Question My ping only spikes when I play ANY online multiplayer game, why?

[M1LK]

I have an up to date modern pc, I have had 2 ISP technicians attempt to resolve this issue "all is good on their end." I have explained this issue to a routing technician "all is good on their end." and I am running out of ideas. Both my router and modem are relatively new, both have been factory reset multiple times and all software is up to date, I have ran several virus scans and checked for any driver updates. I have ran multiple tests involving (tracert 8.8.8.8) and (PING -1 xxxx -n 200) all of which seem to be perfectly functional until I play any online multiplayer game. I have also made sure that all network and ethernet cables have been replaced and functional. Now upon playing any multiplayer game my ping will spike a relatively consistent rate usually within 10-20 seconds and I get random values anywhere from 500ms to 1400ms to "did not respond." If anyone has the slightest recommendation or solution please let me know I have never experienced an issue like this before.

 

[bill001g]

So when you say "ping will spike". Are you actually running a ping command from a CMD window or is this something game is telling you. Many games tell massive lies, they will get stuck doing video processing and when they finally check the buffer for a ping response packet they will blame all the elapsed time on the network, when in reality it was sitting there all the time.

I would always leave a constant ping run in a background window so you can tab over and check if it agrees with the game.

I would also try to leave a ping run another device, even your phone if that is the only option. The wifi might cause issues but if they happen at the same time as the game detects them it likely is a real network issue.

If you see it on multiple devices it could be a load related problem. This would be extremely common if you were using all your bandwidth say downloading some large file with steam that attempts to use the maximum bandwidth. A game it much more unlikely unless you have a very small upload rate....ie under 1mbps.

 

[M1LK]

yes this exactly what I did, I would run this say 300 times just watch a youtube video do some other things that aren't to demanding and I would get nothing for ping spikes, afterwards I would start the ping run and launch a game, for example I used fortnite which can be a relatively demanding game along with valorant these are just primary examples I have done many other online games. All of which begin to spike in ping upon PLAYING, not being idled in the launcher or just sitting in a lobby. As for the overload on bandwidth and devices, I have the best plan for my internet providers who are cancom which I doubt should be the problem, though I am no expert and it easily could be.

-forgot to mention this only happens on my PC and the ping spikes in CMD correspond with the packet loss in game.

 

[bill001g]

I would check for any so called "gamer" network software. Many motherboards and video cards come with bloatware that tries to claim it gives games priority. You want to uninstall any software like this it tends to cause all kinds of strange issues.

Games use almost no bandwidth, if it was a bandwidth issue other device would also be affected. When it is just the one pc there has to be something that is getting overloaded. Maybe the resource monitor will give you a clue.

A ping in a cmd window is strange to be affected since it needs almost no resources.

 

[M1LK]

Yeah so when I pull up the resource monitor you mentioned I can see that it is also spiking. any idea what this means? I am also confused on where to start looking for installed component software.

 

[bill001g]

It is hard to say since every program/game is a bit different. Games tend to be very graphics heavy and many times making changing to video settings can fix performance issues.

 

[M1LK]

I haven't experienced any performance issues, I have all my games on the lowest settings upon downloading