Question Packet loss with new optic fiber connection ?

[User1990]

This is a bit more problematic.

So first your jitter is actually very low. You compare the average to the minimum and maximum. You are much closer to the minimum number so your jitter is very low. You get some very random high spikes that likely will cause you little problems. The max is still only about 100ms. If you get a lot of them it will be detectable but in general there is so much random stuff in games you will not see a spike here and there.

The larger problem is you are still seeing packet loss. You pretty much ignore hop 3 since hop 4 does not show a issue. You would have to collect more data to be sure.

What this one show is likely a problem with the connection between your ISP and google. Google technically is a ISP because of how large they are. It is hard to say who owns what equipment and what agreements there are for traffic. You are never going to find this.

Maybe try 1.1.1.1 instead and see what you see. 1.1.1.1 is cloudflare dns.

In general you can't really fix issue this far into the network. In effect you need to get a different ISP that has better connection to other ISP. Not a realistic option for most people. Another version of getting a different ISP is to use a VPN service. This is extremely hit and miss. For a vpn to "fix?" a issue like this you need a path to the VPN server inside your ISP that has no problem AND then the VPN service must have a path to the sites you want to access that is better than your ISP. No way to predict if this will work other than trial and error. The best vpn services to consider are ones that market to gamers. These ISP have purchased private connections to the data centers that some of the major game companies host their server in. This means for that limited set of games/servers these ISP can have better performance.

A vpn really is grasping at straws. It is more used in say asia where many ISP do not pay for direct access to undersea fibers that say run to the EU or the USA where many game servers are hosted. It does in some cases work for other users but it there are no guarantees.

Thank you very much once again.

Before they put me under cgnat I didn't have bursts of packet loss and network problem appearing that often and game been feeling laggier ever since.
I used to drop a few packets here and there but game did not feel that bad, on the other hand I wasn't on prime time that game and maybe that has to do with it.

I'll ask them to put me on the previous settings/ip/dns I was on and I'll try a vpn either way and see if I get lucky or not.

 

[User1990]

This is a bit more problematic.

So first your jitter is actually very low. You compare the average to the minimum and maximum. You are much closer to the minimum number so your jitter is very low. You get some very random high spikes that likely will cause you little problems. The max is still only about 100ms. If you get a lot of them it will be detectable but in general there is so much random stuff in games you will not see a spike here and there.

The larger problem is you are still seeing packet loss. You pretty much ignore hop 3 since hop 4 does not show a issue. You would have to collect more data to be sure.

What this one show is likely a problem with the connection between your ISP and google. Google technically is a ISP because of how large they are. It is hard to say who owns what equipment and what agreements there are for traffic. You are never going to find this.

Maybe try 1.1.1.1 instead and see what you see. 1.1.1.1 is cloudflare dns.

In general you can't really fix issue this far into the network. In effect you need to get a different ISP that has better connection to other ISP. Not a realistic option for most people. Another version of getting a different ISP is to use a VPN service. This is extremely hit and miss. For a vpn to "fix?" a issue like this you need a path to the VPN server inside your ISP that has no problem AND then the VPN service must have a path to the sites you want to access that is better than your ISP. No way to predict if this will work other than trial and error. The best vpn services to consider are ones that market to gamers. These ISP have purchased private connections to the data centers that some of the major game companies host their server in. This means for that limited set of games/servers these ISP can have better performance.

A vpn really is grasping at straws. It is more used in say asia where many ISP do not pay for direct access to undersea fibers that say run to the EU or the USA where many game servers are hosted. It does in some cases work for other users but it there are no guarantees.

So basically riot told me that my ISP's routing to their servers is bad and I should send them their peeringdb so they can contact them directly(which I did).
Hope they can work it out and resolve it.

 

[bill001g]

They likely sitting their meeting rooms laughing at you if there even read it.

Lots and lots of lawyers and money involved in agreements on how traffic passes between different ISP and companies.

In the end the money you pay them for years of service will not cover the costs of them even thinking about changing how they connect to riot. They likely do not have a direct connection anyway since that would mean riot would have purchased ISP services directly from them. The game companies do pay to have direct connections to multiple ISP but it is not likely they have one to your ISP.

What is much more likely is they have some router or connection that is overloaded near your house in their network or maybe as it connects to another ISP. They likely know they have a capacity issue and have scheduled some kind of upgrade. Could take quite a bit of time for them to do this. They might have to say get permits from the city to run fibers under the streets. The ISP will never admit or explain their business decisions like this especially to a end home users. If you were a big corporate customer who pays millions of dollars a year maybe they would think about talking to you.

