himespau 

Usually, I get them when I'm running late to sign in for a race.

unterhausen

Good news for those of us that have had problems with their updates. Their latest update lets you defer updates until after your ride. Of course, the last few updates have gone so smoothly that I didn't have any problems and wondered if they had actually applied the updates.

gthomson

Exactly! and only at these times. Brings out a whole new level of frustration. Strangely enough, I just jumped on Zwift for the first time in a couple of weeks and saw no update, although I did already do the big update last month with steering, coffee break, whateva whateva.

I don't know how to use half those features and just keep riding.

unterhausen

This new update where you can choose to do it after you ride solves 99% of my issues with their updatating. It always felt like being held hostage. But I don't think I've gotten the new update yet either.

The guys on the zwift PC support group on facebook tell me I shouldn't have so many problems with updates. They aren't really advocates for super duper hardware either. The leader just got published on zwift insider.

unterhausen

Video screenshots seem to cause nothing but trouble and they are enabled by default. It can be disabled under personal settings. There are a few other settings that probably should be disabled.
Funny thing is, as soon as I quit my last ride, zwift locked up. It was using all the memory on my computer. But it did manage to upload the video screenshot. I just watched it on strava.

himespau 

Not only do they screw things up, the video screenshots are incredibly low quality. Pretty worthless add in my opinion.

unterhausen

I did a group ride, and most of us know how weird those look if you're in the middle of a pack. It's like you're in a pack of lemmings. That's what they took a video screen shot of. At least it's off now.

PeteHski

How old is your pc out of curiosity?

unterhausen

The one I'm using for zwift is pretty old, I don't recall exactly. 8 years maybe? I bought it to run linux, tbh.
It doesn't take much to run zwift.

PeteHski

I was just wondering why you appear to have so many issues. I ran Zwift on a 10 year old iMac for several years without issues, although it struggled a bit with frame rates on the highest resolution. It runs flawlessly on a 2 year old MacBook Air.

Update patches have never taken more than a few seconds for me and they have never failed. Video screenshots are working fine too. But maybe it’s a problem with the pc version?

himespau 

On the PC version, if you have video screenshots enabled, several people have shown that it at least doubles the CPU usage. Also, the videos are at a very low resolution (less than 480p) and frame rate (some I saw were less than 30 fps). Given that I stream and/or record the entirety races that I care about using OBS with a smaller affect on my CPU usage, it's a "feature" that just seems like useless bloat to me and I turned it off pretty quickly. If mac recording is more optimized (and it went to Macs ~6 months before going to PC, so I'd imagine there is something easier/faster about how its done there), and you watch the output on a smaller screen where 1080 and higher framerate is wasted, maybe it's fine.

PeteHski

I thought the video screenshots were intended just for display in Strava uploads, where the low resolution is appropriate. Well they look fine in my Strava feed anyway. As for CPU usage, I haven’t experienced any issues.

unterhausen

People with much newer and more capable systems than mine are having trouble with the video screenshots. The code that saves them seems to have a memory leak. I'm not too worried about cpu usage as long as the game doesn't glitch, which mine doesn't. I still have a fairly high graphics level. If it was really crummy, the riders wouldn't have shadows. Tbh, the real problem with the updates has always been that I don't want to spend a lot of time on my rides. And then the updates would take 15-20 minutes to install. So the change to letting you update after really solves all my problems. The fact that recent updates have installed painlessly means I haven't tested that yet.

I think the explanation for the update issues I had is that they didn't bother to work too hard on their system for updating on windows. But the zpmpc guys seem to think that there is some other issue with my setup that caused issues with updates. I'll admit I didn't bother to optimize my settings, and I have no idea what to look for. And it happens at most once a week. I'm using a win 10 system with all updates and no other programs installed except TrainerRoad. Since the last couple of updates have been painless, it seems like they did finally test properly on PC. There is nothing unusual about my computer, zwift is refreshing in how little resources it normally uses. Your question made me think about how much I would spend to update my computer if zwift started taking more resources than it has. Given that the system itself cost me $25 to begin with, I might be willing to go to $50. Maybe. I have been thinking about getting more memory for it after I saw the video screenshot using all the available memory. It would have to be cheap though.

