Learn how ELK Stack tools like Logstash, Elasticsearch, and Kibana help developers detect and resolve gameplay lags and freezes across all platforms.

How the ELK Stack Helps Detect Lags and Freezes in Gameplay

After a long day, you head home to play video games or engage in other entertainment. Minutes into playtime, you’re having your fun. And then, unexpectedly, visuals become slow or still. These scenarios are grouped under lags and freezes. Lags are when the game doesn’t respond to commands, or its visuals are super slow. On the other hand, freezes are when the game’s visuals remain still for more than a second.

Online casinos know how frustrating such issues can be, and they do everything they can to avoid them. When it comes to slots, every spin counts. The entire gameplay is built to run nicely, with crisp animations and perfectly timed reel movements. That’s why top-notch performance isn’t optional here; players expect things to work instantly, and even a tiny delay can ruin the moment when they enjoy no deposit spins on some favourite slot machine.

Games freezing and lagging aren’t new, and this isn’t your fault. Think of video games as a machine with thousands of components. If any of these add-ons fail or don’t work right, the game will become unresponsive or slow.

However, the tide is changing. With technology at the forefront, we’re headed to a time when game lags and freezes will become non-existent. This isn’t a coincidence, but stems from the fact that video game developers are using the ELK Stack to build games. Want to know more about this otherworldly technology? Read on!

An Overview of the ELK Stack

If you’re hearing about the ELK Stack for the first time, you might think it’s a stack of boxes or something regular. 

However, in the game development world, this tool is vital to creating games where problems are identified and fixed quickly. But as its naming suggests, the ELK Stack comprises three parts that work together in harmony to relegate lags and freezes to the background.

Elasticsearch

You can think of the ELK Stack’s Elasticsearch as the brain of the entire operation. It combs through millions of finer details to unearth the problem within seconds.

Logstash

Logstash plays the role of cleaner and collector in the ELK Stack. For context, it’s Logstash’s duty to collect in-game details called logs. Game logs are basically notes that the game uses to document its operations.

For context, in-game logs could appear as:

• The player successfully defeated the boss
• Level 17 unlocked
• The game froze for two seconds
• In-game Avatar purchased
• Player got a MINOR jackpot

Kibana

The Picasso of the ELK Stack is Kibana. It takes lines of boring codes and transforms them into graphs and charts. Information released by Kibana sheds light on lags and freezes, allowing game developers to fix them in record time.

How the ELK Stack Identifies Freezes and Lags: A Step-By-Step Analysis

We’ve mentioned that the ELK Stack comes in handy to identify in-game freezes and lags. However, these fixes don’t happen by chance. In this section, we’ll take you through how the ELK Stack recognises glitches in several steps.

The Game Enters a Log

First things first, the game details the incident. For example, game developers could encounter in-game logs detailing freezes and lags, such as:

• The game started lagging at 3:45 PM and froze by 3:46 PM.
• The freeze occurred after the player activated a power-up in level 17.

Developers program games to enter logs detailing errors and regular operations. As such, whenever something wrong occurs, the game automatically creates a log.

Logstash Acquires the Log

After the game enters a log, Logstash will be on hand to collect it. However, since Logstash’s bandwidth is vast, it doesn’t just take hold of one note.

Rather, it collects countless logs from the game itself, players’ computers, and gaming servers. Once collation is complete, it organises the elements into different categories and ships them off to Elasticsearch.

Elasticsearch Unearths Patterns 

Elasticsearch collects the log pile from Logstash and begins work immediately. It reads through the thousands (or even millions) of logs gathered by Logsearch and begins to connect the dots. 

These patterns might include:

• Are numerous players experiencing lags and freezes simultaneously?
• Did the glitch start after developers rolled out a new update?
• Are lags and freezes noticeable in a particular level or bonus round?

Since Elasticsearch is the brains of the ELK Stack, it goes through millions of logs within seconds. Its mission? See where the issue started, how it progressed, and the current state of things.

Kibana Tells the Whole Story

Once Elasticsearch understands what’s going on, it passes its findings off to Kibana. When Kibana receives this data, it creates easy-to-interpret graphs that give a full picture of what’s going on. They might showcase the following information:

• Charts laying emphasis on the exact time lags start on a daily basis.
• A heat map that indicates what countries are affected the most by freezes and lags.
• A timeline showing when crashes began.

When Kibana gives the whole story about the lags and freezes plaguing a game, developers can swoop in and resolve the issue in record time.

Why the ELK Stack Is Essential for Big Video Games

Some video games have a small set of players. As such, when issues arise, they can resolve issues without hassles. 

However, when a video game has a large following that translates into millions of active players on a daily basis, things get technical real quick. Why? Things can go wrong, and it’s the duty of developers to uncover the issue before their reputation tanks.

With the ELK Stack integrated into big games, developers can:

• Monitor issues across a vast array of devices (smartphones and PC)
• See when lags or freezes start.
• Know what stirred up glitches.
• Fix problems before they start affecting other players.

This becomes especially important when games are played across multiple platforms. Performance issues can vary depending on the system — what happens on PC might not happen on mobile, and even between Android vs iOS, the same game can behave differently. That’s where tools like the ELK Stack really help. They collect logs from all sources and give developers a full picture, no matter where the issue starts.

Will OpenSearch Become the Next Big Thing?

ELK Stack is great to point game developers in the direction of lags and freezes. It does such a great job that it’s hard to imagine that there’s an alternative. However, the truth is that there’s a new player on the streets capturing everyone’s attention. Its name? OpenSearch.

OpenSearch was launched in 2024, and is a relative to Elasticsearch, an integral part of the ELK Stack. They started out using similar technologies. For context, OpenSearch has characteristics like:

• Searching through millions of logs in seconds.
• Giving developers a rundown of what’s happening.
• Showcases results using well-designed charts and graphs, as is the case with Kibana. 

Another thing that makes OpenSearch stand out from the ELK Stack is that the former is open source. This means that any developer can modify and improve their offerings without requiring a special certification. As such, it has become an attractive alternative for game developers and studios who want to be in control.

But does the rise of OpenSearch mean ELK Stack is going away? The answer is no. ELK Stack still remains a trusted tool among game developers. It carries out operations efficiently and rarely has issues. However, just like video games are constantly evolving, tools like OpenSearch are also on the same wavelength. As such, it’s likely that this new tool will become the go-to for developers several months or years from now.

Final Thoughts

Freeze and lags can negatively impact your gaming adventure. However, with tools like ELK Stack in the background, game developers can create games where glitches don’t rear their ugly heads.

The ELK Stack can be likened to a jack of all trades when it comes to uncovering issues tied to games. It collects in-game logs, identifies patterns, and redirects issues to developers for quick fixes. But while ELK Stack reigns supreme at the moment, a much smarter tool (OpenSearch) might take the reins pretty soon. 

So, the next time you play a game running perfectly, remember that there’s an invisible team working tirelessly behind the scenes to make smooth-sailing gameplay the norm.