The Finals by Embark Studios is an incredible new take on a multiplayer shooter, but input lag is ruining the experience for Beta testers.
It’s fair to say that The Finals has its fair share of issues right now. But that’s to be expected, considering that the game itself is in a Closed Beta.
This up-and-coming title looks to be a game capable of breathing new life into the FPS genre, but only if it can fix its biggest problem first.
If you’re aiming to unlock all of The Finals’ permanent Closed Beta rewards, there’s a big problem that could be hindering your experience.
The Finals Players Complain About Input Lag
If you’re experiencing input lag while playing The Finals, you’re not alone. It’s one of the biggest complaints over on the game’s subreddit right now.
Several popular posts made since the Closed Beta went live report that the game feels sluggish, thanks to small delays between movement inputs and your character actually moving.
In our own experience, we’ve been forced to get used to the input lag in the matches we’ve played. And while it’s possible to ignore the issue after a while, it’s particularly noticeable when jumping or engaging in fast-paced gunfights.
Many players have also noticed that utilizing Goo Grenades or shooting down hanging crates can also negatively impact performance.
Why Does The Finals Have Input Lag?
The reason for The Finals’ input lag issue is unclear, but at the end of the day it’s simply because the game is currently unfinished.
Many fans are theorizing that the reason for input lag in The Finals is the fact that movement is a server-side function.
Closed Betas aren’t meant to be representative of the final product (unless you’re playing a Call of Duty title) and there’s still a lot of work to be done. But perhaps The Finals straying from the norm is what’s causing the issue here.
Embark’s new server-side destruction & movement system “ensures every player experiences the same impact to the world at the same time,” a recent press release boasts.
Rather than your character moving and sending its location to the server, our understanding is that the upcoming game instead sends only inputs from your PC to the server, moving your character for all players simultaneously.
In theory, this is a good thing. The feature should ultimately keep a player’s location consistent on everyone’s screen.
This should help to avoid desync issues that can see a player being shot when their screen reports they’re behind cover, an issue that many FPS games are known to suffer from.
But it’s likely that the feature is what’s leading to a small delay every time a movement or jump input is sent.
How to Fix Input Lag in The Finals
The only known fixes for removing input lag in The Finals are:
- Turning Off V-Sync
- Lowering your Graphical Settings
Both can be done by clicking the Gear in the top right of the Main Menu, and selecting Settings. You’ll find V-Sync under Display & Resolution.
Here are the best settings you should be using in The Finals to reduce input lag and boost performance. However, even those aren’t enough to completely alleviate the issue.
Only a patch from Embark Studios will be able to fix the problem entirely. We’ll have to hope that the seemingly extremely responsive development team already have an update in the works.
Here’s when The Finals Closed Beta is coming to an end – hopefully after some much-needed changes.
