What is a tick rate
Tickrate is a special measuring unit that reflects the process of data exchange in the server-player system.
All actions of the players (clients of the server), such as shooting from a weapon, throwing grenades or a simple movement, are necessarily calculated by the server, after which the response data is transmitted back.
It is quite possible that they noticed that when shooting at the enemy, it would seem, at the model, but it does not work out in any way. This situation is due to the fact that, due to the set low tick rate, the server cannot count the hit. For this reason, the tick rate is of great importance for matches at a competitive level, because it is due to it that it turns out to bring everything that happens on the screen closer to the real (realistic) state of affairs.
Tickrate in MM and on Faceit
- Matchmaking
On standard servers in competitive mode, the tick rate is set at 64. For many players, this creates serious difficulties, because their well-aimed shots are simply not counted by the server, and this inevitably becomes the cause of lost rounds and, as a result, negative impressions from games.
Probably for this reason, there have been rumors in the gaming community for a long time that the developers will introduce 128 tickrate into the competitive mode. This eventually led to an official response on twitter from an authorized Valve employee in 2018 to all players.
This is not a stupid question. We see him often. The problem is that most players will be at a disadvantage with 128 tickrate because their client won’t be able to keep up with the server. We would have to divide the players into two groups, which would greatly increase the time it takes to find a game.
Naturally, the community has been expressing its indignation about this since the earliest versions of CS:GO, when MM was just added. But for now, it remains to be recognized that the tick rate of 128 on the CS GO servers remains only a dream that cannot yet become a reality. Unfortunately, constant “misses” lead to the fact that players stop entering matchmaking and go to completely different projects. But many of them are simply moving to other gaming platforms, where matches are played on more professional server settings.
- Faceit
On all game servers of the Faceit platform, the tick rate is set to 128 units by default. That’s why players stay here to play for the result and always show all their abilities, increasing the level of their skills. No wonder professionals choose Faceit as a platform for training in conditions as close as possible to competitive matches.
How to set tick rate 128
All CSGO players have the opportunity to independently increase the tick rate for their account. To do this, add the following command to the launch options: “-tickrate 128”.
It is only important to realize that when you join a server with a tick rate of 64, you will be playing with it. The secret is that in this case, the server settings will be decisive, and not the player’s accounts.
To always know what tick rate is set on the current server, you can write the “net_graph 1” command in the console. In the information panel that appears, there will be, among other things, this indicator.
What does the tick rate affect
- Shooting
By pressing the shoot button, the player sends the corresponding request to the server, after which it is processed and returned back as a picture on the player’s screen. If the tick rate on the server is low, then a certain percentage of hits is not counted due to insufficient reading speed of incoming data.
- Grenades
When a player tries to throw a grenade, the server calculates the trajectory of its flight and the subsequent result of its impact on the map. At the same time, if you make a throw from a place, then there is no dependence on the tick rate. But when throwing in motion, the difference is enormous. It gets to the point where the 64 and 128 have completely different throwing patterns. That is, you need to aim at different points, take different positions, and so on.
- Movement
Like any other actions, commands to move the model around the map are also processed by the server. The difference between the tick rates becomes especially noticeable when jumping from some kind of hill. There is a situation when the server simply does not keep up with the speed of the player’s flight, and this negatively affects the calculations of the jump. In practice, this means that on servers with low tick rates, it is very difficult to hit opponents flying down.
Conclusion
Summing up, we can say that the tick rate has a significant impact on the gameplay, and on almost all of its aspects. Therefore, if the player’s task is to improve his skill level, then you should pay attention to the Faceit platform, where all servers operate at 128 ticks. As for MM, for the time being, we will have to be content with 64 ticks, and it is not at all clear when the situation will change.
