I've had some lag issues when the in game action gets hectic. It is not super noticeable to me, but I've had some players on the other side complain about it. It would be nice to try to fix it.
What is most likely to cause lag, the processor, video card, connection, ping, or something else? Are there any tests I can run to get more info? I suspect it is from family members streaming video and such, but I'd love some opinions from knowledgable folk, if you can spare the time.
Here are some of my specs, let me know if you need different info. Thanks for taking the time to answer.
OS: Windows 10
Processor: Intel Core i7-4790s CPU @ 3.20 GHz
Intalled memory: 12.0 GB RAM
Download Speed: approx 66-84 Mbps
Upload Speed: approx 17-22 Mbps
Router: Ubee DDW36C (set up by Time Warner, 1.5 years ago)
Connection type: Wifi to Extender, then hard line from extender to computer
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What's The Most Likely Cause Of Lag?
Started by DRlFTER, Sep 18 2018 12:26 AM
7 replies to this topic
#2
Posted 18 September 2018 - 07:16 AM
theres all sorts of things that people will describe as 'lag', and uhh, it is kind of hard for people to actually differentiate which piece is causing which piece ... but going on what your saying, about the enemy complaining that your lagging about the place, chances are that you are experiencing network lag, and if i had to point the finger at something, I'd probably start with anything you might call a 'wifi extender' .... now, not all of them are bad, and the price you paid doesnt always reflect 'quality' within ... but it sounds to me, like your 'client' is fighting against server prediction, and some people might accuse you of using a 'lag switch' because of it, when really its just hardware becoming overloaded ... if you want to look into it, grab a simple small program called 'winMTR' from http://winmtr.net/download-winmtr ... you tell it a location, like 'www.mwomercs.com' and it works out all the points along the way, and constantly sends a ping to each one, to establish the amount of time they take ... if the bridge your using is the source of network issues, you'll probably be able to see it spiral out of control ...
the biggest problem with wifi extenders comes down to the hardware thats inside of it, details that the 'manufacturers' dont tend to actually tell you, like how many radio units it has, separate to how many 'bands' each unit can do ... in an ideal extender setup, you have two actual radios, and are able to select them both to different channels .... a non ideal setup has one radio and uses this to communicate both upstream and downstream, that can be problematic in high traffic low latency scenarios like gaming ... seeing as you said you plug a cable into the extender, you may be able to alleviate some of the issue by changing it into being a 'bridge' or 'router' as opposed to its default 'one size fits all' configuration, if other people are not using that 'extension' then maybe you can just turn off its wireless network extension for the same effect ... for some reason, alot of extenders are vulnerable to a wifi attack known as 'pixiedust', which can be computed in seconds to get credentials to connect ...
for years in 'fixed hardware' scenario's I've tried to change out wifi setups for 'powerline adaptors', which use pre existing electrical cabling within buildings as a network cable ... its not impossible to have cabling that isnt suitable to the job, so before you buy any, check the return policy, but when it works, it just works, with generally less 'latency' than wifi ( super beneficial when gaming ), and your not fighting against family members streaming videos to other devices etc
as far as the rest of your hardware goes, lately I've recommended a small program called 'userbenchmark', available from www.userbenchmark.com/download, which will do a short performance test, and give you a shareable link with comparisons against other people running the same equipment ... it will also tell us a little bit more about the hardware that your using, like the motherboard, which can sometimes make it easier to recommend 'tweaks' for it ... guess it depends how far you want to fall down the rabbit hole of pc performance ...
the biggest problem with wifi extenders comes down to the hardware thats inside of it, details that the 'manufacturers' dont tend to actually tell you, like how many radio units it has, separate to how many 'bands' each unit can do ... in an ideal extender setup, you have two actual radios, and are able to select them both to different channels .... a non ideal setup has one radio and uses this to communicate both upstream and downstream, that can be problematic in high traffic low latency scenarios like gaming ... seeing as you said you plug a cable into the extender, you may be able to alleviate some of the issue by changing it into being a 'bridge' or 'router' as opposed to its default 'one size fits all' configuration, if other people are not using that 'extension' then maybe you can just turn off its wireless network extension for the same effect ... for some reason, alot of extenders are vulnerable to a wifi attack known as 'pixiedust', which can be computed in seconds to get credentials to connect ...
