Question How can I fix bad ping in games when my internet is fine?

[Russell Lutz]

Looking for advice, I'm able to stream movies and watch youtube just fine but as soon as I go to play games like csgo, fortnite, and rust I just get constant ping spikes. (it's not a constant ping but a range from 30 - 300 just spiking up and down)



Things I've tried:

restarting the router
switching to an ethernet cable
contacting my ISP who keep saying there's no problem with my internet
pinging to my router (no issues)
using my brother's computer (same issue as I'm having)

 

[Russell Lutz]

I'm not sure if these are needed but I did them anyway

https://imgur.com/a/L36q3sl

View: https://imgur.com/a/L36q3sl
- pinging to google

https://imgur.com/a/se2lbvi

View: https://imgur.com/a/se2lbvi
- internet speed test

 

[AllanGH]

Game servers typically have high traffic.

If you have low latency to everything else, then it's on the game server side, and there is nothing you can do about it.

 

[BiggWigg92]

Ping is latency or delay between initiation of transmission and actual transmission. Speeds can be fast dependent of ping. Some factors can include number of devices between you and target server, physical distance, connection type ( satellite is the worst with this), and your modem, router, and network card.

Fixing this first requires that you identify the issue. Do you have a satellite connection? Are you selecting the server nearest you whenever possible? What modem, router, and network adapter are you using?

Also, depending on the game, there are a few Windows tweaks, such as disabling angle algorithm, decreasing delay before transmission, etc... the one I'd reccomend most importantly is Configuration of the TcipAckNoDelay setting in your system registry. Then disabling the angle.

 

[BiggWigg92]

Ping is latency or delay between initiation of transmission and actual transmission. Speeds can be fast dependent of ping. Some factors can include number of devices between you and target server, physical distance, connection type ( satellite is the worst with this), and your modem, router, and network card.

Fixing this first requires that you identify the issue. Do you have a satellite connection? Are you selecting the server nearest you whenever possible? What modem, router, and network adapter are you using?

Also, depending on the game, there are a few Windows tweaks, such as disabling angle algorithm, decreasing delay before transmission, etc... the one I'd reccomend most importantly is Configuration of the TcipAckNoDelay setting in your system registry. Then disabling the angle.

It seems to me though, that it's likely your ISP.

 

[Russell Lutz]

yeah, it does seem to be my ISP but is there anything I can do about it?
appreciate all the help I can get because games have been unplayable for like 2 weeks

 

[bill001g]

Delay is mostly a indication of a overloaded connection. The ISP generally will not admit they do not have enough bandwidth someplace in their network. If you were getting packet loss that they seem to be happy to fix that since it is something not function correctly.

Still the steps are the same. You want to run tracert to 8.8.8.8 or some other ip. Unless you get very lucky it will not show much the goal is to get the IPs of the routers in the path.

What you want to do is open a number of cmd windows and run constant ping to a couple ip in the trace. You want hop 1 which is your router, hop 2 which should be the ISP first router, and maybe the 8.8.8.8 end ip.

Hop1 should never have a issue....make sure you test on ethernet. Hop2 represents the path to your house and generally this is where issues are. You can get hops past there but these routers generally are not available to the level 1 techs you call or they can be in other ISP.

Delays in hop 2 generally are because you are over using your internet connection. Be very sure nobody else is using the connection when you test. Now if the technology you use is cable or fiber you are sharing the bandwidth with your neighbors. This is not as much a problem as it was years ago. Try late at night to see if it is different. If you have DSL you should not see delays since the last mile connection is dedicated. If there is faulty equipment it might show delays

In any case you want to call your ISP and show them there is no problem to hop 1 but there are issues in hop 2. Hopefully you get someone helpful, they can see much more by looking at their equipment.

 

[BiggWigg92]

Delay is mostly a indication of a overloaded connection. The ISP generally will not admit they do not have enough bandwidth someplace in their network. If you were getting packet loss that they seem to be happy to fix that since it is something not function correctly.

Still the steps are the same. You want to run tracert to 8.8.8.8 or some other ip. Unless you get very lucky it will not show much the goal is to get the IPs of the routers in the path.

What you want to do is open a number of cmd windows and run constant ping to a couple ip in the trace. You want hop 1 which is your router, hop 2 which should be the ISP first router, and maybe the 8.8.8.8 end ip.

Hop1 should never have a issue....make sure you test on ethernet. Hop2 represents the path to your house and generally this is where issues are. You can get hops past there but these routers generally are not available to the level 1 techs you call or they can be in other ISP.

Delays in hop 2 generally are because you are over using your internet connection. Be very sure nobody else is using the connection when you test. Now if the technology you use is cable or fiber you are sharing the bandwidth with your neighbors. This is not as much a problem as it was years ago. Try late at night to see if it is different. If you have DSL you should not see delays since the last mile connection is dedicated. If there is faulty equipment it might show delays

In any case you want to call your ISP and show them there is no problem to hop 1 but there are issues in hop 2. Hopefully you get someone helpful, they can see much more by looking at their equipment.

Excellent explanation by the way.

 

[Russell Lutz]

Is this what you were talking about (sorry I'm not very familiar with any of this)

https://imgur.com/a/d3g132i

View: https://imgur.com/a/d3g132i

 

[bill001g]

Yes that is the trace. As you can see you get random spikes to 500ms. Problem is you can't tell which node is really causing it because tracert does not send enough data and it may work sometime and not others.

Steps are still the same leave a constant ping run to hop 2 --------72.190.192.1

You then continues to hop 3 etc.

 

[failboat]

If you want to share connections or use bandwidth while gaming QoS can work very well. If you get over 100Mbs or higher streaming video should stop increasing latency.

If you can't or don't want to increase speeds I'd recommend the $50 ERX (wifi extra $80 if you don't have AP). QoS only works when you control buffer which means you have to limit your bandwidth. So you might only be able to use 90%, but latency will stay low on gaming and downloads won't make videos buffer. fq_codel or cake qos are only available on a handful of routers. ERX ships it installed and can handle 100Mbs. most others might be able to flash to openwrt. ipfire can be installed on a server.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-g2P3R84dw

 

[Russell Lutz]

Why this problem doesn't make sense is because sometimes the internet is fine like right now but 2 hours ago it was having the issue I'm trying to fix... it's really random when it happens for example, at 3:00 am last night it was working completely fine and then 5 seconds later I'm getting ping spikes that make anything I'm trying to do really frustrating

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Smart network engineers either place the absolute lowest priority on Echo Reply (ping) packets, or, disable them altogether. You can't use return times in any intelligent way. The 'ping' command was never intended to be used in any way other than to test network connectivity (not absolute timing) between two points.

 

[failboat]

Why this problem doesn't make sense is because sometimes the internet is fine like right now but 2 hours ago it was having the issue I'm trying to fix... it's really random when it happens for example, at 3:00 am last night it was working completely fine and then 5 seconds later I'm getting ping spikes that make anything I'm trying to do really frustrating

Most consumer routers have very basic monitoring tools. You probably don't have the tools available to see if your line is congested. Your traceroute points to congestion/bufferbloat. With no congestion each of the three ping should be the same and increase to destination. In most cases it's from utilizing your bandwidth or a local bottleneck both of which aren't the isp responsibility. so you want to investigate those before blaming them or paying them to look at their side. You download at 4MB/s any download that is greater than 10MB or so will cause bufferbloat for a short time. With smart phones, tablets, smart home, etc you can really get a lot of devices using the internet. you would have to PCAP to actually see why you had bufferbloat at any given time. a more simple tool iftop is great for showing current bandwidth, but only pcap can catch small bursts.