Question High Upload Ping, but great UP/DOWN Speeds

[SluggoV2]

So I'm on ATT fiber and get about 1gb up/down speeds with about 10ms ping on DL, but about 100ms ping on upload. This upload ping varies quite a bit and at times may go up to as high as 200ms at during the test. DL ping is pretty stable. I've tried several servers and I get the same results across the board. I'm running wired from PC to Router/Modem. The Router is an ARRIS BGW 210-700 provided by ATT. I have no choice on the router as it required by ATT.

Since I am a gamer, this upload latency is really noticeable when playing online. It feels like I'm always at a disadvantage, like being a step behind the competition. I've tried the basic things like rebooting, moving LAN ports, disabling the firewall, etc.

Any ideas on how the resolve?

 

[kanewolf]

So I'm on ATT fiber and get about 1gb up/down speeds with about 10ms ping on DL, but about 100ms ping on upload. This upload ping varies quite a bit and at times may go up to as high as 200ms at during the test. DL ping is pretty stable. I've tried several servers and I get the same results across the board. I'm running wired from PC to Router/Modem. The Router is an ARRIS BGW 210-700 provided by ATT. I have no choice on the router as it required by ATT.

Since I am a gamer, this upload latency is really noticeable when playing online. It feels like I'm always at a disadvantage, like being a step behind the competition. I've tried the basic things like rebooting, moving LAN ports, disabling the firewall, etc.

Any ideas on how the resolve?

Ping is not an "upload" or "download" thing. Are you using ethernet direct from the router?

 

[LinuxDevice]

Does the game itself have some sort of upload/download time indicator? FYI, most of the time that is part of the ISP and not something you can change.

 

[bill001g]

This is where sites like speed test should not just put numbers on the screen without a detail explanation.... and better yet a test so the user has to show he actually understands them.

The numbers you think are upload and download ping times are not that. They are measuring the latency while the connection is under 100% load. Although caused by many thing this more or less is what is called bufferbloat. The data is being held in a buffer someplace rather than discarded so the latency increases.

These numbers are pretty worthless. They only matter if your connection is at 100% utilization and if you are overloading a connection that has 1gig up and down you have a very massive problem. A game might use 1mbit/sec, many are in the 100-300kbit/sec. If you had say a slow DSL connection where you had other traffic in your house overloading the connection you might be able to use special QoS to partially fix it. The number you see on speed test even if you wanted to are likely far outside anything you have control over.

All that matter is the actual ping time. On att if you were to ping 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8 you will likely get under 5ms on one of both of those depending on where you live. This means at the very most att is adding 5ms to the delay going to your game. So if you have large latency in a game it is very likely not your internet connection.

 

[SluggoV2]

So when I run a speed test the reported ping to the server I am testing on is irrelevant?

Sure does feel like on FPS shooters like COD and Battlefield that I am playing with some sort of lag which appears to be on the input side (aka shooting first from my perspective only to see the kill cam replay not show me shooting until, if at all, I'm already dead). Just trying to figure out if their is anything on my end I can fix. Seems like my online experience was much better where I used to live which had crap internet.

 

[bill001g]

It is irrelevant for a different reason. The actual ping time ....the number it shows on the left has some value BUT it only represents the ping time to the speedtest server. If you choose other speedtest servers you will get very different results because they are in different cities.

The game servers are not in same data centers used by speedtest so you can't really use speedtest to predict performance to a game server.

Speedtest is only good at confirming that your ISP is delivering what you pay for. Even for this purpose you have to be careful. Most times to get the very highest speeds you must choose a speedtest server that is on your ISP network. Going to other ISP can affect your rates and your ISP will correctly say it is the other ISP causing the problem so they can't fix it.

Lag in games is affected by so many things that are not network. Many time video setting have massive results. Turn everything down to the very lowest rates. The video is not actually sent over the network it does not matter if you have it set to 4k ultra or 720 low. If there are actual network issues you will see lag even at the lower resolution.