PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds patch brings minor performance improvements

Thursday is patch day in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds [official site] and voila, this week's early access update is out right now. This is one of the smaller weekly patches, as opposed to the larger monthly patches which add new features, but its fixes and tweaks are still welcome. We're getting minor improvements to server performance, minor client performance improvements in specific circumstances, and a few fixes. They're nothing major but this is only one of the weekly patches.

Here are this week's Plunkbat performance improvements.

Server Performance

• Improved physics engine performance on game servers.
• Mitigated an issue with the character stopping moving when a large amount of data is sent.

Client Performance

• Improved client performance in the lobby.
• Improved care package airplane rendering performance.

Sure, I'll take those. I'm keenly awaiting bigger boosts, though. While my PC is a hardware generation above the official minimum spec, Plunkbat runs iffy even at Very Low settings. The game's sound often gets overloaded and starts stuttering - sometimes simply when enough ambient world sounds are playing. Unhelpfully, this glitching can sound a bit like the dirt footstep sounds. Yes, I jump when the wind blows.

Check out the Week 11 Update patch notes for details on other changes. The patch download is around one gigabyte.

Developers Bluehole Studios have spoken recently about investigating server performance so I'd assume bigger changes are still to come.

Plunkbat is the first multiplayer FPS I've happily played solo in a long time. I'd almost thought I was past that, so this has been a pleasant surprise. Playing with chums is a lark, whether we're crawling through crops or foolishly bouncing across a mountain ridge in a jeep, but I do enjoy the different pace of solo play too. Parachuting into hot zones can be a blast, or I can pick quiet corners if I want a contemplative wander. I like getting to dictate my own pace. And if I die, hey, matchmaking is so quick I'm playing again in one minute.

Oh, and do remember that this month's Twitch Prime bonus is hideous Twitch-themed Plunkbat clothing, included with Amazon Prime membership (or just a trial). I give you my solemn word that I will attempt to murder anyone who wears that ugly outfit in the Fashion Battlegrounds (Fashbat).