In the end you only real option is likely to consider VPN unless you can get a different ISP connection to your house.

 

[User1990]

They likely sitting their meeting rooms laughing at you if there even read it.

Lots and lots of lawyers and money involved in agreements on how traffic passes between different ISP and companies.

In the end the money you pay them for years of service will not cover the costs of them even thinking about changing how they connect to riot. They likely do not have a direct connection anyway since that would mean riot would have purchased ISP services directly from them. The game companies do pay to have direct connections to multiple ISP but it is not likely they have one to your ISP.

What is much more likely is they have some router or connection that is overloaded near your house in their network or maybe as it connects to another ISP. They likely know they have a capacity issue and have scheduled some kind of upgrade. Could take quite a bit of time for them to do this. They might have to say get permits from the city to run fibers under the streets. The ISP will never admit or explain their business decisions like this especially to a end home users. If you were a big corporate customer who pays millions of dollars a year maybe they would think about talking to you.

In the end you only real option is likely to consider VPN unless you can get a different ISP connection to your house.

I sadly cannot find a vpn that works/helps.

Their answer is that they want to send a tech to observe the issue and see the pingplotter/game meters first person.
Are they gonna come and watch me play a game in order to observe it ?
Well if that's a requirement for them to fix it, no problem either way.
EDIT : They called me and said that they actually don't need to come over and just need a bit more time to look into it, on the other hand they told a guy that has the exact similar issue that they are gonna send a tech and run tests while he is there to find a solution.

The errors in pingplotter seem to happen on my gateway ipv4 more often when I'm playing a game of Valorant and pinging the Valorant IP ,which probably tells there is a problem with the connection between them ?
It happens when pinging the google dns on idle either way tho.


Based on what I'm hearing it's not just if they can fix it, but also if they want to fix it.
Seems weird to me that they don't have good connection on big companies like riot, unless there is a different issue they need to fix.

 

[bill001g]

Seems weird to me that they don't have good connection on big companies like riot, unless there is a different issue they need to fix.

Depends on the ISP. RIOT is a tiny company in comparison to many ISP. RIOT is no different that you they buy internet services from a internet provider. You can just as easily ask why RIOT does not buy connections to every large ISP.
Although RIOT Is pretty big they are not scale of google or amazon (the data center part) where the company itself has enough network infrastructure to almost be considered a ISP.

 

[User1990]

Depends on the ISP. RIOT is a tiny company in comparison to many ISP. RIOT is no different that you they buy internet services from a internet provider. You can just as easily ask why RIOT does not buy connections to every large ISP.
Although RIOT Is pretty big they are not scale of google or amazon (the data center part) where the company itself has enough network infrastructure to almost be considered a ISP.

Interesting, I understand.
But since ipv4 been having errors, I believe they have issue on their side too and not just the routing.
Well hopefully they can fix it.

They updated me and said the packets that get lost are from riot to them and not from them to riot.
Don't know if that makes any difference.

 

[User1990]

Depends on the ISP. RIOT is a tiny company in comparison to many ISP. RIOT is no different that you they buy internet services from a internet provider. You can just as easily ask why RIOT does not buy connections to every large ISP.
Although RIOT Is pretty big they are not scale of google or amazon (the data center part) where the company itself has enough network infrastructure to almost be considered a ISP.

So I found out exit lag works even tho it never worked with my previous ISP's.
With previous isp's it introduced +20% packet loss and +40 ping.
With this one it completely eliminated packet loss and even gave me -3 ping.

Games do feel a bit laggy tho, could VPN introduce a different kind of lag ?
Or is it just something else I should look out for?

 

[bill001g]

In theory vpn should always increase the latency. Your data has to go all the way to the vpn company data center and then go to the game company data center. It does work in some cases because companies like exitlag in effect buy a private fiber connection to the some game companies data center locations. Very hit and miss if it really works.

There is cpu overhead since every packet is now encrypted but almost all modern cpu contain the AES encryption instructions so the overhead is much less. You would need to watch the cpu load while you play games. Unless you have a rather underpowered CPU the encryption should be able to run on one of the cores the game is not using. Modern games do use multiple cores but they seldom use 100% of all of them. Most times when a game has a cpu limitation it is becuase it needs more cpu clock on the main thread not that it needs more threads.\

Hard to say if there is some interaction between the exitlag vpn process and the game. Exitlag in particular specializes in gamer vpn so they would likely avoid any conflicts with the games they are supporting.

