1.30.3 PTR caching?

[coolyoshi1]

Quote from blizzard:
"We believe we’ve found the last few root causes of the disconnects caused by conflicting game caches. "
PTR 1.30.3.11256 Patch Notes

Anyone know what exactly is being cached that may be causing problems? Also could this patch fix desyncs that occur during the middle of a game?

 

[~El]

I'm not sure exactly, but it's highly likely that WC3 caches a lot of data internally in-between game sessions. This is probably an artifact of older times to cut down on loading time, to avoid having to read all the game data from the MPQs each time you start a map.

In particular, I think object data stored in SLKs is cached. A side-effect of this can be seen when a widgetized map corrupts said cache, which leads to subsequent desyncs in future games if the game is not restarted.

There are probably several more types of data that is being cached, and subsequently somehow corrupted or miscached inbetween game sessions, which leads to differing data in game clients, which in turn leads to desyncs.

It however doesn't explain desyncs that occur on a fresh start on WC3, and those still happen from time to time (I've tested this numerous times with friends). Perhaps, there's a semi-random factor to this, due to a programming error that also corrupts caches.