Yooyuball Lag: A Solution!

[antiaircraft]

So the latest Yooyuball update rolled out by TNT added some new goalie controls (which some people actually find quite helpful), but also included some extremely bad programming (probably in the form of a poorly written polling loop, in conjunction with how bad Flash already is) which absolutely destroyed the game's performance for many people. In fact, for some people (myself included) the resulting lag was so bad that the game was rendered completely unplayable, taking well over 6 seconds to respond to any form of input.

 

But rest easy! There is a workaround that can help you to mitigate this problem! ;) Let me walk you quickly through the idea.

 

The Yooyuball game is loaded via a specific URL, and the width and height of the game are actually specified inside that URL, meaning that by modifying the URL you can load Yooyuball in its own page, resized. A smaller object means less for your computer to render, which means that the game will run more smoothly.

 

So what is this URL? Well, it looks something like this:

http://www.neopets.com/games/play_flash.phtml?va=&game_id=1288&nc_referer=neopets&age=1&hiscore=&sp=0&questionSet=&r=3986869&comp_team=9&user_team=10&width=909&height=840&quality=high

Now, the actual URL may be different for your team, so it's best that you visit the Colosseum, scroll down and fire up Yooyuball in large mode, and copy the URL from the pop-window (close that afterwards). Then open a new tab and paste the URL - but before you hit enter, there are a couple of changes you need to make:

• Change width=909 to a smaller value (e.g. width=650).
  
• Change height=840 to a smaller value (e.g. height=600).
  
• Change quality=high to quality=low.
  

With these changes made, your URL should look something like this:

http://www.neopets.com/games/play_flash.phtml?va=&game_id=1288&nc_referer=neopets&age=1&hiscore=&sp=0&questionSet=&r=3986869&comp_team=9&user_team=10&width=650&height=600&quality=low

Now, when you load Yooyuball, it will load in a smaller display at low quality, configured for maximum performance! :D

 

If Yooyuball is still too laggy for your taste, you can substitute smaller width and height values to reduce the game's size even more (and improve performance further). These values may be useful baselines for you to try:

• width=540&height=500
  
• width=433&height=400
  
• width=325&height=300
  

And that's it. Hopefully this helps you get back in the game and help out your team. ;) If not, well, I hope I didn't waste too much of your time. xD

 

If you were looking for a solution, you don't have to read beyond this point. The following part of this post documents my personal quest to find tolerable Yooyuball performance.

 

So, while the above workaround works for many people, I personally have been especially hard-hit by this issue (thanks to running 64-bit Linux on an especially low-end netbook, a rare setup I'll admit, and one that Adobe supports even more horribly than it does the rest of the world). So even at the smallest size recommended above, with the game looking especially small and cutesy, I was still getting more than 3 seconds of lag on all input - an improvement, but even I can't play at all with that degree of lag. Anyway, by this point the game looked something like this:

 

Well, I'm not going to get very far if I'm scored upon by the time I actually manage to do anything. But no fear! I had full control over the game's size at this point, so I decided it was time to hit this problem full force! I would drop the game's size to 10px by 10px - the lag wouldn't know what had hit it! :devil:

 

So, the game loaded up smoothly, with much less CPU usage than before - a great sign! But upon actually trying to play: TRAVESTY! The game was too small! I couldn't click the start button!

 

Well, I wasn't about to be defeated by a simple problem like that. I swiftly bumped the game's size up to 100px by 100px, reloaded the page, and voila!

 

Success! The lag had been reduced to a constant rate of approximately 1.5 seconds, right on the barely playable margin! AND the start button was large enough to be clickable! But wait a moment... was that a Yooyu or a player? Where was the Yooyu anyway? How much time did I have left? What was the score? Which goal was which?

 

"Bah!" I declared. Irrelevant details! I finally had a playable game of Yooyuball! Victory had been achieved! Oh, wait... turns out you have to know where the Yooyu is to actually play. Never mind. <_<

 

I would like to take this opportunity to thank TNT for their incredible programming and QA skills. I am truly impressed. Without your expertise, the new programmers of the world would be sorely lacking in examples of the need for basic testing.

[Tedhaun]

I never minded the lag in the High Quality Version to be honest, but I like the speed for this version better.

Thanks for the advice AA/Lord of Fail!

[Raj321]

I just use google chrome and add "?quality=low" to the end of the YYB link.

 

So it looks like this:

http://www.neopets.com/altador/colosseum/ctp.phtml?quality=low

 

It runs nicely, unless you use IE and have the newfound scrolling issue. :3

[d_artemiss]

Ugh, I had no trouble at all before the goalie upgrade but last nite the lag was so horrible and so annoying to try to deal with that I gave up. I don't think it's fair to count the YYB scores from yesterday as an accurate match because nothing against Roo Island, but I was surprised at yesterdays results. I only managed to get in a few YYB and SS games before the switch. So happy to hear there is a solution, I hate when there is no option to switch to a smaller screen size with the new games.

[antiaircraft]

I just use google chrome and add "?quality=low" to the end of the YYB link.

 

So it looks like this:

http://www.neopets.com/altador/colosseum/ctp.phtml?quality=low

 

It runs nicely, unless you use IE and have the newfound scrolling issue. :3

That still only works if you have a reasonably powerful computer. ;) Trust me, I've been playing on low quality since the beginning of the tournament, just to keep things barely playable.

[Raj321]

That still only works if you have a reasonably powerful computer. ;) Trust me, I've been playing on low quality since the beginning of the tournament, just to keep things barely playable.

 

Actually I have the dinosaur called Windows XP and it runs pretty good on there :3

I don't use HQ, I tried once and Chrome crashed, lol.

[antiaircraft]

Actually I have the dinosaur called Windows XP and it runs pretty good on there :3

It's not that software that matters in this case (except for the simple fact that Flash is a horrendous monstrosity everywhere), but your hardware. My computer's CPU barely beats that of many modern smartphones.

[Raj321]

It's not that software that matters in this case (except for the simple fact that Flash is a horrendous monstrosity everywhere), but your hardware. My computer's CPU barely beats that of many modern smartphones.

 

In that case, it is highly understandable. :3

And I lol'ed at the 10x10 pixel thing xD

And also I have 2GB RAM on that XP computer, and 512MB is the bare minimum requirement, 1GB is only for MS Word and stuff like that, 2GB isn't *optimal* for gaming, but it'll do, and 4GB+ is for hardcore gamers. ;)

[antiaircraft]

In that case, it is highly understandable. :3

And I lol'ed at the 10x10 pixel thing xD

And also I have 2GB RAM on that XP computer, and 512MB is the bare minimum requirement, 1GB is only for MS Word and stuff like that, 2GB isn't *optimal* for gaming, but it'll do, and 4GB+ is for hardcore gamers. ;)

xD I'd ask to borrow your computer, but I'm sure lending equipment to opposing teams is frowned upon. :P

[Raj321]

xD I'd ask to borrow your computer, but I'm sure lending equipment to opposing teams is frowned upon. :P

LOL I like MQ, actually, if DC doesn't win I wanted MQ or VP for second :P

 

The only teensy problem with MQ is how many boards Franc makes to recruit people :P Other than that MQ is a cool and pretty wet team b)