[SOLVED] My wired internet keeps lag spiking when others use youtube, twitch or even when browsing the internet

[Reksi007]

Hello!

My internet (DSL) is very bad. Whenever I am playing a multiplayer game without anyone being on the internet, my internet will be stable and fine. But as soon as someone on the same internet stars watching youtube or twitch my ping will be spiking like crazy. Is there a way to fix this lag spikes by adjusting the router? I don't remember exatctly the last time I did research on this but I believe that my router doens't have the QoS option available. Would buying a better router be the best option?

Thanks in advance,
Alex

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

Sounds like you do not have enough bandwidth to go around for all the devices at the same time. What is your bandwidth? 6mbps, 10, etc?

 

[bill001g]

QoS is not some magic thing it does not create more bandwidth. All it does is decide who get the bandwidth they want and who does not. Someone is going to get less performance and this is not a technical problem. You need some form of agreement of who is going to get priority. The person watching twitch or youtube may not consider your game as important.

It sounds like you have a very small internet connection if just youtube or twitch can disrupt your game. This means you are using 100% of your bandwidth. It could be either upload or download bandwidth but more likely download. Things like twitch use about 8mbit on the highest streams so this is not like someone is watching 4k netflix and using 30mbps.

Your largest issues is you have a DSL modem in your router. There are very limited selection of DSL routers so finding one with good QoS is going to be a challenge. In addition QoS is very hard to implement on small internet connections. There is quite a bit of overhead in how you need to implement it for it to work well. QoS really is only effective on say a 50mbps internet connection. Larger connections do not really need it because it is less common to exceed the bandwidth other than some random downloads.

Maybe as a first step ask the other people to lower the resolution of the video they are watching.

 

[Reksi007]

Tested it right now on speedtest... While my brother is watching twitch it gave me 23 mbps and it's still lag spiking.

 

[Reksi007]

Ingame sometimes as simple browsing the internet results in lagspike.

 

[gggplaya]

Unfortunately with DSL, even a game console doing a game updates can cripple the network. So you need bandwidth control of your network.

You need to get a router that can use the FQ_Codel or Cake algorithm. These algorithms will do traffic shaping and throttle bandwidth in a fair manner, instead of right now where it's just a free for all in your house. 1 user can hog nearly all the bandwidth for themselves which isn't fair at all.

The slower DSL connection doesn't require too big of a processor to traffic shape, most ARM based routers can shape from 100-300mbps depending on the model, which is plenty for DSL. Your best bet is to get a DSL modem or use your current DSL router in BRIDGE MODE so it acts as a modem. Then buy a router with a more advanced QOS traffic shaping algorithm based on FQ_Codel or Cake.

I recommend the ASUS routers where you can install Merlin software. It's very stable, reliable and the routers have great wifi performance, here's a list of routers currently supported: https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net/

Once you get a good router, set the QOS to use FQ_Codel and set your maximum download and upload bandwidths to about 85% of your average speedtest. The software will throttle all users in a fair manner and target 85% of your max bandwidth, the 15% of overhead will prevent lag spikes as the bandwidth control is not instantaneous. It throttles in a manner to make it unperceptible to the end user that it's slowing. You shouldn't have any more lag spikes due to someone hogging bandwidth.