What causes physics glitches in games?

Physics glitches, objects clipping, flying off, or tunneling through walls, come from the physics simulation hitting conditions it handles poorly: frame-rate-dependent physics (behaving differently at different frame rates), tunneling (fast objects passing through thin colliders because they move farther than the collider's thickness in one step), extreme forces or velocities producing wild results, collision edge cases, floating-point imprecision, and unstable stacking or constraints. The simulation's discrete approximation breaks down under these conditions.

Why do objects fly through walls in my game?

Usually tunneling: a fast-moving object travels farther in one physics step than the wall's collider is thick, so the collision check misses it, no collision is detected, and the object passes through. This is a classic physics glitch caused by fast objects and thin colliders, and it's fixed with continuous collision detection (which checks the path between steps, not just the positions). High speeds and thin geometry are the triggering conditions.

How do I fix physics glitches?

Address the specific condition the simulation mishandles: make physics frame-rate-independent using fixed timesteps (so it behaves consistently regardless of frame rate), use continuous collision detection for fast objects to prevent tunneling through walls, clamp extreme forces and velocities to avoid wild results, and handle collision edge cases carefully. Capturing the context around reported physics issues (frame rate, speed, situation) helps identify which condition is triggering the glitch, so you can target the right fix.

What Causes Physics Glitches?

Quick answer: Physics glitches come from the simulation hitting conditions it handles poorly: frame-rate-dependent physics, fast objects tunneling through colliders, extreme forces, collision edge cases, and floating-point imprecision.

Physics glitches, where objects clip into walls, fly off unexpectedly, or pass through things, are a common and sometimes funny class of bug. They come from the limits of physics simulation. Here's what causes physics glitches.

How Physics Goes Wrong

Physics simulation approximates real physics in discrete steps, and glitches happen when conditions push it past where the approximation holds.

Frame-rate-dependent physics, physics tied to frame rate, so it behaves differently at different frame rates (faster or slower simulation)
Tunneling, fast-moving objects passing through thin colliders because they move farther than the collider's thickness in one step
Extreme forces or velocities, values so large the simulation produces wild results
Collision edge cases, geometry or situations the collision system handles poorly (corners, overlaps)
Floating-point imprecision, tiny math errors accumulating into visible glitches
Unstable stacking or constraints, physics objects jittering or exploding under certain configurations

Most physics glitches trace to the simulation hitting a condition, high speed, low frame rate, extreme values, where its discrete approximation breaks down.

Why They're Often Condition-Specific

Many physics glitches only happen under specific conditions, a fast object, a low frame rate, a particular collision, so they're intermittent and can be hard to reproduce. They may appear for players (on slower devices, in specific situations) but not in your testing.

Bugnet captures crashes and reports with context, so physics glitches that players report or that cause crashes surface with the conditions around them. Knowing the conditions (frame rate, speed, situation) helps identify the cause.

Fixing Physics Glitches

Fixing physics glitches depends on the cause: make physics frame-rate-independent (use fixed timesteps), use continuous collision detection for fast objects to prevent tunneling, clamp extreme forces and velocities, and handle collision edge cases carefully. The fix targets the specific condition the simulation mishandles.

Bugnet helps you capture the context around reported physics issues, so you can identify the triggering conditions. So physics glitches come from the simulation hitting conditions like high speed, frame-rate dependence, or extreme values where its approximation breaks, and fixing them means addressing those specific conditions.

Physics glitches come from the simulation hitting conditions it handles poorly, frame-rate dependence, tunneling (fast objects through thin colliders), extreme forces, collision edge cases. Fix the specific condition (fixed timesteps, continuous collision detection).