Netcode analysis of Apex Legends shows major issues with tickrate and lag compensation

YouTuber Battle(non)sense has completed a thorough testing of the netcode in Apex Legends, the new battle royale game which has taken the community by storm since its surprise release – and he has some major concerns.

Battle(non)sense has produced numerous trusted netcode analysis videos in the past, with a focus on multiplayer games like Call of Duty, Battlefield, CS:GO and of course battle royale games like PUBG, Fortnite and Blackout.

Apex Legends has already hit 25 million unique players, only seven days after launch, and the game itself has been roundly praised, but server stability and connection issues have been far from perfect.

In his February 16 video, Battle(non)sense goes into great detail as to why exactly he deems the netcode of Apex Legends to be so poor.

• More: Apex Legends: Respawn shares new details on future updates and teases Season 1 reveal livestream

In comparison to other games, the delay between damage, gunfire and movement for two players on the same server and ping, was much bigger in Apex Legends.

For example, The maximum delay in Blackout for gunfire was 124 milliseconds, but in Apex the maximum delay was double that, at 250 milliseconds.

Some worryingly high delay figures in Apex Legends.

Another important test, was showing that lag compensation in Apex Legends also has a profound impact on gameplay.

By showing a player with over 300 ping shoot a moving enemy who has a ping of only 24, the issue with lag compensation in Apex Legends is easy to see even to the untrained eye.

The player with low ping is well behind the wall, but the high ping player’s shot still registers.

There is good news though, as Respawn Entertainment have made clear that they are working tirelessly to improve the stability and performance of Apex Legends.

They recently put up a job listing for a Senior Network Engineer to work on Apex Legends, stating they are looking for someone to “work on a very complex netcode system – client prediction, client/server architecture, where the server simulation is authoritative and clients aren’t trusted.”

Hopefully Respawn will improve upon the current netcode, and have Apex Legends fulfil its potential as one of the very best battle royale games available.

You can watch Battle(non)sense’s full video on Apex Legends’ netcode below.