for years in 'fixed hardware' scenario's I've tried to change out wifi setups for 'powerline adaptors', which use pre existing electrical cabling within buildings as a network cable ... its not impossible to have cabling that isnt suitable to the job, so before you buy any, check the return policy, but when it works, it just works, with generally less 'latency' than wifi ( super beneficial when gaming ), and your not fighting against family members streaming videos to other devices etc
as far as the rest of your hardware goes, lately I've recommended a small program called 'userbenchmark', available from www.userbenchmark.com/download, which will do a short performance test, and give you a shareable link with comparisons against other people running the same equipment ... it will also tell us a little bit more about the hardware that your using, like the motherboard, which can sometimes make it easier to recommend 'tweaks' for it ... guess it depends how far you want to fall down the rabbit hole of pc performance ...
#3
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- Ace Of Spades
- 70 posts
Member
Posted 18 September 2018 - 07:39 AM
Thanks for taking the time to post, I appreciate the thoughtful response. I guess I’ll take your advice one step at a time, and I’ll download winMTR and post the results here when I get a moment.
#4
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- Ace Of Spades
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Posted 18 September 2018 - 06:37 PM
NARC BAIT, on 18 September 2018 - 07:16 AM, said:
... if you want to look into it, grab a simple small program called 'winMTR' from http://winmtr.net/download-winmtr ... you tell it a location, like 'www.mwomercs.com' and it works out all the points along the way, and constantly sends a ping to each one, to establish the amount of time they take ... if the bridge your using is the source of network issues, you'll probably be able to see it spiral out of control ...
I ran winMTR, but I have no idea what the results mean, lol. I sent you a PM, if you'd like to check it out.
Edited by DRlFTER, 18 September 2018 - 06:45 PM.
#5
Posted 19 September 2018 - 07:48 AM
I'll give a quick run down over one of my own results, so you can see more than just your own result
now, a quick look over yours ( from PM / scrubbed )
you can let hte program run for a really long time, like hours or days, if it suits you, to get really good average results out of it, if your going to play a couple of games back to back, let it run and count how many packets were missed during your game
if your not sharing the extender with anybody else, then its probably worth looking into the configuration and nearly anyone could gain some benefit from optimizing the antenna alignment
Spoiler
now, a quick look over yours ( from PM / scrubbed )
Spoiler
you can let hte program run for a really long time, like hours or days, if it suits you, to get really good average results out of it, if your going to play a couple of games back to back, let it run and count how many packets were missed during your game
if your not sharing the extender with anybody else, then its probably worth looking into the configuration and nearly anyone could gain some benefit from optimizing the antenna alignment
#6
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- Ace Of Spades
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Member
Posted 19 September 2018 - 04:12 PM
Thanks Narcbait, for walking me through it. Would you recommend switching to a power line adapter in this case? It sound like that would alter the path where the packet loss was happening, if I understood correctly. If so, is there a brand or model you could recommend? I’ve heard of them once in passing, but I’m unfamiliar with them in general. Thanks again!
#7
Posted 19 September 2018 - 09:00 PM
its easy to blame wifi for not working, without being able to see the insane complexity that goes on every microsecond .... if you could see that part of the electromagnetic spectrum, you'd be amazed at how much 'noise' exists around you ... if your wifi has 20 devices connected to it, its a mere matter of time before too many people are talking at once for everybody to be heard ... the less people are using wifi, the better the wifi works ... small amounts of packetloss will be smoothed over for nearly any task that isnt gaming, its why we buffer videos, because we cant guarantee the the next bit of data will arrive at the moment we actually need it
I'd certainly attempt to use powerline adaptors, as a selfish gamer, my latency is more important than your video, but before you go out and spend money though, you need to consider the structure, to take some sort of guess at your likelyhood of it working ... so you basically end up with three factors that affect powerline adaptors,
topology and fuses kind of go together, firstly establish what kind of fuses your dealing with, none of them are exactly a deal breaker, but finding the fuse box will generally tell you which topology your dealing with, as far as powerline adapters are concerned, your only really classifying three types of fuses, old school wire types, modern circuit breakers and smart meters ...
