[SOLVED] Friend has great internet, but terrible latency in games. I don't, using the same exact network

[stubbsnc]

Not sure what to make of this...

My friend has supposedly a great internet connection (google speed test shows ping 4ms, download 288.83 Mbps, upload 167.59 Mbps). But he has terrible latency in online games, and I don't, even though I use the same connection. The other day, we were both playing the same game, same server, both playing on the 5G band of our wifi (I have a PCIe wireless card and he uses a USB adapter, but I don't think that matters), but he was rubberbanding all over the place and my connection was essentially flawless. We made sure nothing was downloading in the background on his device, and I used task manager to be sure about that - nothing else had network activity. We also tried switching one of our connections to the 2.4G band, which didn't make a difference, and he tried playing the game by himself later without my computer even on and had the same issues (we made sure his ping site was set correctly in-game, which it was).

All I can think is somehow something is throttling his connection for certain programs somehow, but I'm pretty clueless about this kind of thing... any thoughts are welcome.

 

[jsmithepa]

I have a PCIe wireless card and he uses a USB adapter, but I don't think that matters

Why would you say that? A PCIe WIFI card will typically come with an antenna, and a simple USB dongle is sold for portability purposes. An antenna will make a difference, but u don't have to take my word for it, get some HARD NUMBERS dude, do u know how to use PING? tells you what latency u got.

 

[cryoburner]

...both playing on the 5G band of our wifi (I have a PCIe wireless card and he uses a USB adapter, but I don't think that matters)...

This is most likely where the problem lies. Wireless connections can be a bit unreliable for online gaming to begin with, and if his adapter is getting a poor signal, performance is going to suffer. If it's possible to plug his computer directly into the network using an ethernet cable, test that and see if it make a difference.

 

[stubbsnc]

get some HARD NUMBERS dude, do u know how to use PING? tells you what latency u got.

When I was checking to make sure he was connected to the correct server site in-game, it showed 45ms ping, which, while not amazing, definitely is not bad enough to cause the amount of rubberbanding that it did.

Also - he has a higher-end USB adapter. It gets higher speeds than my PCIe card (at least on speed test).