[SOLVED] Internet speeds fluctuating with games and obs

[RedSq]

Hey everyone,

First time posting here.

I’ve recently built a new pc with a fresh re-install of windows 10.
Specs;
Gpu: evga rtx 2080 super 8gb gddr6
Cpu: i7 9700k 8 core 4.9ghz
Mobo: msi z390-A pro ddr4
Ram: 16gb crossair vengeance 3200mhz
500gb ssd & 1tb hdd

I was having inconsistent download speeds with alot of spikes mostly when playing games and or streaming twitch via obs studio. I’ve replaced my modem and had a isp technician to my house 3 times. Isp says everything appears fine on their end. If no programs are running I get download speeds ranging from 400mbps to 700 mbps and uploads from 15mbps to 20mbps. But when I have a online game playing and/or streaming with obs my speeds are all over the place dropping as low as 30mbps download.

I’ve port forwarded to my games and also ran bandwidth testing to find the best twitch server to stream off but still no help. On obs i’ve changed and tried multiple settings with different bitrates but still get massives frame drops(usually between 30-65%).

I’m thinking it’s either a setting somewhere that needs to be changed or a hardware issue but I have no idea how to find out.

P.s.: I’ve checked all drivers through Driver Booster 7.3pro as well as manually through device manager. Streaming and online gaming is not do-able with my new 3000$ pc and I’m loosing it.

Please any help is appreciated.

 

[TerryLaze]

If no programs are running I get download speeds ranging from 400mbps to 700 mbps and uploads from 15mbps to 20mbps. But when I have a online game playing and/or streaming with obs my speeds are all over the place dropping as low as 30mbps download.

Yes running software that uses up internet will use up internet.

Also the speed you get from a speedtest from your ISP is only valid to and from your ISP the whole rest of the internet has varying speeds.

 

[RedSq]

I understand that using internet will lower my speed tests. But it should not be as drastic and fluctuations should not be as bad as they are. Also, I was able to stream and play before with no issues.

 

[bill001g]

Run a speedtest from another device while your PC is running it stuff. This will show if you have some issue with your internet connection or your PC.

PC problems are hard to find sometime. The resource manager might give you a clue, it is not likely a direct network problem. Make sure you do not have any so called "gamer" network software loaded.

 

[Sohom]

do u have any internet security suite or antivirus installed? if so uninstall to see if speeds increases...

 

[RedSq]

do u have any internet security suite or antivirus installed? if so uninstall to see if speeds increases...

I have no 3rd party antivirus, just advanced system care.

 

[RedSq]

Run a speedtest from another device while your PC is running it stuff. This will show if you have some issue with your internet connection or your PC.

PC problems are hard to find sometime. The resource manager might give you a clue, it is not likely a direct network problem. Make sure you do not have any so called "gamer" network software loaded.

Ok, I’m also going to bring my pc over to my friends and try running programs there.

could you elaborate on the “gamer network software”?

 

[bill001g]

That sounds like a lot of effort especially if you have a large monitor but it will show if it is your internet.

The worst offender is killer chipset but asus bundles software that runs on intel. Your system does not seem to bundle either but some times people install this kind of software themselves.

They are stupid programs that try to prioritize game traffic. The whole thing is idiotic since it can't affect traffic outside the machine and you should never have too much traffic on your machine and you can control what is running. These programs especially the ones from killer cause all kinds of strange issues.

 

[RedSq]

Ok thanks. Do you know how to troubleshoot a faulty network adapter? That would be my next step if the problem continues at my friends.

 

[bill001g]

It is not likely the network adatper since it only does it with certain traffic. Since speedtest works correctly it is something more complex. Normally I would say run IPERF between 2 machines since that tests the nic and the drivers. Since speedtest works that is even a more advanced file transfer.

I would bet it is something like a cpu issue.

 

[RedSq]

It is not likely the network adatper since it only does it with certain traffic. Since speedtest works correctly it is something more complex. Normally I would say run IPERF between 2 machines since that tests the nic and the drivers. Since speedtest works that is even a more advanced file transfer.

I would bet it is something like a cpu issue.

Cpu? I wouldn’t have thought the cpu could cause these kind of issues.