 

[User1990]

In theory vpn should always increase the latency. Your data has to go all the way to the vpn company data center and then go to the game company data center. It does work in some cases because companies like exitlag in effect buy a private fiber connection to the some game companies data center locations. Very hit and miss if it really works.

There is cpu overhead since every packet is now encrypted but almost all modern cpu contain the AES encryption instructions so the overhead is much less. You would need to watch the cpu load while you play games. Unless you have a rather underpowered CPU the encryption should be able to run on one of the cores the game is not using. Modern games do use multiple cores but they seldom use 100% of all of them. Most times when a game has a cpu limitation it is becuase it needs more cpu clock on the main thread not that it needs more threads.\

Hard to say if there is some interaction between the exitlag vpn process and the game. Exitlag in particular specializes in gamer vpn so they would likely avoid any conflicts with the games they are supporting.

Honestly it felt insanely nice during nighttime so I doubt it's the vpn? That has been the case many times and I don't understand why my PC lags during daytime.
Maybe something I changed on my PC made the difference yesterday.
Will test again today. My CPU is ryzen 7600x so I don't think I'll have an issue with cpu.

Latency wise exit lag has helped with providing -3ms and fixed my packet loss 99% of the time.
I might lose 5-10 packets 1/5 games but that's it, usually I lose 0 packets.

 

[bill001g]

Time of day issues tend to not be technical issues...unless you have some kinda of backup scheduled or something else that is running. It should be obvious by looking at the various tabs in the resource monitor. Of course microsoft loves to download they stupid patches without asking permission.

When things only happen at certain times of day it is normally other people causing the issue. This can be extremely complex to find and most times you can not really do much about it. In the rare case someone else in your house was doing something at those times.

Not sure you are not using wifi if I remember right so it is not your neighbor coming home from work. It is extremely rare to overload a fiber connection. This almost seems like it is load on the game company servers but that is purely a guess.

 

[User1990]

Time of day issues tend to not be technical issues...unless you have some kinda of backup scheduled or something else that is running. It should be obvious by looking at the various tabs in the resource monitor. Of course microsoft loves to download they stupid patches without asking permission.

When things only happen at certain times of day it is normally other people causing the issue. This can be extremely complex to find and most times you can not really do much about it. In the rare case someone else in your house was doing something at those times.

Not sure you are not using wifi if I remember right so it is not your neighbor coming home from work. It is extremely rare to overload a fiber connection. This almost seems like it is load on the game company servers but that is purely a guess.

I'm not using wi-fi no and it can usually be like that for days.
In the past I had issues which got fixed with a double conversion UPS. So I guess I had a few electrical issues.
Don't know if they randomly come back from time to time to be honest.

Could also be the servers aswell for sure.

 

[gggplaya]

When I switched to 500/500 frontier fiber, I used their router for the first 30 minutes just to make sure everything was set up properly and working. Then switched to my own router. The fiber went into the ONT box, then an EERO router they gave me. I ran a bunch of speed tests in those 30 minutes and I can tell you whatever firmware they have in those routers is junk. The download seemed fine at 500mbps, but the upload was around 6mbps. It was total garbage. I didn't bother trying to figure it out and immediately connected it to my own custom built router.

The TLDR is don't think the ISP router can't have issues. If you're playing on a PC near the ONT, I would plug the ethernet cable directly into your PC and try it. If the packet loss goes away, then the router is the issue.

 

[User1990]

When I switched to 500/500 frontier fiber, I used their router for the first 30 minutes just to make sure everything was set up properly and working. Then switched to my own router. The fiber went into the ONT box, then an EERO router they gave me. I ran a bunch of speed tests in those 30 minutes and I can tell you whatever firmware they have in those routers is junk. The download seemed fine at 500mbps, but the upload was around 6mbps. It was total garbage. I didn't bother trying to figure it out and immediately connected it to my own custom built router.

The TLDR is don't think the ISP router can't have issues. If you're playing on a PC near the ONT, I would plug the ethernet cable directly into your PC and try it. If the packet loss goes away, then the router is the issue.

Speed wise I'm fine, I get 940down and 940up but their router needs restart everyone 2-3 days else it bugs and I have even more packet loss and wi-fi drops signal.
I don't have ONT, fiber goes directly on router. I would like to bridge a router on it or something but I don't know how it works since they don't use pppoe.
Would bridging this one and using a different one on it work or can it not work as modem?

