[SOLVED] Ping latency spikes / Packet loss in online games

[meme3ssar]

I get a lot of spikes from 100 ms to 250+ ms every other minute while playing online games (eg. Overwatch), making it unplayable. My internet speed is good (25 down & 2 up). WIRED connection.

I tested using cmd the commands "ping 192.168.1.1 -t" AND "ping google.com -t" and then repeated again while using fast.com at the same time as a stress test.

I noticed the ping only spiking for the google.com command while using fast.com (Not spiking in 192.168.1.1 command). This makes sense because online games involve downloads and uploads where my ping spikes. I just don't know what it means and how to fix it. Please help!

Edit: I also tried the QoS or Bandwidth control fix, where I set my upload to 50-80%, but there are still latency spikes

 

[failboat]

How many people use the internet and what type of connection is it?
Many areas are upgrading past 25Mbs so check to see if your package is competitive.

Any time you fully use the down or up you will get latency. If your router can provide a summary of bandwidth usage you can see if it's maxed when you are having lag.

only a few QoS really help with latency. if you use it wrong it will make it worse in many cases. cake or fq_codel are two that work well and only ship on a handful of devices. setting a limiter on all traffic will just decrease your throughput. so any downloads will take longer and the latency will last longer.

limiters are the most commonly used qos. you would have to give slices of your bandwidth totaling to 90% out to clients. the downside is if your slice is only 20% then you can't use the other 80% even if it's not being used. various qdisc try to solve this like the two I mentioned. There are downsides to any of them and no matter what you can only use about 90% of what you pay for.

 

[ss202sl]

ping is the amount of time you get a response from a server. Every piece of equipment(swith or router) between you and that server will add a little(or a lot) to this time. It seems that soewhere between you and the google servers there is some equipment issue. You probably have no control over it.

 

[failboat]

ping is the amount of time you get a response from a server. Every piece of equipment(swith or router) between you and that server will add a little(or a lot) to this time. It seems that soewhere between you and the google servers there is some equipment issue. You probably have no control over it.

this is somewhat true for your base ping. latency increases from buffering are a design of networking equipment to increase throughput. qos works by buffering on your equipment rather than buffering out of your control. cake or fq_codel doesn't use fifo for buffering. it separates each flow and buffers the largest.

 

[meme3ssar]

How many people use the internet and what type of connection is it?
Many areas are upgrading past 25Mbs so check to see if your package is competitive.

Any time you fully use the down or up you will get latency. If your router can provide a summary of bandwidth usage you can see if it's maxed when you are having lag.

only a few QoS really help with latency. if you use it wrong it will make it worse in many cases. cake or fq_codel are two that work well and only ship on a handful of devices. setting a limiter on all traffic will just decrease your throughput. so any downloads will take longer and the latency will last longer.

limiters are the most commonly used qos. you would have to give slices of your bandwidth totaling to 90% out to clients. the downside is if your slice is only 20% then you can't use the other 80% even if it's not being used. various qdisc try to solve this like the two I mentioned. There are downsides to any of them and no matter what you can only use about 90% of what you pay for.

What % of max should I set download and upload? I don't share my connection with anyone, but you said using the full 25 down speed will cause lag, so should I set it to like 20 Mbps?

 

[failboat]

What % of max should I set download and upload? I don't share my connection with anyone, but you said using the full 25 down speed will cause lag, so should I set it to like 20 Mbps?

What type of qos are you using? It's only going to work if it is setup right. cake and fq_codel are both round robin so they don't need much setup at all. Many other types require traffic to be dropped into buckets to work. All the ubiquiti routers have fq_codel and the ERX is a great one. you can't buy anything with cake. you can flash openwrt to a router to get cake. cake is much better for DSL. on DOCSIS they will both perform around the same.

With cake or fq_codel you can start at 75% then check dslreports bufferbloat test. If it's A+ keep increasing it towards 100%. This only tests AQM which those two have. AQM isn't the only way to reduce ping. shaping your upload is optional. most bufferbloat will be from the download side.

 

[failboat]

since you are the only one using the internet you might want to try and figure out what program is swamping your line while you are playing. if it ends up only being 1 program you might be able to throttle that program. most routers dont have the tools to help you find it. you can check your windows task manager and sort by network to see what your pc is doing. iftop is a program on routers that is similar. I can find which client is swamping the line quickly. it uses a lot of resources so it's not going to be available on most routers.