 

[bill001g]

It is only a guess and why you must do more detail investigation. First is to confirm that it is not your actual internet connection. After that you need to test various combinations of programs. For example is it particular games that it has issues with. Is it only where you have OBS running.

 

[failboat]

700/20 seems very lightly sized for acks. when you download using TCP ack packets are sent back to verify what you got. I'm not sure the best number but it's around 5% of your download just for acks. 700/35 is 5% and that means all of your upload is being utilized for downloads. so when you try and stream and download at the same time with an already undersized upload it's going to choke hard.

limit your downloads to 250Mbs while you stream at your router if possible or from the download client as plan B. see if this eliminates the issue. an 8Mbs 1080p stream should work with this.

If you can check your isp packages trading some download for upload speed would help you a lot. in the eyes of the isp if you get what you pay for there is no problem. doesn't matter if the programs you want to not lag do lag and they will lag if you congest either down or up. many have really high tolerances for "working" too which was probably in your contract. mine is actually 50% of my listed speeds.

 

[RedSq]

It is only a guess and why you must do more detail investigation. First is to confirm that it is not your actual internet connection. After that you need to test various combinations of programs. For example is it particular games that it has issues with. Is it only where you have OBS running.

both games and obs.

 

[RedSq]

700/20 seems very lightly sized for acks. when you download using TCP ack packets are sent back to verify what you got. I'm not sure the best number but it's around 5% of your download just for acks. 700/35 is 5% and that means all of your upload is being utilized for downloads. so when you try and stream and download at the same time with an already undersized upload it's going to choke hard.

limit your downloads to 250Mbs while you stream at your router if possible or from the download client as plan B. see if this eliminates the issue. an 8Mbs 1080p stream should work with this.

If you can check your isp packages trading some download for upload speed would help you a lot. in the eyes of the isp if you get what you pay for there is no problem. doesn't matter if the programs you want to not lag do lag and they will lag if you congest either down or up. many have really high tolerances for "working" too which was probably in your contract. mine is actually 50% of my listed speeds.

sorry but how would I go about limiting my download speed?

 

[RedSq]

Update:

I finally brought my PC over to a friends house and tested, with OBS streaming, several games and had no network issues. Over a 30 minute period I had 41 dropped frames which is perfectly okay. So I'm thinking it must be an issue with my home network, 50 foot Cat6 cable(which I bought 2 weeks ago) or some modem settings.

 

[bill001g]

Check the markings on the cable to make sure it is not fake cable. It needs to be pure copper (no cca) and it must have wire size 22-24 (no flat or thin cable). Most valid cable will say eia/tia on the size and most also tell the wire size and type of wire. Not being certified though does not mean the cable does not work. They would never be able to sell them if they always failed. They have much more trouble at longer distance.

I would not suspect the cable though. Cables to not delay traffic. If you would leave a ping run to your router you would see packet loss that increases at you increase the load. That can of course reduce the bandwidth.

Check the logs in the modem. I assume its a cable modem ? There are always some no ranging response or partial service messages. Some are very obvious things like sync failures. There should also be a screen that show the power levels. You can check those but what is gernerally also on those screens is error counts. You always have some errors but lots of uncorrectable errors also indicate data loss. In general the numbers change so slow you can not actually see them change when the connection is running correctly.

 

[RedSq]

Check the markings on the cable to make sure it is not fake cable. It needs to be pure copper (no cca) and it must have wire size 22-24 (no flat or thin cable). Most valid cable will say eia/tia on the size and most also tell the wire size and type of wire. Not being certified though does not mean the cable does not work. They would never be able to sell them if they always failed. They have much more trouble at longer distance.

I would not suspect the cable though. Cables to not delay traffic. If you would leave a ping run to your router you would see packet loss that increases at you increase the load. That can of course reduce the bandwidth.

Check the logs in the modem. I assume its a cable modem ? There are always some no ranging response or partial service messages. Some are very obvious things like sync failures. There should also be a screen that show the power levels. You can check those but what is gernerally also on those screens is error counts. You always have some errors but lots of uncorrectable errors also indicate data loss. In general the numbers change so slow you can not actually see them change when the connection is running correctly.

