An example of fire lagging in a popular game called "Welcome to Roblox Building" by ROBLOX (user).
Lag is an occurrence in many places in which in-game movement and actions become slowed, frozen, or out-of-sync due to slow network latency. "Lag" can also refer to a low framerate or an unresponsive process.
There are varying degrees of Lag, ranging from slight jerkiness (mild lag) to total process freezing (extreme lag). Depending on the game, it can be negligible to devastating. Lag can occur from various things such as too many projectiles firing from a weapon or too many blocks (especially unanchored ones) present in a server. Lag can be rather annoying to many players whenever it happens to their devices and can occur in many place servers.
Types of Lag
One of the most common types of lag. Players with slow and unreliable internet can cause high ping. Ping is measured in milliseconds (ms). The higher ping you have, the more lag you will encounter.
One of the most common types of lag occurs just as the player joins a server, with the lag usually disappearing after some time. If this particular player has a large amount of saved data (see here), the lag experienced is more substantial. Multiple players joining simultaneously is another factor affecting this lag.
This type of lag occurs when the player has a slow internet connection speed, this may result in the player getting disconnected.
This is when the player's computer and/or internet is functioning properly, but the server is lagging severely, these actions that occur on the server are delayed and every other player present appears to freeze up, except for the player itself (this is because the client itself isn't lagging). This is less common, and the only way to stop it is for the player to quit the game, and join a different server.
This is a rare kind of lag and could occur when the computer and internet are slow/weak, the server is lagging at the same time and other websites and applications are competing for CPU, GPU, disk and internet usage. Lost connections, hardware failures, BSoD and game crashes are most likely to occur during this, due to the combined risks.
This lag occurs when a player has too many tools. This especially is more likely to occur when a player has too many gears in a gear game. It will only happen if the player joins, resets, or gets KO'ed. It is generally due to multiple scripts running at once.
Certain websites and external apps can cause ROBLOX to lag by hogging up CPU or RAM usage, eventually leading to freezes and possible crashes. It can be avoided by closing CPU or RAM-hungry websites and external programs, installing a faster CPU, or getting a computer specifically designed for gaming.
This is a type of lag common in games with custom movement systems, where a movement button has a delay after being pressed.
Block lag occurs when there is a high amount of parts in a single place, causing low FPS, sometimes reaching into the tenths or hundredths if a computer can't handle the parts well enough. This lag is the most common form of FPS-lowering lag on building tool games, with users making forms of lag bombs (Special devices meant to cause enough lag to cause computers to crash when their components are unanchored) most of the time when they intend to lag a game.
Thousands of decals will cause lag when the player looks at all of them at the same time, similar to bricks.
This lag generally occurs when an external player starts lagging, causing them to freeze in place and teleport to a different place. This lag usually doesn't affect you or other players in the server.
This type of lag happens when too many people are typing/spamming at once (such as spamming hashtags [#]), or if a bot is spamming repeatedly.
This lag is rarer. This lag occurs randomly. It can vary in duration. The lag will completely freeze you, and potentially other players in the server.
Trivia
This section is a trivia section. Please relocate any relevant information into other sections of the article.
- Lag causes higher difficulty in obbies, vehicle-related games, fighting games, and survival games.
- Lag often causes players to be unable to escape from players trying to kill her/him because as some users would usually walk over to the player to kill him/her, they would be unable to move as she/he come closer to her/him.
- Contrary to popular belief, meshes do not create lag. However, decals do create lag, as proven in this place. However, meshes use more disc space than normal bricks.
- Back in 2007 or 2008, when the server was lagging, actions that occur on the server were delayed and every other player present appears to freeze including the player character himself/herself.
- Scripts can cause lag if they have numerous loops in them and/or are infected scripts, they can also cause lag if they are doing intensive work all at once.