Quote from: Sensei on June 21, 2025, 06:53 AMHey Impo, was just asking this in Discord the other day..seems like something you could know how to solve. Last couple of years I've used Acer xf240h (24", 144hz, TN panel, full hd). Everything was perfect for W:A. Now put it as 2nd monitor and upgraded to: Dell g2724d (27", 165hz, IPS, 2k res). Continued playing on full hd for W:A because 2k feels too weird. Picture is a bit grainy but can live with that. What I can't live with are constant freezes while roping. Game is not smooth at all, even though fps doesn't drop under 800 or something.

Could it be new monitor? New gpu? Went from 1070ti to rx7800xt.

Is there any radeon setting I need to turn on? Thanks.

Did the problem start after the monitor upgrade, or GPU upgrade? Since you have 2 monitors, you can turn off one and try to run the game on each monitor separately.
So:
1. if the problem disappears on both, the problem is in the dual monitor setup.
2. if the problem is only on one, the problem is in that particular monitor.
3. if the problem persists with both monitors, then the problem is not with the monitors.

most likely there's something with the settings.

try to open amd software, open W:A profile, and turn off Radeon Anti-Lag and Radeon Chill.
Also worth trying: force v-sync off, it may cause stutters simillar to what you describe.
Also try right clicking on WA.exe, Properties → Compatibility, and Disable fullscreen optimizations. It may give stuttering in some games too

Quote from: TheKomodo on June 20, 2025, 06:17 PM

Quote from: Impossible on June 20, 2025, 04:27 PMThink about doing a pump, there's just no one who can do them consistently, it has this random element to it.

Nah, it's pretty easy:

which monitor do you use?

Quote from: Korydex on June 20, 2025, 07:42 PMWish I had the money for a good OLED monitor

well, if you'll feel like buying one, you can get AOC Q27G41ZDE for 33k rub on ozon. and MSI MSI MAG 271QP X28 for 35k (you'll also have to pay ~2k for таможня as they are delivered from china. those are two models that came out few days ago and surprisingly, they are also cheaper then the less powerful counterparts. they all use 3rd gen qd-oled panels from samsung, that you can find on 100k+ rub models

There is a sort of revolution happening in the world of monitors right now; OLEDs have become much cheaper in recent months. like $300 level cheap.

Generally, there are few points why monitors matter in worms

Here's interesting thing about roping in worms:
although the game supports any frame rate since 3.8 update, the in-game physics is still capped at 50fps (update every 20ms). Yet most people play with 60hz monitors.

This means that every 6th frame doesn't have its own physics update. So, it still shows motion during this frame (as it interpolates the movement), but the physics doesn't update, so you can't do input during this frame, and everything moves 2x slower between this "artificial" frame, which visually feels like small stutter, and the input feels like it's a bit inconsistent. Think about doing a pump, there's just no one who can do them consistently, it has this random element to it. Yet there's many games with 1 frame timings that people make consistently (fightings, speedruns, souls-like games, etc), it's definitely possible. i just think W:A has inconsistency that is related to stretching 50 real frames into 60 visual ones.

So, how about playing with 50hz?
I actually didnt realize this back when I was active, so I just tested it now (for nvidia users, you can force 50hz in the nvidia panel even if your monitor doesn't support it 'officially'). The game feels less smooth at 50hz, but much more consistent, I ended up doing pumps like 90% of the time. At 60hz only ~50-60% was succesful (this is very anecdotal as I only tested it for 5 minutes, but still very interesting)

So what about high refresh rates, like 240, or say 500hz?
I'm actually not sure if this would help with consistency. At 500hz, you will see 9 frames, before you hit the "real" 10th frame, where the actual physics of the game will be calculated and displayed. There's going to be 20ms delay between input updates.
It may not sound like much, after all, human reaction is 250ms on average. However, a system with human feedback loop (like W:A) is a different story. You can see on Microsoft Research channel how even 1ms of latency is crucial for a realtime feedback
W:A adds inconsistent latency, 20ms worst-case (if you clicked right after the end of the physics tick), or close to 1ms if you clicked right before it. You will only really notice this inconsistency at high frame rates, although the overall movement will be very smooth. Only at 50Hz the game will produce frames along with physics updates, which probably makes the game more predictable.

Waiting for players who tried high/slow framerates to reply here and share observations


By the way, why the game updates at 50hz?
Back when the game released, CRT monitors tried to move away from 60Hz. CRT monitors had noticeable flickering, so manufacturers always tried to overclock them higher, to 70-75-82-85-100Hz, just so it feels better to the eyes (I remember how by looking at them with peripheral vision, the flicker was visible even with 75hz+). And so there was no this 60Hz standard thing back then. So maybe that's why? Also, the game math works much more elegantly if you refresh the frame 50 times. Perhaps it was another reason.