I'm using exit lag for the past days and I've been fine packet loss wise but after a few games it bugs and it requires a pc restart to work correctly again. Any clue why that happens ?
I try re-enabling exit lag too and see if it works.

 

[gggplaya]

Speed wise I'm fine, I get 940down and 940up but their router needs restart everyone 2-3 days else it bugs and I have even more packet loss and wi-fi drops signal.
I don't have ONT, fiber goes directly on router. I would like to bridge a router on it or something but I don't know how it works since they don't use pppoe.

I'm using exit lag for the past days and I've been fine packet loss wise but after a few games it bugs and it requires a pc restart to work correctly again. Any clue why that happens ?
I try re-enabling exit lag too and see if it works.

I would find a way to bridge the router into your own, just for the 2-3 day resets alone.

 

[User1990]

I would find a way to bridge the router into your own, just for the 2-3 day resets alone.

Yeah they told me they will contact me tomorrow evening to do the bridging and I'll have to put mine on DHCP and I'll be fine.
Main router will work as a modem and that's it.

 

[User1990]

I would find a way to bridge the router into your own, just for the 2-3 day resets alone.

Would having bridged modem and using a router on it affect gaming negatively in any case ?
(Increased latency and such) I've done it before, but always wondered.

 

[bill001g]

Would having bridged modem and using a router on it affect gaming negatively in any case ?
(Increased latency and such) I've done it before, but always wondered.

Not that you would ever be able to measure. Technically every device you pass though adds latency. Do you really want to try to calculate how long it takes a device to move data from a ethernet port to the memory and then back again. Even if you do does the number really matter.

The added total extra latency for running the device that way for years is likely much less than the time it took to post this question.

 

[User1990]

Not that you would ever be able to measure. Technically every device you pass though adds latency. Do you really want to try to calculate how long it takes a device to move data from a ethernet port to the memory and then back again. Even if you do does the number really matter.

The added total extra latency for running the device that way for years is likely much less than the time it took to post this question.

Gotcha, thank you very much!
Might have to upgrade my router soon, even tho this edgerouter x can handle gigabit.
Will see how it goes!

 

[User1990]

Not that you would ever be able to measure. Technically every device you pass though adds latency. Do you really want to try to calculate how long it takes a device to move data from a ethernet port to the memory and then back again. Even if you do does the number really matter.

The added total extra latency for running the device that way for years is likely much less than the time it took to post this question.

Seems like I'm having a small hit of jitter every time something that uses bandwidth opens in the background and such with the edgerouter and also while speedtesting, will probably fix it self after a while ?
Sometimes it happens randomly too.
Other router worked the same way the first day in, then stopped on it's own.
Nothing to worry about either way I'm pretty sure.

 

[gggplaya]

Seems like I'm having a small hit of jitter every time something that uses bandwidth opens in the background and such with the edgerouter and also while speedtesting, will probably fix it self after a while ?
Sometimes it happens randomly too.
Other router worked the same way the first day in, then stopped on it's own.
Nothing to worry about either way I'm pretty sure.

Edgerouter won’t be able to use SQM (FQ_Codel) at gigabit speed. You’ll probably have to turn that off.

To use advanced SQM at gigabit speed, I built my own x86 router from old computer parts.

 

[User1990]

Edgerouter won’t be able to use SQM (FQ_Codel) at gigabit speed. You’ll probably have to turn that off.

To use advanced SQM at gigabit speed, I built my own x86 router from old computer parts.

Ya I'm aware of that, I have SQM off so I can use hardware offload to reach gigabit speeds.

 

[gggplaya]

Ya I'm aware of that, I have SQM off so I can use hardware offload to reach gigabit speeds.

You seem knowledgeable. I would consider building my own router. I built mine using old parts and bought an Athlon 3000G processor for $50 to put in it. I could have use a much beefier processor I already had, but I wanted the lowest IDLE wattage possible Then bought some old Intel Service NICs on ebay for $20. The Athlon 3000G has more than enough power to software traffic shape using CAKE or FQ_Codel at gigabit speed. I've very happy with it running OpenWRT.

If you goal is to offer equitable bandwidth and prioritize gaming, then you can't beat CAKE. No lag and zero issues once I implemented my custom router. I tested it with every tablet, smartphone, tv box, game console and computer in my house all downloading at the same time. Running game updates on steam, streaming 4k Netflix etc..... Then playing some games to see if there's any lag. There were none, the algorithm works very well. Then I reran the test and turned off CAKE, and as you guessed, there was lots of packet loss and problems in game.

