Halloween NPCs have choppy animations (with non-vanilla interp settings)

[Platina6978]

Description

Any halloween boss (HHH, Merasmus, Monoculus) or any of the skeletons appear to have very choppy animations. I have been informed this is a result of using interp settings different from the vanilla ones but I am not very well informed about the cause here.

Checklist

• [X] None of the open or closed issues document this problem.
• [X] This is a bug, not a new idea.
• [X] This is objectively a bug, and not something that people commonly disagree on.
• [ ] This issue occurs on the latest Team Comtress release, or the master branch.
• [X] This issue occurs on the latest vanilla TF2 update.

• [X] This bug is in the code of the game, not in the textures, sounds, or other resources.
• [ ] This issue is listed on the Source 1 official bugtracker.
• [ ] This issue occurs with DirectX level 100.
• [X] This issue occurs when using no custom content.
• [ ] This issue occurs when using start_tf2.bat (or start_server.bat) with no custom launch options.
• [X] This issue occurs when using a listen server (using the map command ingame).
• [X] This issue occurs when using a dedicated server.
• [ ] This bug is in the internal procedures or tooling (e.g. the build process).

Reproduction

1. Play any halloween map / Play any halloween map with a boss on it
2. Use a spell to summon skeletons / Get the boss to appear
3. Observe

Screenshots

Setup Details

Client Settings

• Server or client:
• Operating system: Windows 7
• Team Comtress version:
• Custom content: customized flawhud and autoexec
• Launch options: -console -novid -nojoy -nosteamcontroller -nohltv -particles 1 -no_texture_stream

Driver Version

• Graphics driver:
• DirectX level:

Hardware Specs

• CPU model:
• GPU model:
• RAM amount:
• TF2 install location:
• TC2 install location:
• TC2 installation method:

[ghost]

I've noticed Sentries also experience this issue, but I've only seen it at higher ping than normal, and don't seem to be as sensitive to interp than Halloween entities. (i.e smooth Sentry animations on the same server as a stuttering HHHH.)

[Platina6978]

It has come across me that the command "nb_update_frequency" may be a possible venue to fix these issues. This command defaults to a value of 0.1 but a value of 0.01 makes the animations a lot smoother (source at around 10:38). Hope this can be of any help! Edit: This appears to be a server convar, thus I'm not sure if this is something that can be changed through this project.

[agrastiOs]

According to Moonly Days (founder of creators.tf which hosts servers with fixed animations for NPCs), 0.01 translates to 60 FPS. In comparison, 0.02 is 30 FPS.

[Margen67]

cl_interp_npcs convar does nothing.