The cool thing about CRTs is that they had very low latency (they are actually still used in medicine and motion-testing benchmarks as reference monitors for their low latency). They work kind of like hardware oscilloscopes for video signals, without any buffering. It took 20 years before we got monitors with similar low latency (OLED). The roping on CRTs must have been amazing (I don't remember..)

All this time we played with a 10-20ms higher delay comparing to what the devs used during game development. OLEDs are much closer to "the way it was meant to be played".

Maybe there is someone among us who already plays W:A on OLED? would be interesting to hear back
Another thing about OLEDs is the absolute black, which is kinda cool for backgrounds in worms.

ok i turned this into a whole article .. just wanted to know your opinion, and what monitors do you guys use?

hi there, kubasienki. I'm AI developer and a fan of reinforcement learning projects too.

what part of the game are you thinking about?

the game is very diverse. there's classic schemes like Normal/Intermediate/Elite, they're purely skill-based. There's a few probabilistic ones with different ratio of rng elements.

T17 scheme depends on how good the weapons are in the crates. there's few succesful examples of AI in RNG games, like DeepStack beating people in Poker, but generally, RL seem to perform worse in RNG games. perhaps it makes sense to avoid such schemes, at least for the first attemps?

and the problem of schemes like normal is that they are too complicated. too many weapons are available to the agent. learning to use them all on a high level is definitely not possible. at least i don't think so. mastering a single weapon, like a rope, would require a very advanced agent by itself. I don't know your experience, perhaps you're training very big and complicated AIs and can pull that off, but my default assumption is that it'll make sense to avoid them for the first attemps

you mentioned aim assist, from what I can assume that perhaps you wanted to use AI on a scheme like BNG?
BnG is probably ideal scheme for training an agent, in terms of how simple it is. the only problem is that it would be kinda boring. the agent would just throw perfect grenades that land exactly on target, perhaps even plop opponents right away, if the agent is sophisticated enough. it's also a perfect scheme for training, because it's the only scheme, where in-game bots are actually decent. once an agent can beat few 5-UP level bots (like in 1vs3 worms situation) it'll be close to a superhuman level

then there's schemes that depend on one niche skill, like roping. agent that can rope would be amazing to watch. but it's hard to train. for example, in TTRR, there's no way of telling how close you are to the finish, no real way to give clues to the agent. the other schemes that require high level roping, like wxw, usually depend on rules, like touching the walls, or collecting crates before attacking.

perhaps the best scheme is something like hysteria, which is simple enough for training, yet it would be interesting to watch the agent, because there's also room for strategizing. like killing your own worms to get turn advantage, darksiding, perhaps AI would discover interesting strategies? 1 sec turn time would also help with training, and this is the scheme in which the agent would look the most spectacular (people can't do in 1 second what an agent can - like walk, use multiple utilities at once, flight, throw weapons, knock, and so on)

what are your thoughts? maybe you wanted an agent for the game missions and i'm throwing all this stuff at you xD

btw, there are quite a few tool-assist replays in the game, in different schemes. they are useful if you want see how absolutely optimal actions in the game look like and what is actually possible in the game. might be useful to know in case the agent gets stuck in a suboptimal state

Quote from: Kradie on December 24, 2024, 03:08 PMit could be Interesting to have a cup for cheaters. It would be interesting to see how cheaters would push each others cheats to new limits and each other.

sorry but that's the dumbest idea i've probably heard.

1. it would be a shit show. you can use xspeed to slow down the game 60x, and do whatever you want in slow motion. while for other players it would be 1 minute lags for every sec of your turn. you might as well host a xspeed cup then
2. it would attract people to use cheats.
3. why would you even want to push cheats to the new limits? isn't it completely against the spirit of this game and community?

Quote from: Sensei on December 24, 2024, 05:37 PMHe's hiding it so well that you can't even see it

yeah, that's pretty much it

Quote from: Sensei on December 23, 2024, 06:18 PMwhat Shtaket (allegedly) is using, doesn't seem like a regular double rope cheat but something far more advanced.

can you elaborate? i took a look at the replay, and it looks like a regular double rope cheat. nothing "far more advanced" at all

That's interesting. I use AOC too. a good 4k60hz monitor to work with graphics

Quote from: TheKomodo on December 03, 2024, 01:09 AMalways told that the autohotkey script was not only banned, but detectable, and quite easily, I'll have to ask Deadcode on this.

ahk macros are easily detectable, yes, unless you use a random function to determine timings. otherwise the ahk script will have the same timing every single time, like: pressing space -> sleep for 1 frame -> another input of "T" in the next frame.

dynamic keystroke on analog keyboard, on the other hand, will have different timings every time. it'll look natural and you can't detect it.

the ahk script kaleu used was quite elaborate though, i don't remember the exact implementation, but i think it was some sort of SOCD cleaner, but for the spacebar key? if it cleaned the input of the previous key right in the frame prior to the next input, it'd be easily detectable too

Quote from: TheKomodo on December 03, 2024, 12:22 PMno keyboard that exists is going to get anyone to Mastas level of consistency, that takes years of practise and Masta practised more than pretty most people combined in the past 5-10 years. At least with Challenges.

that's kinda cool to hear. so masta is the new boss of rope racing?