 

[User1990]

You seem knowledgeable. I would consider building my own router. I built mine using old parts and bought an Athlon 3000G processor for $50 to put in it. I could have use a much beefier processor I already had, but I wanted the lowest IDLE wattage possible Then bought some old Intel Service NICs on ebay for $20. The Athlon 3000G has more than enough power to software traffic shape using CAKE or FQ_Codel at gigabit speed. I've very happy with it running OpenWRT.

If you goal is to offer equitable bandwidth and prioritize gaming, then you can't beat CAKE. No lag and zero issues once I implemented my custom router. I tested it with every tablet, smartphone, tv box, game console and computer in my house all downloading at the same time. Running game updates on steam, streaming 4k Netflix etc..... Then playing some games to see if there's any lag. There were none, the algorithm works very well. Then I reran the test and turned off CAKE, and as you guessed, there was lots of packet loss and problems in game.

That's a great idea but I want to believe I wont have the need of this when I'm running 1gbps speed.
Like having issues when using the FULL speed is normal, but I want to believe people will at least limit their steam to a lower speed when downloading.
Issues with packet loss and problems in game mostly come when the UPLOAD speed is maxed out.
That's almost impossible to do without running a speedtest imo, well unless you forget to stop the seeding on a bunch of torrents but noone really uses torrent in my house.

Router felt like it needed a bit to adapt to the internet connection? I know that is not a thing but looks like it ?
Now it runs well, but will see when I have people at home aswell.

I'm not THAT knowledgeable to create my own router btw
I had a friend that used to have an internet cafe and he once told me he would bring me one of these expensive routers, but unfortunately he never did.

 

[gggplaya]

That's a great idea but I want to believe I wont have the need of this when I'm running 1gbps speed.
Like having issues when using the FULL speed is normal, but I want to believe people will at least limit their steam to a lower speed when downloading.
Issues with packet loss and problems in game mostly come when the UPLOAD speed is maxed out.
That's almost impossible to do without running a speedtest imo, well unless you forget to stop the seeding on a bunch of torrents but noone really uses torrent in my house.

Router felt like it needed a bit to adapt to the internet connection? I know that is not a thing but looks like it ?
Now it runs well, but will see when I have people at home aswell.

I'm not THAT knowledgeable to create my own router btw
I had a friend that used to have an internet cafe and he once told me he would bring me one of these expensive routers, but unfortunately he never did.

2 people updating Call of Duty is all it takes to saturate gigabit internet. It all depends on how many people are in your house and what they're doing. If all the other people in the home and just streaming netflix, youtube, tiktok etc.... then you won't have any issues. If you have 3 roommates with playstations, all downloading call of duty on launch day, you'll saturate gigabit and get lag. You can set steam, xbox or playstation to limit download speeds, but unless you have full control over everyone's pc's and consoles, then it's hard to enforce. It's better to have a more robust router to handle any situation.

Packet loss can happen with both download and upload. I used to play alot of Rainbow 6 Siege, it tells you on screen if the lag is on the server side or the client side. It's what led me down the rabbit hole or researching better router traffic shaping algorithms and ultimately building my own router. Making your own router is no different than building your own PC. You just have to add an extra 2 ethernet ports.

 

[User1990]

2 people updating Call of Duty is all it takes to saturate gigabit internet. It all depends on how many people are in your house and what they're doing. If all the other people in the home and just streaming netflix, youtube, tiktok etc.... then you won't have any issues. If you have 3 roommates with playstations, all downloading call of duty on launch day, you'll saturate gigabit and get lag. You can set steam, xbox or playstation to limit download speeds, but unless you have full control over everyone's pc's and consoles, then it's hard to enforce. It's better to have a more robust router to handle any situation.

Packet loss can happen with both download and upload. I used to play alot of Rainbow 6 Siege, it tells you on screen if the lag is on the server side or the client side. It's what led me down the rabbit hole or researching better router traffic shaping algorithms and ultimately building my own router. Making your own router is no different than building your own PC. You just have to add an extra 2 ethernet ports.

Upload being maxed out vs download being maxed out lags the network more is what I meant, at least in my case.
I usually don't have issues, I live with 2 other people.
1 only watches series once in a while and scrolls the internet, and never downloads unless there is an automatic windows update.
The other one plays games like me and always asks me before he downloads.
If I run into any problems I'll follow your suggestions and try to make a router!
Sounds fun! I've been building pcs since I was a kid and I would love to try it out.
Thank you very much for the information!