems to fit with when the new UI originally started to roll out, even though I’ve only just got access to it now.
Hey all,
Explored the new home screen for a bit(made a video too: Quick Walkthough of Zwifts New Home Screen/UI - YouTube). I have some feedback and things that should be changed, most of it being running related. I know most people do not use a laptop while running, but before rolled out to more platforms, this should probably be updated/changed.
I am not sure if you all at Zwift know this, but it is not ready for runners to use yet. Some of the scaling is off is off for the routes on small courses(like the May Field). Screenshots attached below
I was looking at the routes, it does not display the ones that I have completed, it just shows a lock next to the route that says locked level 0.(I know I am not high leveled but I am not at level 0 lol). I am able to run the cycling routes, but I can’t run the run dedicated routes.
I have also noticed that the new home screen is quite a bit slower than the old home screen(Pretty sure that is already being worked on right now though). Overall I like the clean look of the new home screen, and other than these few things, it works great!
Setting screen looks fairly average - too much white space. Need the touch of a UX person to bring some consistency back from other menus.
CPU and GPU get loaded in Home screen more than used to and drop off in a map. Pic below shows first part sitting on Volcano circuit start (bridge), the last part of each graph is back on home screen. Fits with Dave’s observations and my own of taken longer to load. Loading Spotify, Discord, Sharkwire after loading Zwift takes longer too and now I see why
also seeing drop in FPS around the place (i5-9400 GTX1650Super)
I entered ToW. Showed up under My Events sections. Clicked it and showed event details off to right of screen. Clicked Join or Start at bottom of that Event detail screen and it dumped me into Watopia Hilly Route (not event). Had option to Join from there but thought I would try it again (assumed fat fingers). Same result, didnt take me into event. Missed start by 30seconds.
No XP throughout entire event (Stage A) - lvl 50 so no bother
Noted also that the Game Map loads on Companion App for the default world while sitting in Home screen. For eg, I world hacked London as main world and on Zwift App start, map of London loaded and showed riders etc. Removed world hack and did same for Watopia. That would suggest that, as Dave referenced with slower load time, we are loading a default world during startup even if we dont intend riding there.
I’ll check log file to see if worth sending through for any of this.
Some very early feedback, aside from the other concerns already raised:
It doesn’t remember your most recent sort order etc on routes. Would be much better if it did.
Surely alphabetical order is better as a default, than duration. With no knowledge of anything else, I expect most people would expect any list to be sorted by name. It’s the first column.
The way the map zooms out when you select a route is slick, but seems to be based on the map size for Watopia. For the other worlds that are a different size, it zooms out too far and shows blank bits.
I can see from the log file that thumbnail images are downloaded on demand. Will this cause an issue for those on slower internet connections and/or storage drives? Could this be related to the performance issues, if the home screen is constantly updating itself even when you’re riding? Edit: having looked again it seems to be ‘downloading’ from local files. Seems weird, but whatever.
The scaling option defaults to Medium, but this is too big on a 1080p display. It’s spot on for a 1440p display, so I assume it’s too small for a 4K display. I use 1440p on my main rig so didn’t have to change anything, but I suspect 1080p is by far the most commonly used display.
On the subject of the settings menu, now would be an ideal opportunity to get rid of the misleading names alongside the resolution options. Ultra profile and Ultra resolution are different things.
Likewise the 576p and 720p options could probably be culled now, given that 1080p is fine on even the lowest iGPU supported as of the March update. Just have 1080p, 1440p and 4K, no messing.
Exiting the game is still awkward and feels unfinished. I still get the blue loading screen when it’s closing (from full screen mode), as I raised yonks ago. Edit: sometimes the blue loading screen doesn’t appear when it is actually loading, after picking a route. The screen just locks up, then you’re plonked into the world.
There’s now a glaring difference between the look and feel of the home screen and everything else. It’s pretty jarring and may confuse users. I assume there’s a plan to change the rest of the game to suit, but what’s the timeline for this?
With reference to the above, tooltips would be nice - perhaps on a couple of seconds delay.
Bug report: can’t leave an event once registered. Clicking to leave appears to work, but when you go back into the game it’s still showing the prompt at the bottom left to join event. Go back to the home screen and I’m still registered.
Edit: even persists if you exit the game and come back. So clearly clicking to leave does nothing, even though it appears to accept your input. This is basic functionality.
Sorry, when I say ‘once joined’ I mean ‘once registered’. If you decide NOT to do an event, you can click to deregister from it. On the new home screen, this choice appears to work but does not.
What I mean is clicking the tick (on an event you’re registered for) shows it going back to +, as you’d see in the Companion app. But it doesn’t do anything, you can’t deregister.
On the old home screen, this function was seen as a ‘LEAVE?’ prompt at the top right when you hovered over an event you’d registered for.
There doesn’t appear to be any rhyme or reason to the rollout. I’m still on the old one (on PC), but many newcomers and more experienced zwifters have the new one. From recent feedback, it looks like there are plenty of creases that still need to be ironed out. For the moment I’m going with the ‘better the devil you know’ attitude.
TBH, its not a revolution, but probably helpful to new users.
I’m was’t enjoying the bug where it allows you to join your next event from the home screen, but sends you to a free-ride. But after 3 events, I’m used to it already and I’ve moved on. Bound to be a few more “creases” (good term) as more users get access.
I noticed this when I did my second proper Zwifting on PC (old UI) on 10 March and so assumed that that was just what happened with PC, in contrast to iOS and iPadOS. I’ve just tested it running Zwift on my iPad and it seems that this behaviour is linked to the Zwift update of 9 March (1.23.0) rather than the new UI. It’s odd, all the same. I wonder if it’s intentional.
The numbers shown on the events page, I’d expect them to be signups but they appear to refer to people in the pen(s). Bit weird, and obviously shows 0 for anything more than 30mins away. Intended?
ToW stage starting in 25mins as I type this says 66 people, even though 2,300+ are signed up.
Right after Microsoft implements a consistent UI for Windows? (I don’t use Windows often enough to ever remember which things are in Settings and which in Control Panel or one of the other pre-Windows 8 relics, for instance.)
I couldn’t find my actual XP count anywhere in the new UI, maybe add it as a tooltip for the dial thingy?