Quote from: TheKomodo on December 03, 2024, 11:23 AMtill stand by my words, it's not going to help you beat top players

i'd argue that it's the other way around. macro gives you faster learning curve. with it, you'll get to the "not bad" level of roping faster. but at the highest level macro will do you the opposite, fixed timing will start to limit you, since players of top caliber can do the same thing as you can [by cheating], yet they're doing the same thing manually, and thus with much more precise control. i think you know what i mean

Quote from: Kaleu on December 03, 2024, 12:54 AMYour message demonstrates a skewed and simplistic view of the situation, and I disagree with it on several levels. First, labeling the script a "cheat" without understanding its context or purpose is disingenuous, to say the least. Many tools, including scripts like the one mentioned, were created to improve gameplay or meet specific needs within the limitations of the game, and this does not automatically equate to unethical behavior.

Secondly, it's unfair and condescending to suggest that someone should "admit" to something just because you've decided to project your own experiences and regrets onto the situation. The fact that you have used macros or practiced behavior that you consider bad does not give you the moral authority to judge others. Each person has their own path and reasons, and not everything is comparable.

Thirdly, the insinuation that the script in question represented "a very serious advantage" disregards important nuances, such as the player's general skill level or the consensus of the community at the time.

i'm not going to argue with this, kaleu, but answer me honestly: which AI model did you use to generate this?

Quote from: Kaleu on December 02, 2024, 01:25 AMf@#! you.

i'm sorry kaleu i didn't want to hurt your feelings.

I remembered this in the context of the new keyboards. modern keyboards basically have its own implementation of ahk script you used.
someone above asked if this had been discussed before, and so the drama about the script naturally came up.

now that you've put the question that way though. It's been so many years, why don't you just admit that such script was a cheat? Ofcourse, you were a skilled players and could compete without the cheat just as well, no one doubts that. but faster tap speed is still a very serious advantage over the other players. isn't it naive to argue with that?

I've personally practiced a lot of bad things in this game, I've probably offended a lot of people, used aliases, used macros in first years. I regret doing all of this. I was a dumb child. but I am ready to admit this. why not do the same?

Quote from: TheKomodo on November 30, 2024, 05:25 PMSome random person just PM'd me on Snooper and asked me to share this:

https://pastebin.com/ELm5YbKf

haha. so W:A enjoyers from 4chan are so anon, they're using komo as a means of communication with us?

a more important question is: where is this community itself?\
in some kind of discord server? We need to get in touch with these aliens...

Quote from: TheKomodo on November 27, 2024, 01:07 PM

Nice! Looks like wooting is indeed really good for roping. Do you know any other wormers who have switched to wooting or simillar analog keyboards?

Quote from: TheKomodo on November 26, 2024, 11:16 PMI've got a Wooting 60HE and a Wooting 80HE

You've got both 60he and 80he?? Wow, that's amazing. Why did you need both?

You should show us videos with tapping in worms!

Now that I think about it, analog keyboards must be also cool for bng, as you can release the shot key immediately. Is 'rapid trigger' the reason, why people accuse you of fingerolling?

Quote from: rUNaW4y on November 26, 2024, 08:40 AMImpo, didn't we discuss this topic quite a bit during 10 past years? What is new?

oh yea, we discussed a lot of things related to keyboards and roping.

I remember when ttrr scene was still hot, it was very popular to put paper under the spacebar to shorten the travel distance of keys.

I remember the drama with kaleu when it turned out that he had an elaborate cheat that allowed him to shoot rope without waiting for the releassse of the previous click.

however, analog keyboards are a new thing. wooting kickstarter was only 8 years ago, and general public got access to such keyboards only few years ago. it's a very fresh thing, it didn't exist 10 years ago.

yet it allows to do the same stuff we discussed, at the keyboard software level. like setting up an actuation point for each key, instead of physical paper. or setting up rapid trigger instead of kaleu's wk module cheats.

i also wonder if such thing, implemented on a keyboard level, can still be considered as cheating? and if everyone starts to use them?