Question Mysterious network stutter that persists across hardware and software changes

[irregularityharbinger0251]

I've been dealing with this for years, at least as far back as 2020. After a few days of computer uptime, every few seconds there is a distinct 'stutter' pattern wherein incoming data halts, and is then received in bursts every half-second or so. This is especially noticed in online gameplay. I distinctly remember playing Team Fortress 2 back in 2020 and dealing with this exact issue.

Here's the tricky part, though: It doesn't matter whether I'm connected over Ethernet or Wi-Fi, whether I'm on AT&T or Spectrum, this stuttering persists. Even through changing motherboards and creating a fresh install of Windows!

I'm attaching a video showing what I mean: It's a clip of Warframe, a game I'm playing semi-frequently now. Notice how player positions freeze and then jump ahead. This is the 'stutter' I'm talking about and I have no idea where to begin to find out what is causing this.

 

[bill001g]

Why do you think it is a network problem especially since you have tested on different networks.

The easy test to show it is a network issue is to open a cmd window in the background and leave a constant ping run to a IP like 8.8.8.8. When the game sees a issue you can quickly switch to the other window and see if you have packet loss or very large latency spikes. The spikes will have to be over 100ms extra and quite a few of them to be noticeable in a game.

This is caused by so many thing. The most common though are video card/driver related. Hard to say since there is so much variation between how games use the video settings.

 

[irregularityharbinger0251]

I did run a continuous ping, and while I've seen there are spikes above the normal response time of 30ms, they don't correlate exactly with the stutter in game. I also don't quite think this is related to video cards either, because I've switched video cards from the 750 Ti to the 1060, along with frequent driver updates... yet this issue remains. It's not just a visual problem, because actions other players take such as kills don't immediately register. Only when everything jumps ahead to the next point where it "freezes" do I know what happened.

EDIT: Curiously, AnyDesk doesn't exhibit this problem even when games like Warframe do. Huh.