Question new ISP ping problems only in specific games

[TGDimension]

Hey guys, after switching to a new ISP provider last month I've been having inconsistent problems with ping, specifically spiking/high ping in certain games (Overwatch 2, Apex Legends and XDefiant have all had issues. League , Valorant, Eternal Return and a handful of gacha games have not). Ranging from ~70ms (my normal ping range) fluctuating upwards of 300ms, then coming back down and repeating every so often. I am leaning towards this being a system problem with a setting somewhere, as my main PC is the only one that experiences this issue, with my siblings not having any problems as well as my second PC system being fine as well in the same room, same extension (have swapped ethernet cables and problem persists on the same machine) and when I tried hopping into game at the same time on both systems, my main PC sat at 230ms while the other one was at 90ms. Same account, same location (firing range) and I even ran a speedtest at the same time which resulted in being near identical, so I can't imagine it being strictly a network problem and instead a network setting that may be having an effect with this system and the new ISP. (I have considered firewall being a problem but have not been able to run any conclusive testing to see if it is a possibility or not)

system specs: ryzen 7 5800X3D, rtx 3080,
motherboard: rog strix b450-f gaming
modem: AccessPoint CBN CH8568 cable modem
wired ethernet connection with TekSavvy ISP
using ethernet LAN port on the motherboard, total connections 3 PCs on LAN and 4~5 handheld devices (iphones, androids, ipad etc.) on Wi-Fi

regular speed test results are consistently ~940mbps down 104mbps up 15ms to local servers, and then still a decent 600mbps 104mbps 40ms to servers in the areas the game servers should be, so I am leaning towards ruling out the internet/ISP (especially since no one else in the same household has issues) but I am completely stumped on how to diagnose this, or how it's even possible for one system to have problems only in specific games.

 

[Ralston18]

This cable modem?

https://www.amazon.ca/AccessPoint-Gateway-802-11ac-Gigabit-Ethernet/dp/B0BHKQD5L6

Actually (if I correctly identified the device) that is a combined modem/router. Are there any other routers in your network?

On your main PC run "ipconfig /all" without quotes via the Command Prompt.

Copy and paste the full results here.

Do the same for the second PC - for comparison purposes.

Be sure to indicate which PC the ipconfig results are from.

 

[bill001g]

I would look for any software that is loaded that claims to accelerator or favor certain traffic like games over other traffic. This software many times is loaded in the bloatware loaded with motherboards...asus is one of the worst offenders. Look for any software like that but cfosspeed tends to be a common name. Uninstall anything like that.

I would double check the games. Leave a constant ping run in a background cmd window to some IP like 8.8.8.8. When the game reports issue switch to this window and see if you see similar issues. If the normal ping does not correspond then it is the game telling lies somehow.

 

[TGDimension]

This cable modem?

https://www.amazon.ca/AccessPoint-Gateway-802-11ac-Gigabit-Ethernet/dp/B0BHKQD5L6

Actually (if I correctly identified the device) that is a combined modem/router. Are there any other routers in your network?

On your main PC run "ipconfig /all" without quotes via the Command Prompt.

Copy and paste the full results here.

Do the same for the second PC - for comparison purposes.

Be sure to indicate which PC the ipconfig results are from.

yes that is the correct modem/router, and no that would be the only router connected (default one we got from the ISP)

tried pasting the results but couldn't post a reply so using pastebin instead

main PC (the one with ping problems):
https://pastebin.com/R6vjZAvJ

second device
https://pastebin.com/6CVM0M22

just to add on I have tried the ipconfig /flushdns etc. steps on this PC with problems and the issues still persisted

 

[Ralston18]

Try the following:

On the Main PC disable IPv6.

Change the DNS Servers to Google at 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

Are those ipconfig /all results the full results? Another thing to check is to ensure that only one network adapter (either wired or wireless as applicable ) is enabled on any given PC.

(Barring special requirements which I do not believe are applicable to your requirements).

Did you look for any game accelerator software etc. and run pings as posted by @bill001g in Post #3?

 

[TGDimension]

Try the following:

On the Main PC disable IPv6.

Change the DNS Servers to Google at 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

Are those ipconfig /all results the full results? Another thing to check is to ensure that only one network adapter (either wired or wireless as applicable ) is enabled on any given PC.

(Barring special requirements which I do not believe are applicable to your requirements).

Did you look for any game accelerator software etc. and run pings as posted by @bill001g in Post #3?

Yes those were the full results of ipconfig /all through command prompt on both systems, and I do not have any wireless adapters connected so should be able to rule that out as well.

I did also look around for any game accelerator software as suggested by bill001 and could not find any. As for the ping test I loaded up Overwatch to test and my ping would not go up/was stable so I will have to test it another time when I run into these issues again

In the meantime I will try changing my DNS and disabling IPv6 and see if I notice any changes, thanks

 

[bill001g]

Random network issue are a massive pain to find. You have to get lucky. I tend to run ping 24x7 on my machine just so it is always there if I feel something strange happen.

If a real ping command does not have issue but games do this is also very hard to find the source. You will find people say that adjusting the video settings fixes a network issue. Sounds crazy since the video never goes over the network. What can happen is the game could be stuck rendering a frame or something. When it finally is done it checks for its ping packet. It will blame all the extra delay on the network even though the response was sitting there waiting to be read while the game was busy doing other stuff.

In a way that is better than if ping to common IP like 8.8.8.8 has no issue but the game company does. That would be something in another ISP network. Highly unlikely in your case since other machine work and both would be affected.

 

[TGDimension]

After running a couple different games for a few hours, my ping (to 8.8.8.8) give me very confusing results
For Overwatch, there were times where my ping in-game would rise but the ping in command prompt was steady, and other times where the ping in command prompt was higher than normal, but stable in-game. Overall the in-game results did not seem to be consistent with what was shown in command prompt half the time, and the other half it would be consistent.

However in Apex Legends things were a lot worse; whenever I had the issues of ping fluctuating from 70~300ms (including some packet loss), the results in command prompt were still steady. There would still be times where the ping in command prompt was higher than normal while the ping in-game was stable like mentioned above, but the extremely high ping and packet loss was not consistent or bringing up anything on command prompt at all. The lag was also consistent throughout the Apex session, while in Overwatch it was more a here and there situation and quite bearable.

 

[bill001g]

Since it is multiple games I would try other video drivers...maybe newer maybe older. This is hard to say because it all depends on how the game is really measuring ping times. You ping on the cmd line uses almost no cpu so it likely can get what it needs. Game tend to use a couple cores very heavily and leave other idle. If the game is running its ping in the same core as the rest of the game code it may get wrong results.

Way to complex to even guess at since game companies seldom release any useful details.

In general you just need to guess some setting in the game to change.

What causes issues for games is not a increase in ping time by itself. It is inconsistent ping time that vary from packet to packet.
A large part of the reason games measure ping time is to adjust the data they are sending you. The software will predict your location in game say 100ms from the point the data is being generated. When your machine gets this data 100ms later it wants it to represent what it thinks the world will look like. This works pretty well when the ping time is consistant. If the game is constantly adjusting the delay it will make wrong predictions because it is using the wrong delays.