Constant Stuttering Issues Since Season 9

[Chubnubs]

Ever since season 9, this game has become borderline unplayable. With the recent season 10 update, it’s gotten to the point where I just queue into lobbies expecting to die at the hand of stuttering/rubberbanding/freezing. I play on Xbox One, and NEVER have stuttering issues on any other game I play- only Apex Legends. I’ve searched near and far for a solution on quite literally every forum, and can find absolutely nothing that helps. I’m BEGGING an EA Representative to help me with my issue. Apex legends is my favorite game, but I can’t play it anymore due to the stuttering every 15 seconds. Before I receive some generic response, I have tried EVERYTHING on the troubleshooting list, numerous forums, etc. At least acknowledge this as an ongoing issue so that we know it’s being worked on. So frustrating. 

[EA_Darko]

In a situation such as this @Chubnubs, the first thing to do is ensure that your console and game are fully up to date.

If that makes no difference then clearing the cache and powercycling your console is next.

You can do this easily enough by following the steps below:

1. Press and hold the power button on the front of the Xbox until it turns off completely.
2. Unplug the power cable from your console and then press and hold the power button on the Xbox a number of times to clear the cache.
3. Plug your power cable back in and turn your Xbox back on.

Let me know how you get on.

Darko

[Chubnubs]

Hi @EA_Darko, thanks for the response. Both my console and game are fully up to date. I manually cleared the cache and then power cycled my console. I loaded in to Apex Legends to test it out and unfortunately I’m still stuttering every 15-30 seconds (which increases in frequency once I get closer to gun fights).

Any other solutions that might work?

[EA_Blueberry]

@Chubnubs

Question about hardware here.

Do you have any devices plugged to your console like an external hard drive, controller charging dock, etc.?

Also, do you use any splitters, extension cables, and are you using the HDMI cable that came with your Xbox or a different one? Random, I know, but a player on the NHL forums experienced input lag for years and after finally changing out the older HDMI cable it all went away. Just want to check with you on this to ensure we rule out hardware.

There are others reporting stuttering issues with the game since the last season started. It's being looked into by the team but we're here to troubleshoot and see if things can improve if you're up for it. Sorry to hear about the trouble, as an FPS player myself I know stuff like this can not only be a difference maker for a win but super frustrating to play with.

[Chubnubs]

Hi @EA_Blueberry ! 

My console only has the power supply and given HDMI plugged into it; no external drives or accessories. I actually play on a 55” TV so I had to fix the input lag right when I got my console years ago, as the input lag was quite terrible. My cables are fed into a generic wall-attached power strip. However, I don’t have input lag anymore, and am only experiencing stuttering issues specifically on Apex Legends. I believe that hardware is not the issue. 

I think what I’m experiencing is more of a prediction error of some sort rather than input lag. I suspect that it might have something to do with cross play servers, as I first saw this issue back in Season 7 (although it was very, very rare). Season 9 was when things really hit the fan and the game stuttering was almost unbearable, depending on the day. Right now, the game is actually unplayable for me. Maybe this is due to higher server traffic with the new player base coming in from Twitch and Warzone? Not sure. Obviously you guys would know a lot more about this than I do, but as an electrical engineer I can only contribute an educated guess. One other thought that popped into my head was optimizing servers for best performance, which in this case would be PlayStation servers. I’ve read on other forums that PlayStation users rarely experience this issue (at least compared to Xbox users). Could pushing an underperforming console such as Xbox One into over performing servers such as PlayStation servers cause Xbox users to have a high frequency of prediction errors? 

Just some thoughts. Regardless, I’d be more than happy to troubleshoot with you!

[Chubnubs]

Also, just for more context, here’s an example of what’s going on. @EA_Blueberry @EA_Darko 

https://youtu.be/-Yg6LLfDB4w 

This video is the best things got from my session yesterday, and even then there was quite a bit of stuttering. You can see that when I get into fights it gets worse. Sometimes (not shown in this clip) my game will stutter in increments of over an entire second. Also, sorry for the terrible quality. Not sure why it’s only at 360p. 

[EA_Blueberry]

@Chubnubs 

What type of Xbox One do you have?

There are others discussing what's been helping them out with stutter issues on their Xbox in this thread if you want to continue the discussion there.

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues/Apex-Legends-lag-stutter-issue-on-Xbox-one/m-p/10587051/h...

[Chubnubs]

@EA_Blueberry 

I have the original 1 TB Xbox One. I looked at the forums you mentioned and the only working solution I see is getting an external SSD. Those are pretty pricy and I don’t think that’s the best fix for many of us. I personally can afford one, but I know a lot of other people who also have this problem (all of which play on the original Xbox One as well) and can’t afford such a solution. 

I feel like there’s definitely something on the end of Respawn that can reoptimize the game for older gen consoles. I don’t know how much weight you carry, but is there a way you can vouch for all of us to Respawn to make dedicated servers for older gen consoles so that we can all still play the game we love? This would save a lot of players. I understand trying to migrate away from older gen consoles and focusing on the next generation so that you guys can save money and improve on what’s coming next, but there’s still a lot of people that can’t afford to move on yet, and love playing your game.

[EA_Blueberry]

@Chubnubs We've passed those details along for the team to be aware of. We don't want to advise players to go out and make another purchase to play the game. That looks to be a viable workaround at the moment if one wanted to go that route. Figured I throw that out there to you.

Have you tried clearing the saved game data for the game?

[Chubnubs]

@EA_Blueberry 

I appreciate you passing along the information to the rest of the team; thank you!

I tried clearing the saved game data a few times and I just tried it again but still no luck. I also fully undownloaded and redownloaded the game last week and had no luck with that either.