I've been experiencing an issue with online games for about a year now. It originally would happen off and on but it's at the point now that I experience it practically every time I play. The games in question are Halo The Master Chief Collection (Halo 3) and Splitgate but predominately Halo MCC.
In Halo 3 I play on a 240hz monitor at 1080p. When the game acts up I experience some stuttering and the enemy players, their animations, and bullet projectiles/physics all feel broken. Enemies just sort of stutter around the map. It's subtle but constant. When they spin around it's like the animation of them turning is missing or skipping frames. My bullets stop connecting. The game doesn't really lag though, at least not in the traditional sense. Enemies don't really teleport. They just stutter around, vibrate everywhere. It feels like there's a slight but constant desync that prevents me from doing damage to players or being able to get shots to connect. It also feels like the sound effects get sort of messed up. Mostly gun shots feel out of sync. The whole game just feels off. When the game is working fine, however, everything is smooth. The game doesn't stutter. All my shots begin to connect.
I experience this problem so much that when it's actually working. I'll routinely shoot someone and expect the shot to not connect but it will connect and it will surprise me. This never happens when the game's acting up. Also, I can tell when the game's going to act up because when I spawn in and I move around for the first time, if the game stutters once I know it's going to have problems. When the game is working fine, it doesn't stutter upon me spawning in.
This happens irrespective of ping. I can go into Halo MCC's network settings and only play on my local server which is roughly 20ms ping, and the game still does it just as bad. It's so bad that I'd rather play on a 150ms server without these problems than I would play at 20ms ping with these problems.
The game also stutters briefly multiple times per game as well, mostly when I turn to face an enemy. (This is the main problem I have in Splitgate, but it also happens in Halo).
For example, last night I played one match of Halo. It was on a small map. As soon as I spawned I headed towards the back corner of the map, away from enemy players. The moment I turned and faced the middle of the map, where enemies were, the game stuttered. Then someone began shooting me and they were skipping around everywhere.
This problem is NOT present when I play single player campaign, and it doesn't seem to be present when I hop in a private lobby by myself, but it's hard to tell because mostly the issues relate to other players. In single player the game runs flawlessly with 0 hiccups. Not even any brief stutters, nothing. Perfectly smooth. But immediately after I hop into matchmaking the game feels completely broken.
I'll be playing with a full team of friends and nobody else will experience any of the problems I do ever. I can watch people's gameplay and tell they don't experience it either.
As for Splitgate, it's sort of the same thing. Facing an enemy player, or engaging them in a gunfight causes the game to stutter, but I don't play Splitgate as much. Also with these problems Splitgate isnt really playable anyway because the gunfights are brief and if I miss the first shot due to my game stuttering it's pointless.
Now when I experience these issues my FPS doesn't dip. None of my components overheat, or even get close to overheating.
I've done network speed tests, I've done benchmark tests for my CPU, GPU, ram, and SSD. My PC is way overkill for Halo 3 which could run on a potato. It's a port, not a remaster so it's essentially the same game from 2007 just with an FOX toggle and higher FPS.
I've tried setting my FPS to 240fps rather than uncapped. I've tried lowering the graphics and resolution. My monitor is a esports monitor and doesn't have GSYNC and I dont use VSYNC due to the added input lag of it.
I've tried 2 ISPs (Yes I currently have Verizon Fios gigabit and Comcast Xfinity gigabit, both are fiber).
My current PC build is:
Asus Tuf 3070 ti OC
Ryzen 5600x
3600Mhz DDR4
1TB SSD (m2 nvme I believe)
Asus tuf 750W bronze PSU
Benq Zowie XL2546K 1080p 240hz DYAC + monitor
The first two nights on Comcast the game felt just amazing! It was like playing on easy mode. ALL my shots registered effortlessly. I was hitting the wildest shots. The enemy players' hitboxes literally felt twice as large! But after 2 days the problem came back. I then tried using a VPN for a couple of weeks. The VPN introduced a good bit of lag but it did fix these problems. After a week of using the VPN now it doesnt make a difference. Now no matter which ISP I'm on or whether I'm on a VPN the problems are pretty much always present and I don't know what to do.
I'm always hardwired to my ISP with a high quality cable.
I've tried Windows 11 and Windows 10. I've tried rolling back updates. I've tried using older drivers for everything. I've cleaned my drive and reinstalled Windows from scratch over a dozen times.
I bought an external lan card
I've tried multiple SSDs, an RX580 8gb GPU, a 2700x 2 Ryzen CPU, 2 AMD motherboards, different 2 sets of ram, and a different PSU, I even bought an Intel i51200k (I believe that was the model number, it was almost $400) and an expensive Intel board and it still had issues. I ended up returning it. I've tried an older PC too and it seemed to have the same problems.
