Overwatch' for PC gets high bandwidth update: What this means for players with weak Internet connections (Photo : Getty Images/ Justin Sullivan)
Blizzard's "Overwatch" team has always been upfront with how its netcode works, but needed a ton of time to test its high-bandwidth version before it moved beyond just custom games. And the company has just raised the tick rate from 21 times per second on "Overwatch" to 60 times per second.
It is really devastating for serious gamers in online team play to have than problematic bandwidth. Such Lagging responses could make all the difference in both winning and in overall gameplay experience. For this reason, developers of the popular game "Overwatch" went ahead and released an update for its PC platform version that features high bandwidth that would allow players to enjoy playing without disruptions.
In a YouTube video, Tim Ford, the game's lead designer, explained how the released patch works.
He stated that the overall result of that is that gamers will be shot around corners less, they will be able to predict escape strategies better and the server will hear about it sooner.
In addition, the update is able to classify users better, placing gamers with substandard internet connections within the same category. This ensures that all gamers enjoy a consistently stable, smooth and enjoyable play.
When "Overwatch" was released in May this year, the game enjoyed amazing popularity. Unfortunately, by June, players started complaining about bandwidth issues. Particularly, there was the argument of low server tick rates, which players blame for issues in latency, this lead to glitches such as dying in corners or being shot through walls, Game Spot reported.
The high-bandwidth upgrade in the most recent patch was first seen in the game's custom game mode. Gamers were able to play in matches that ran at 60Hz. Today, this feature is has already been implemented across the game together with all of its modes, raising the tick rate to 60 times per second from 21 times per second. The feature, however, will work only for gamers with fast connections, PC Gamer reported.
This should not worry players with slower internet as "Overwatch" also has a mechanism that would allow players with slow bandwidth in their networks to revert to old update rate. The process is auto and no need of selecting options or game modes.
The high-bandwidth patch is only available for PC platform at the moment. This is not good news for gamers using other platforms, as the developers indicate they are still not sure how the patch can be ported to PS4 and Xbox One.
Watch the developer update and high bandwidth update of "Overwatch" here:
