No, this time it's definitely on WGT's end. Been here since the beginning, and right now gameplay is about as bad as it's ever been. I can't get through 9 holes without serious hesitations in the swing meter. I run a pretty high end machine and it's only recently that the issues have crept up. It has nothing to do with clearing flash caches or other services running: This is the same machine and setup I've been using since the beginning. My internet speed has only increased since then as well. I've turned off the advanced loading, muted all sounds and notifications, removed the reflections, played in IE, Chrome, and Firefox. Not one thing has helped or changed.
No, this is and always has been a serious flaw in the coding of the game. The steps given by WGT to improve performance help for a time, but inevitably they come back for many people. I've played hundreds of flash games, and I haven't had to clear my flash cache for any of them...just this one.
It has to do with how the game manages it's memory allocation. When your meter stutters or spikes, it is WGT literally spiking your computer with extraneous data being sent from their server to your PC. You'll see it in the lower left hand portion of your game window. Just stand on the tee box for awhile, and you'll see the message, 'Transferring data from psj-gs02.wgt.com
' (or whatever server you happened to be connected to). I'm not moving, what's being transferred exactly?
Think about it: When you are standing over your shot on the tee box, what is going on? There's no wind moving the trees, no ripples in the water, no birds flying across the screen, no animated fans on the sidelines cheering or moving. In short, NOTHING is going on, to the naked eye, that would demand any sort of data transfer being sent from a WGT server to your PC. It's just a static avatar, ball, and an HD photo. All the game has to do is manage the swing bar, move the avatar in the form of your club being raised and lowered, and then present a visual replay of the result once the swing has been completed. We're not talking Call of Duty madness here, it's one golf shot on static terrain. Why on earth would it be so difficult to have that swing bar be steady and even if it weren't from a fundamental flaw in the coding of the game? They'll never admit it, but for those of us who know about PC's, networking, and programming, we know better.