Can bad internet cause Frame time issues?

[benwinwood6]

I have been running on an EE 4g box, that obviously is quite slow and has latency issues, high ping etc.

Ever since I have had it, I have had strange latency issues, feeling like I have 300ms ping, enemies not dying quickly etc.

Lately I have been stuttering VERY hard in online games, like PUBG and Fortnite. I noticed that Rainbow Six does not suffer with this issue offline and online. I checked and my frametimes are insane, which I have made numerous other threads about, but this is separate question reagrding internet (before the mods try and merge this [Watch the language -DS])


This leads me to believe that it could be my connection. Is it at all possible that internet in these games (that update serves regularly) could see my frametimes be erratic, or are the two simply not connected?

 

[photonboy]

I don't believe there's any connection between frame times and the internet connection for the most part.

The only connection I can think of is not latency related but rather having MORE PEOPLE (i.e. 16 players etc) involved which can overload your CPU if it's client-sided (not on server) calculations.

In general though it's likely your hardware and game settings (which stress hardware differently) that are the issue.

 

[jimmysmitty]

High ping times can cause what seems like stuttering as it is waiting for the other side to update. Although most online games frame rate tends to not be affected. When I used to main TF2 if the network was bad the game still ran smoothly but it would feel like things were jumping around or possibly frozen in place until it updated.

 

[benwinwood6]

I don't believe there's any connection between frame times and the internet connection for the most part.

The only connection I can think of is not latency related but rather having MORE PEOPLE (i.e. 16 players etc) involved which can overload your CPU if it's client-sided (not on server) calculations.

In general though it's likely your hardware and game settings (which stress hardware differently) that are the issue.

The thing is that I've tested every piece of my hardware ruthlessly and it all seems to be working fine. The only thing that is iffy is my internet and this doesn't happen in offline game. Someone on reddit told me that bad internet can affect freamtimes, due to the game having to wait for for information from the network and holding back frames?

 

[benwinwood6]

High ping times can cause what seems like stuttering as it is waiting for the other side to update. Although most online games frame rate tends to not be affected. When I used to main TF2 if the network was bad the game still ran smoothly but it would feel like things were jumping around or possibly frozen in place until it updated.

My question is more directly related to frametimes and whether there is a connection between the two. My Frame rates are completely fine

 

[jimmysmitty]

Frame times are connected to frame rate. It should not affect either as the network connection is not processing the image, the GPU is.

 

[photonboy]

High ping times can cause what seems like stuttering as it is waiting for the other side to update. Although most online games frame rate tends to not be affected. When I used to main TF2 if the network was bad the game still ran smoothly but it would feel like things were jumping around or possibly frozen in place until it updated.

My question is more directly related to frametimes and whether there is a connection between the two. My Frame rates are completely fine

Frame RATES are an average. Frame TIMES refer to the duration a frame is shown before it is updated with a new frame. Ideally 60FPS means exactly 1/60th second per frame.

Unfortunately there are two related problems:
a) the reported AVERAGE (i.e. 50FPS) is just an average so you may have many short frame times combined with a couple LONG frame times with the result that you feel STUTTERS during those long frame times when no new data arrives.

b) a frame is actually recorded at the REQUEST stage and may never be fully created and drawn. Even if you appeared locked via VSYNC or some FPS manual cap to say "60FPS" you may actually have dropped frames.

*so if the visual data when you move around STUTTERS then you have long periods where the data is NOT being updated.

Now AFAIK the ONLINE aspect should only affect where the avatars of OTHER PEOPLE appear. Data is being sent to your system from other peoples computers (or a server handling this) to tell your computer WHERE TO DRAW the other guys...

A slow connection could mean an enemy (other PC on internet) is not where you are aiming thus you miss.

But...
There appear to be two different issues going on:

#1 - slow ping/slow network updates - as said that means enemies might not be in the correct position. AFAIK that doesn't affect the visual aspect that much in terms of YOUR movement and the terrain though it's possible a really slow connection could see an enemy jump around between locations

#2 - stutter?
If your movement feels stutter that's probably a local PC issue. The best way to test is SINGLE PLAYER if possible though that's not 100% conclusive since you may overwhelm your CPU and despite a seemingly solid FPS you may have again long frame TIMES resulting in stutter.

So again, if movement feels laggy, stuttery etc that's just your PC being unable to process fast enough. If it's network related it should still feel SMOOTH on a system that can process fast enough.