[SOLVED] Severe packet loss & Gaming Routers/Routers in General

[DirtySZN]

So I am currently having severe packet loss issues while gaming(I primarily play Call of Duty competitively, so this is a massive issue for me).

I already have reached out to my ISP(Xfinity/Comcast) - They are telling me that I have wiring/cabling outside of my house that is causing the issue.
The only problem is that I can't fix it and have a technician come out because we just sold our home and my parents don't want to "fix" the internet...

So I am looking for other options... I have used the software "ExitLag" and it actually really helps my packet loss for the most part, but I can't use the software in Call Of Duty Vanguard as it does not let you use a "VPN service" for some reason.

I would like to stray away from using a VPN anyway. I would like to know if getting a "gaming" router would help my situation as I am only connected via ethernet from my gaming PC to Netgear CM1100 modem.

Any help here is really appreciated!

 

[Windows_Monkey]

Router wont help, the problem might be in the wiring connection s, are you having packet loss while browsing too? Is it slow.

First off, for the test go to command prompt. Press Windows logo key + R and type CMD in it. And press enter.
In the CMD window then type ping www.google.com
And then it will ping Google 4 times and give the result. In the result it will say the packet loss, it should be less than 2% as we are only pinging Google s fast servers. So. If the packet loss appears as 50 present or near, then there is a problem in the cables.

 

[DirtySZN]

Router wont help, the problem might be in the wiring connection s, are you having packet loss while browsing too? Is it slow.

First off, for the test go to command prompt. Press Windows logo key + R and type CMD in it. And press enter.
In the CMD window then type ping www.google.com
And then it will ping Google 4 times and give the result. In the result it will say the packet loss, it should be less than 2% as we are only pinging Google s fast servers. So. If the packet loss appears as 50 present or near, then there is a problem in the cables.

So I did what you asked and I got 0% packet loss to google.com

What should be my next step since the packet loss is only happening during gaming?
My internet is not slow searching for things, however, when I try to stream twitch it is very "stuttery" and "freezes" often.

Just so you get a bigger picture though - I don't get any hiccups at all when I stream on Youtube. And my packet loss is at its absolute worst in the late evening and night hours for some reason. It still happens earlier in the day, but I personally feel its not as bad. But at night everything is unplayable...

 

[bill001g]

A "gaming" router is for stupid people who blindly buy stuff because of marketing hype. All it is some preset QoS setting for some small number of games, not even all games. You pay extra so you can be lazy and configure the QoS. Now this might have a value to some people if QoS was really the solutio

First any form of QoS does abslutlely nothing if your are not overloading your internet connection. It tends to be almost impossible to overload a large internet connection. The second big problem is just turning on any QoS options will cap the bandwidth to about 300mbps because of the cpu. Even more importantly the form
of QoS implemented by most routers works very poorly. You need a form of QoS that is only implemented on third party firmware. This is even more cpu intensive capping the rate at about 100mbps so it is only good on smaller internet connection. BUT again most important none of this matters if you are not overloading
your internet connection.

If you ISP has told you the problem is outside your house why do you not just let them fix it. They do not charge anything or need to come in the house.

This is almost silly that you attempt to fix something that you know is outside your control by changing stuff inside your house.

 

[gggplaya]

You say "when I try to stream twitch it is very "stuttery" and "freezes" often "?? What comcast internet plan are you using?? The lower plans only have about 5mbps of upload bandwidth. Below is a table of the upload speeds depending on the plan your parent buy.

If you only have the 200/5 plan, then you can't twitch stream very well without a good QOS. You can buy an Asus router and load Merlin onto it to unlock some advanced QOS algorithms like FQ_Codel and CAKE (google these). But the algorithms are very processor intensive, so for a 200/5 plan they'll work great on most of Asus's mid-tier or better routers. But if your parents ever upgrade their internet to faster than 300mbps, the router's CPU may not be fast enough to run these algorithms.

Here's a list of Asus routers that currently support the more advanced QOS algorithms with Merlin: https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net/

Asus uses open source OpenWRT for their software. Therefore, they are required to publish their source code since it's open source. Merlin takes that source code and brings in a few more OpenWRT libraries to give more advanced features. His firmware installs just like factory firmware, so there's no need to do anything special. Just download it from his website and update the firmware like you would normally.

FQ_Codel and Cake are traffic shaping QOS algorithms. They'll alleviate your bufferbloat and move traffic in an equitable manner. When you twitch stream, your upload bandwidth is the bottleneck and this scenario is where these algorithms work the best.

 

[DirtySZN]

You say "when I try to stream twitch it is very "stuttery" and "freezes" often "?? What comcast internet plan are you using?? The lower plans only have about 5mbps of upload bandwidth. Below is a table of the upload speeds depending on the plan your parent buy.

If you only have the 200/5 plan, then you can't twitch stream very well without a good QOS. You can buy an Asus router and load Merlin onto it to unlock some advanced QOS algorithms like FQ_Codel and CAKE (google these). But the algorithms are very processor intensive, so for a 200/5 plan they'll work great on most of Asus's mid-tier or better routers. But if your parents ever upgrade their internet to faster than 300mbps, the router's CPU may not be fast enough to run these algorithms.

Here's a list of Asus routers that currently support the more advanced QOS algorithms with Merlin: https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net/

Asus uses open source OpenWRT for their software. Therefore, they are required to publish their source code since it's open source. Merlin takes that source code and brings in a few more OpenWRT libraries to give more advanced features. His firmware installs just like factory firmware, so there's no need to do anything special. Just download it from his website and update the firmware like you would normally.

FQ_Codel and Cake are traffic shaping QOS algorithms. They'll alleviate your bufferbloat and move traffic in an equitable manner. When you twitch stream, your upload bandwidth is the bottleneck and this scenario is where these algorithms work the best.

So to answer your question - the Xfinity plan that I have is the "Extreme Pro". And I actually get more than what I am supposed to get(I get 700+mbps download and 15-20mbps upload)..

Speeds were never the issue with me. I have always had at least decent speeds and they're accurate pretty much all of the time via ethernet.

 

[DirtySZN]

A "gaming" router is for stupid people who blindly buy stuff because of marketing hype. All it is some preset QoS setting for some small number of games, not even all games. You pay extra so you can be lazy and configure the QoS. Now this might have a value to some people if QoS was really the solutio

First any form of QoS does abslutlely nothing if your are not overloading your internet connection. It tends to be almost impossible to overload a large internet connection. The second big problem is just turning on any QoS options will cap the bandwidth to about 300mbps because of the cpu. Even more importantly the form
of QoS implemented by most routers works very poorly. You need a form of QoS that is only implemented on third party firmware. This is even more cpu intensive capping the rate at about 100mbps so it is only good on smaller internet connection. BUT again most important none of this matters if you are not overloading
your internet connection.

If you ISP has told you the problem is outside your house why do you not just let them fix it. They do not charge anything or need to come in the house.

This is almost silly that you attempt to fix something that you know is outside your control by changing stuff inside your house.

I wish it was much simpler than just getting Xfinity to come and fix it... My mother is very stubborn, but that is a topic not for this forum, haha...

 

[bill001g]

Not much you can do when you are not the one paying for the internet. That person always wins.

Not much you can do about this. It is like the city saying you have low water pressure in your house because of a water main break. No matter how many faucet or toilets you replace you will still have low pressure.

If the ISP say the packet loss is in cables outside the house then only they can fix it. Most people would be happy the ISP admits it is their problem rather than telling you reboot your router and pc for the 100th time.