Every single online game I am playing has rubber banding/ping spikes (PC, wired)

[aafusc2988]

This just started happening in the middle of January, and has persisted since. I've had Time Warner Cable come to check out everything inside, and he even checked my line outside. I'm in an apartment complex and apparently my line was smashed in the door by the previous tech, but he fixed that (didn't help).

I have my own device: Motorola SBG6580 modem/router combo and it is only 8 months old. The power levels are all fine when I check, and the TWC tech confirmed this. Multiple speedtests show no issues. I get 37 down, 6 up, 26 ping.

But when I pinged a server for a game I'm having issues with (Team Fortress 2), I see some 'Request Time Out' messages where it should've pinged, I see spikes 200-300 ping maybe 5-6 times out of a 500 ping sent. But it always comes back with like 500 packets sent 498 received. So it's not packet loss....

I've updated my ethernet port drivers, to no avail. I have a new ethernet cord coming in the mail to see if that works.

Games I am having rubber banding/ping spikes on:

CS: GO
Rocket League
Team Fortress 2
Rising Storm/Red Orchestra 2
Chivalry: Medieval Warfare

So I'm just about assuming all are affected. The router's event log shows some T3 time-out errors... sometimes several a day. But I never lose connectivity to the internet itself. If I weren't a gamer, I'd have no clue of any issues. I even watched a 2 hour movie last night on my PS3 on WiFi connection (HBO GO app) and it was fine. WTF IS GOING ON!?

 

[Rooster__]

Try with team fortress looking at the net_graph to see what is going on, sometimes you can see the "choke" and "loss" values going absurdly high. It might also be the connection on ethernet being messed up, as you seem to be suspecting, try it on wifi?

 

[aafusc2988]

I didn't really explain in detail what I'm seeing.

What happens is I will be playing these games fine, with my low ping of 30 or so. Then, at least on Team Fortress 2, my character will get jerked/warped back to where I was a second or less ago and sometimes it's so subtle but also so obvious to me. Immediately once I see this happen, I can press Tab and see the scoreboard where my ping has gone from 30 (stable) to a fluctuating 50-65 or so (yes this is a low ping, but it is clearly associated with my warping/rubber banding). Then it drops back down to stable 30 until it does it again - rinse and repeat. I say this happens probably once every minute or so.

Rocket League all servers my car will be fine, then it will just jerk and warp around. That game doesn't have good indication of your ping though. The developers even said the game is sensitive to packet loss but you might not see it in ping.

 

[Rooster__]

I didn't really explain in detail what I'm seeing.

What happens is I will be playing these games fine, with my low ping of 30 or so. Then, at least on Team Fortress 2, my character will get jerked/warped back to where I was a second or less ago and sometimes it's so subtle but also so obvious to me. Immediately once I see this happen, I can press Tab and see the scoreboard where my ping has gone from 30 (stable) to a fluctuating 50-65 or so (yes this is a low ping, but it is clearly associated with my warping/rubber banding). Then it drops back down to stable 30 until it does it again - rinse and repeat. I say this happens probably once every minute or so.

Rocket League all servers my car will be fine, then it will just jerk and warp around. That game doesn't have good indication of your ping though. The developers even said the game is sensitive to packet loss but you might not see it in ping.

This sounds a lot like what I was seeing on tf2 and csgo for a long period of time, except it was due to losing packets over wifi when other people are connecting. normal ping for most of the time, then i would see a sudden and random increase over a few seconds, rubberband like crazy, then it would stop. I assume it is the packets, possibly being interfered by from a dodgy ethernet cable, if your issue is transmission like it was for me. using ethernet eliminated the problem.

 

[aafusc2988]

I have a new ethernet cord coming in the mail over the next few days. I really hope this is the solution; however, I am still unsure. I pinged the TF2 server I was on and 498 out of 500 packets were received for 0% loss. There were one or two instances where the packet "Request Timed Out" - and several instances of my ping shooting to 200-300.

 

[James Mason]

So speed isn't your problem, but line health is. A Speedtest won't show that, but a pingtest will:
http://www.pingtest.net/

 

[aafusc2988]

I couldn't get pingtest.net to test my ping. Kept sayng unable to test ping and skipped that step. I downloaded Java and turned off my Windows Firewall and it never worked.

 

[James Mason]

1. Try using Internet Explorer to do it.
2. IE/Java will give you a a few pop-ups asking for permission to do the test, you may have to run it a couple times.

 

[aafusc2988]

I'm still waiting for my new ethernet cable to come in... but in the mean time I'm still seeing more than usual T3 time-out errors in my event log. But TWC has already been over and checked both inside and out and haven't found issues.

 

[aafusc2988]

It's still happening. What is going on!? It's driving me ******* crazy.

 

[James Mason]

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/35874-42-best-settings-sbg6580-docsis-modem
http://forums.timewarnercable.com/t5/Connectivity/Intermittent-Connection-Issues-on-Motorola-SBG6580/m-p/2957#M636

 

[aafusc2988]

Thanks for the links. I don't think my issue is the same as the second link - I'm not actually losing internet connection. I just have these weird rubber banding/lag spikes in all online games across all servers..

 

[aafusc2988]

So I did a tracert to TF2 server I was on per TWC help email request, and here were the results:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\Andrew>tracert 208.78.165.229

Tracing route to 208.78.165.229 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 40 ms 36 ms 29 ms cpe-24-88-88-1.sc.res.rr.com [24.88.88.1]
3 74 ms 31 ms 21 ms cpe-024-031-198-197.sc.res.rr.com [24.31.198.197
]
4 16 ms 11 ms 24 ms cpe-024-031-207-036.sc.res.rr.com [24.31.207.36]

5 13 ms 15 ms 15 ms be33.chrcnctr01r.southeast.rr.com [24.93.64.182]

6 19 ms 30 ms 19 ms bu-ether14.atlngamq46w-bcr00.tbone.rr.com [66.10
9.6.82]
7 42 ms 31 ms 31 ms 66.109.1.255
8 35 ms 39 ms 31 ms ae-0-0.c0.sjc75.tbone.rr.com [66.109.3.209]
9 28 ms 38 ms 43 ms 0.ae1.pr1.dca10.tbone.rr.com [107.14.17.202]
10 40 ms 42 ms 35 ms 66.109.7.230
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 3165 ms 30 ms 28 ms 208.78.165.229

Trace complete.


TWC said: What that trace route is telling us in those results is after 9th hop, the issue is outside of our network. I would use this trace route result with Steam support's channels and ask them if they have any suggestions at this time how to alleviate the issues you're seeing.




I questioned them saying it's all steam games, not just valve servers.... they still insist it's not them. I send Steam support this and am awaiting their response. I'm sure they'll blame TWC.

 

[aafusc2988]

Guy on gamefaqs said this:

It's very doubtful that your PC has anything to do with it.
Sounds more like a particular network choke point is being hit hard by DDOS or heavy traffic. Could be one of the data collection choke points being pushed by the NSA. I know a lot of my traffic is super unreliable if it has to pass through US networks for that reason, and a lot of connections to US players in some P2P games get very shaky for one or two players, but others, likely on the other side of the choke point, are fine.

 

[aafusc2988]

Can anyone else interpret the tracert results or what this gamefaqs user said? Still no response from Steam..

 

[James Mason]

Only the ISP or steam can interpret a tracert. As they would know the IP addresses of their locations.