I havent done anywhere with an old school fuse, they are still around in australia, a friend tells me that they can 'leak' your network out to the neighbours, and you'll probably have more interference on your internal wiring, from a security stand point, in practise assuming you dont keep state secrets at home, everything will be kept secure by the devices encryption stuff .... if you've got this type of fuse box, and you care about your electronics, you probably want to get it replaced ...
circuit breakers can be more tricky, most wont represent an issue, but occasionally, people might need to keep network segments confined to each breaker because the networking signal wont cross from the segments, some will effectively 'filter out' the minor 'noise' that we are deliberately adding, this is where topology tends to come in ... smart meters tend to be very good at killing off the added noise, and will need to have topology figured out also ...
you find three kinds of topology in the real world :
but for the most part, people will just plug it in, and it will just work, unless you live in a mansion, or a converted warehouse or rats have gone to town on the cable sheathing
as far as devices go, I have zero allegiance to any of the brands, I've purchased whats been cheap, available locally and with a refund policy, in case I couldnt get it working, which hasnt happend to me yet because the instance where cabling needed replacing, was a delay more than a didnt work ever outrightly ...
interoperability isnt really much of a thing with them, the manufacturers make 'pairs' and move on, if you look around at your network, and think that you might get three devices that dont move off the wifi, than get yourself two identical pairs, which can usually be configured to form one network, with three or four points in it ... if you buy them online, you need to look hard to make sure your buying a 'kit' not just a singular unit ... you can get them with wifi extenders built in ( I wouldnt ... )... you can get ones that absorb the power point, or allow passthrough ... you can get ones that go 10x faster than what you can get from the internet, I wouldnt bother spending extra money there ... if you've got 100mbit download, 1000mbit network is overkill if you dont use network storage ....
I'd certainly attempt to use powerline adaptors, as a selfish gamer, my latency is more important than your video, but before you go out and spend money though, you need to consider the structure, to take some sort of guess at your likelyhood of it working ... so you basically end up with three factors that affect powerline adaptors,
- cable quality
- topology
- fuses
topology and fuses kind of go together, firstly establish what kind of fuses your dealing with, none of them are exactly a deal breaker, but finding the fuse box will generally tell you which topology your dealing with, as far as powerline adapters are concerned, your only really classifying three types of fuses, old school wire types, modern circuit breakers and smart meters ...
I havent done anywhere with an old school fuse, they are still around in australia, a friend tells me that they can 'leak' your network out to the neighbours, and you'll probably have more interference on your internal wiring, from a security stand point, in practise assuming you dont keep state secrets at home, everything will be kept secure by the devices encryption stuff .... if you've got this type of fuse box, and you care about your electronics, you probably want to get it replaced ...
circuit breakers can be more tricky, most wont represent an issue, but occasionally, people might need to keep network segments confined to each breaker because the networking signal wont cross from the segments, some will effectively 'filter out' the minor 'noise' that we are deliberately adding, this is where topology tends to come in ... smart meters tend to be very good at killing off the added noise, and will need to have topology figured out also ...
you find three kinds of topology in the real world :
- normal fuses near entry point, all cable spread out from there
- fuses in central location, cables extend in a star configuration (rare in a domestic environment)
- ring of death, improper loops that bypass fusing, watch out for this in garages / sheds etc
but for the most part, people will just plug it in, and it will just work, unless you live in a mansion, or a converted warehouse or rats have gone to town on the cable sheathing
as far as devices go, I have zero allegiance to any of the brands, I've purchased whats been cheap, available locally and with a refund policy, in case I couldnt get it working, which hasnt happend to me yet because the instance where cabling needed replacing, was a delay more than a didnt work ever outrightly ...
interoperability isnt really much of a thing with them, the manufacturers make 'pairs' and move on, if you look around at your network, and think that you might get three devices that dont move off the wifi, than get yourself two identical pairs, which can usually be configured to form one network, with three or four points in it ... if you buy them online, you need to look hard to make sure your buying a 'kit' not just a singular unit ... you can get them with wifi extenders built in ( I wouldnt ... )... you can get ones that absorb the power point, or allow passthrough ... you can get ones that go 10x faster than what you can get from the internet, I wouldnt bother spending extra money there ... if you've got 100mbit download, 1000mbit network is overkill if you dont use network storage ....
#8
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Posted 20 September 2018 - 04:06 AM
Thanks for the really in depth answer Narcbait. I really appreciate you taking the time to educate me on the subject. I'll get the process started. Hope to see you in game.
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