Just got back and no dice, huge network spikes and lulls. Yes it's a cable modem. I also have one more upgrade I can get with my ISP (500mbps to 1gbps) but I don't know if that would help. Here is the log.

 

[bill001g]

No ranging response generally causes packet loss but you do not have a lot of them and they are almost exactly 15 minutes apart so maybe its nothing.

Its not a capacity issue. it is highly unlikely you are using 500mbps, if you upgrade it is just more bandwidth you are not using. Now upload of 15-20mbps you can easily kill but not with just OBS and game traffic. A cloud backup will easily kill that amount. You could see if your router shows your upload rate and see if you are getting anywhere close. If your router does not have that option and you are only using a single PC you can look in the network tab of the resource monitor for usage.

You need some test the ISP is not going to blame on OBS or your computer. We know it is not that since it works on the other internet connection but that will not convince the level 1 tech when you call.

Maybe download a some fix rate like 100mbps on something like steam and see what impact it has. Then use one of the free cloud storage site and try to upload at some rate maybe about 5mbps which should be more than OBS ever uses.

 

[RedSq]

No ranging response generally causes packet loss but you do not have a lot of them and they are almost exactly 15 minutes apart so maybe its nothing.

Its not a capacity issue. it is highly unlikely you are using 500mbps, if you upgrade it is just more bandwidth you are not using. Now upload of 15-20mbps you can easily kill but not with just OBS and game traffic. A cloud backup will easily kill that amount. You could see if your router shows your upload rate and see if you are getting anywhere close. If your router does not have that option and you are only using a single PC you can look in the network tab of the resource monitor for usage.

You need some test the ISP is not going to blame on OBS or your computer. We know it is not that since it works on the other internet connection but that will not convince the level 1 tech when you call.

Maybe download a some fix rate like 100mbps on something like steam and see what impact it has. Then use one of the free cloud storage site and try to upload at some rate maybe about 5mbps which should be more than OBS ever uses.

Sorry but at this point I'm not entirely sure what I'm looking at or what I'm looking for. Here are several screenshots while I was uploading a video.

 

[bill001g]

All depends on how long this was running in relationship to the graphs. If it was running more than 60 seconds the graphs is not as smooth as you would like. This is either application issues or packet loss. To a point it depends on how the application deals with loss. Now if this is a bunch of small files it is very common to get spikes but if it is one large file it should have a rather smooth data rate.

....Notice PoE in background. The latest league has been a giving me lots of lag and I am running a 2080.

 

[RedSq]

All depends on how long this was running in relationship to the graphs. If it was running more than 60 seconds the graphs is not as smooth as you would like. This is either application issues or packet loss. To a point it depends on how the application deals with loss. Now if this is a bunch of small files it is very common to get spikes but if it is one large file it should have a rather smooth data rate.

....Notice PoE in background. The latest league has been a giving me lots of lag and I am running a 2080.

it was one large file (22gb video).

Yes, my friends have also noticed the lag but have been able to play. I have yet to make it out of act 1 due to the constant disconnects and 5-10sec lag spikes. Probably doesn't help I was trying out hardcore though.

So I just got off the phone with ISP and they said that it was a latency issue caused by one of the wifi devices. I turned off wifi through the modem settings and the issue is still ongoing. I explained that at my friends house that there were no issues but they seem to think it's on my end still. I really don't know what to do anymore.

 

[bill001g]

You would think ping would show the loss or at least high latency.

This thread is getting long and I get confused between the many I respond to. Did we do the standard tracert and ping nodes in the path. You can try pathping also but you will need actual ping to convince the ISP.
The graph looks like packet loss and game issue also sound like loss. But POE has been so unstable I decided I would wait a couple days.

 

[RedSq]

You would think ping would show the loss or at least high latency.

This thread is getting long and I get confused between the many I respond to. Did we do the standard tracert and ping nodes in the path. You can try pathping also but you will need actual ping to convince the ISP.
The graph looks like packet loss and game issue also sound like loss. But POE has been so unstable I decided I would wait a couple days.

Yes I ran a ping and tracert. I saw no issues but my ISP received a ping of 1300ms last night so they are sending a senior tech over to troubleshoot. Hopefully they find and fix the issue.

thanks for the help, i’ll let you know if it’s fixed. Looks like well both be getting a late league start.