multipler gaming while downloading things

[Oceans12]

Hi,

please help me with this.

I have a 4mbps internet connection. It is via fibre( so i have heard).
when it is idle. it pings 10-20ms to google so im expecting its fibre only. the isp has installed a modem which is very simpleton (i can access it). it has no QOS

i am using a router as a switch to spread wifi in my home. so im under that modem's gateway.
things are fine. its a 5ghz wifi . my laptop is new. i use couple of things at home . like ipad mobile etc. but i usually keep track of my bandwidth.

my primary use is on my laptop. (also wifi) . constant ping to my local gateway gives <3ms and no packet loss. this is even during full 4mbps downloading. so my internal network is smooth.

now i do multiplayer gaming a lot . and i have to download things a lot as well
primarly dota 2 (wow etc.)
my simple question is this , i have read that most multiplayer games including dota2 dont need more than 512kbps bandwidth .
which is true since i have monitored this while gaming

but WHY does the ping gets #%@%@ when i download something . i really need to do gaming while downloading something in background. (tried all kinds of downloads , games on steam , download managers, normal chrome)

and yes i even lock the speed of downloading to not be more than 3mbps . (thus 1mbps being free).

but still the in game latency/ping is like upto 200ms and making it unplayable.

based on my research . something tells me it has got to do with QoS. now i dont have a QoS router. but that is fine since most of my things are done in my laptop only.

so is there a QoS software i can use ( i will buy even).
otherwise what can i do. please help . thank you
i dont wanna spend on hardware as i dont live here permanently.

key things:
1. internal network is perfect (Even during downloading)
2. the internet itself is superb quality (as it pings not more than 60ms , to various regional servers including google and IN Game. google dns pings 10-20ms )
3. the ping doubles of up and reaches at least 200ms during downloads ( even locking downloads to lower speed).
4. i have a new laptop and i monitor bandwidth a lot while tinkering . there is nothing else going on . no other process or service eating bandwidth .

thanks a lot

let me know if i missed some info .

 

[bill001g]

The limitation you put on the download manager is actually the best form of QoS you can do. It may not be called QoS but it is doing exactly the same thing.

You can't actually limit the download speed with anything in your house other than doing what you are and having the application request data at a slower rate. The key is the application having the ability to request that the server on the far end only send data at a certain rate. For now I will ignore the affect of tcp window size and data loss since it doesn't apply in your case. If a server were to send data at 4mbit/sec constantly it would still eat of the bandwidth coming to your house even if equipment in your house discarded it or tried to limit it.

What you are doing should work....especially if you set it lower than 3m. You have to be somewhat careful of setting it too close. The rates you see displayed are average rates over a couple minutes and it could spike higher for short periods of time.

What is your upload speed on your internet connection. How close are you to totally using that with the game. Although there is not a lot of upload traffic when you are downloading there is traffic going back confirming to the server you received the data.

Upload QoS you are in full control of if your router has any form of QoS setting you likely can set it to favor the game traffic over the file transfer.

 

[Oceans12]

The limitation you put on the download manager is actually the best form of QoS you can do. It may not be called QoS but it is doing exactly the same thing.

You can't actually limit the download speed with anything in your house other than doing what you are and having the application request data at a slower rate. The key is the application having the ability to request that the server on the far end only send data at a certain rate. For now I will ignore the affect of tcp window size and data loss since it doesn't apply in your case. If a server were to send data at 4mbit/sec constantly it would still eat of the bandwidth coming to your house even if equipment in your house discarded it or tried to limit it.

What you are doing should work....especially if you set it lower than 3m. You have to be somewhat careful of setting it too close. The rates you see displayed are average rates over a couple minutes and it could spike higher for short periods of time.

What is your upload speed on your internet connection. How close are you to totally using that with the game. Although there is not a lot of upload traffic when you are downloading there is traffic going back confirming to the server you received the data.

Upload QoS you are in full control of if your router has any form of QoS setting you likely can set it to favor the game traffic over the file transfer.

thx for replying
u say what i am doing should work. but thats the thing . its not working 😡

although ur reply helped me research a bit more

i set download limit even to 2mbps just now. and start playing and checking ping . it was not stable . it kept spiking to higher pings. (which is again useless)
i stopped steam downloading and used a download manager. kept strict 2mbps limit on that too. again same results . game was not stable . it kept spiking the pings . making it unplayable

i monitor my bandwidth from task manager > performance i noticed it kept spiking 4mbps of RECEIVE and then suddennly almost 0 . means its on average giving 2mbps . (to the app) . but does use 4mbps completely during those periods and thus increases my ping in game.

this means that limits using the STEAM or download managers are useles.....
i need something on an application level . maybe windows level ( i dont know the jargon ) to strictly prevent no more than 2-3 mbps receive for the downloads . so rest is fully free

my question again = any way to do that on software / os level . or i need a router 😡

my upload speed is 800kbps (and stays the same during downloading) . and game doesnt require much as the monitor showed never more than 200kbps SEND

 

[bill001g]

That is the problem with any form of QoS. I did not realize that the steam manager was doing it on the client side. I though it actually told the server to not send at any higher rate. Sorta like how you tell youtube to only send at normal video rate rather than high def.

Unfortunately that is how networking works. Even if you look at the rates you see in your PC they are average rates. A gigbit port actually always sends at 1gbit. So if you send 1gbit for 1 second and nothing for 9 seconds or you send 1gbit for 1/10 of a second and do nothing for 9/10 of a second 10 times. Both data streams get the same average rate of a 100mbs over a 10second average even though the traffic pattern is extremely different.

In QoS software even if you could set the rate it averages traffic over you can set it too low and in effect block the connection.

The discussion I was avoiding in the first post related to TCP window size since it is complex. The way it works is your pc says you can send a buffer of data of size x. If it receives it correctly it then increases this buffer. At some point it get some kind of error and reduce this buffer back to the minimum. It to a point is smart and reduces how fast it increases this buffer but it always tries to get the maximum.

Most QoS applications cause artificial errors...ie packet loss.. to try to trick this into have a smaller buffer. It works to a point but the application always assumes that the error was somewhat temporary and increase again so you always get these bursts of traffic.

Now there is software that attempts to manipulate this tcp window size but this is extremely complex to get a valid number. In addition to the averaging of the rates problem you now must take into account the latency to the server. The latency between the client and the server is the reason tcp window even exists. It was done so you did not have to wait to get confirmation that the first data was received before you sent more.

Hard to say what to do. There are QoS programs that you can adjust how it calculates the averages and some that can adjust the TCP window size for particular applications but to tune these you must have extremely strong understanding of how tcp data transfer is done. The key things you need extremely strong understanding of are what is called burst rates and the concept of tcp window size in general.