There is a real issue with companies doing all their development and most of their testing on one platform. Zwift seems to use macs, and given their startup mentality, shipping things with minimal testing seems to fit right in. Issuing new updates weekly would suggest minimal testing. I feel like they think people should just uninstall/reinstall if they have problems. Some people with an apple TV are reporting problems running zwift after recent updates, btw. I have never had a problem running the game, that would really annoy.

PeteHski

That’s ridiculous. My updates typically take less than a minute. Often just 10-20 seconds. I find it hard to believe that’s a general pc issue, rather than a specific issue with your setup which may or may not affect others.

spelger

updates on my older laptop took a long time too. never timed it but did get frustrated enough waiting around for it to finish so just start a different app instead. the forced update was always a PITA. never understood that.

gthomson

I run Zwift on a farily new Lenovo laptop and upgrades are pretty quick, no problems with screen shots and I rarely have performance issues. I think like all technology, it doesn't get along with older hardware. That's how they make it to get people to update. (bitter old man rant finished).

I did have an older Lenovo previously (maybe 4 years old?) and the updates did sometimes take a while and I would have issues on occasion when running it. Mostly trying to get everything synced up after I did an update was an issue, but then you're looking at multiple variables to go wrong - my trainer, the ANT connection, my laptop or Zwift.

unterhausen

I can't agree about making you update to newer hardware, the game itself runs fine on my old hardware. Admittedly, I haven't checked the frame rate, but the game never glitches and everyone's shadow looks realistic. The rest of the graphics are pretty much lost on me, I don't ride around looking at the dinosaurs. Since I started this thread, they did something about updates that make them work better on my system. They are happening so fast I don't notice them. I suppose if there is a new world introduced, it might take longer.

PeteHski

Zwift don't sell computer hardware, so why would they care about making you upgrade?

gthomson

There are tons of software companies that don't sell hardware and yet always have upgrades. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if have some affiliation with the other.

spelger

A lot is just laziness. I'm in firmware with very limited resources and have to write applications that have to run for months on end. I hear my software counterparts say things suggesting a solution to be a bigger drive or a faster cpu. Better SW can be written if done properly.

drosso66

I just bought a Zwift Hub trainer, onto which I just mounted my bike. After reading this thread, I only hope my self-built PC is going to be good enough; I am so anxious to sign up for Zwift.

unterhausen

Welcome to the forum. It doesn't take much of a computer to run zwift just fine. My complaints are due to them wasting my time. I think I finally got the update that allows you to update after you ride instead of forcing you to wait. I hope so, they just made me wait for an update and didn't allow me to defer it.

PeteHski

I’m pretty sure Zwift has no links with any computer hardware companies. Software companies usually recommend a minimum hardware spec for it to run properly. Zwift is not very hardware demanding compared to most other video games.

Software upgrades sometimes require hardware upgrades too. That’s just how it goes as software gets more demanding and takes advantage of newer, faster processors and operating systems.

Sy Reene

OTOH, Zwift has made it clear that they're interested in doing hardware. For better or worse. First it was going to be a smartbike, this turned into a trainer; now they have the Play controller device. To round out the ecoystem, why not a dedicated computing box with their branding on it?

PeteHski

I suppose they could eventually make a 1-stop solution like Peloton, but they currently don't offer that. But the point here is that they are making zero money from anyone having to upgrade their pc to run the latest Zwift software. It is actually in their best interest to allow Zwift to run on the minimum level of hardware possible and it pretty much does. Their business is to sell subscriptions and they don't care what computer, phone, tablet you use. If we were forced to use a high-end gaming pc then they would sell a lot less subscriptions. They probably wouldn't even survive.