I was trying all this different hardware not sure if it was an internet problem or not. <Mod Edit>, I'm still not sure if it's the internet or not and I have 2 damn ISPs..
I've tried multiple controllers, 2 monitors on my main PC. 3 different pc cases. Now, I had been experiencing other issues while I was swapping these parts out so it's hard to say if my issues were present during all of them, but I know the issues were still present on the Intel board and both of my AMD boards.
I've tried running the game in a clean boot,
Disabling the factory overclock on my GPU,
unparking my CPU cores,
windows optimizations,
I also have an UPS that I have my PC and monitor plugged into.
I've tried a lot more...
I've posted on the hardforum.com and pchelpforums.net (both under this same username), and in the Microsoft community, under a different name. Lots of very helpful people in all of those places but unfortunately we haven't been able to fix it yet.
So please, if anyone cares to give me some ideas. I'm all out of them and I'm getting depressed over it! It's at the point where I'm about to throw in the towel lol and sell my gear and stop stressing over it.
Edited
In Halo 3 I play on a 240hz monitor at 1080p. When the game acts up I experience some stuttering and the enemy players, their animations, and bullet projectiles/physics all feel broken. Enemies just sort of stutter around the map. It's subtle but constant. When they spin around it's like the animation of them turning is missing or skipping frames. My bullets stop connecting. The game doesn't really lag though, at least not in the traditional sense. Enemies don't really teleport. They just stutter around, vibrate everywhere. It feels like there's a slight but constant desync that prevents me from doing damage to players or being able to get shots to connect. It also feels like the sound effects get sort of messed up. Mostly gun shots feel out of sync. The whole game just feels off. When the game is working fine, however, everything is smooth. The game doesn't stutter. All my shots begin to connect.
I experience this problem so much that when it's actually working. I'll routinely shoot someone and expect the shot to not connect but it will connect and it will surprise me. This never happens when the game's acting up. Also, I can tell when the game's going to act up because when I spawn in and I move around for the first time, if the game stutters once I know it's going to have problems. When the game is working fine, it doesn't stutter upon me spawning in.
This happens irrespective of ping. I can go into Halo MCC's network settings and only play on my local server which is roughly 20ms ping, and the game still does it just as bad. It's so bad that I'd rather play on a 150ms server without these problems than I would play at 20ms ping with these problems.
The game also stutters briefly multiple times per game as well, mostly when I turn to face an enemy. (This is the main problem I have in Splitgate, but it also happens in Halo).
For example, last night I played one match of Halo. It was on a small map. As soon as I spawned I headed towards the back corner of the map, away from enemy players. The moment I turned and faced the middle of the map, where enemies were, the game stuttered. Then someone began shooting me and they were skipping around everywhere.
This problem is NOT present when I play single player campaign, and it doesn't seem to be present when I hop in a private lobby by myself, but it's hard to tell because mostly the issues relate to other players. In single player the game runs flawlessly with 0 hiccups. Not even any brief stutters, nothing. Perfectly smooth. But immediately after I hop into matchmaking the game feels completely broken.
I'll be playing with a full team of friends and nobody else will experience any of the problems I do ever. I can watch people's gameplay and tell they don't experience it either.
As for Splitgate, it's sort of the same thing. Facing an enemy player, or engaging them in a gunfight causes the game to stutter, but I don't play Splitgate as much. Also with these problems Splitgate isnt really playable anyway because the gunfights are brief and if I miss the first shot due to my game stuttering it's pointless.
Now when I experience these issues my FPS doesn't dip. None of my components overheat, or even get close to overheating.
I've done network speed tests, I've done benchmark tests for my CPU, GPU, ram, and SSD. My PC is way overkill for Halo 3 which could run on a potato. It's a port, not a remaster so it's essentially the same game from 2007 just with an FOX toggle and higher FPS.
I've tried setting my FPS to 240fps rather than uncapped. I've tried lowering the graphics and resolution. My monitor is a esports monitor and doesn't have GSYNC and I dont use VSYNC due to the added input lag of it.
I've tried 2 ISPs (Yes I currently have Verizon Fios gigabit and Comcast Xfinity gigabit, both are fiber).
My current PC build is:
Asus Tuf 3070 ti OC
Ryzen 5600x
3600Mhz DDR4
1TB SSD (m2 nvme I believe)
Asus tuf 750W bronze PSU
Benq Zowie XL2546K 1080p 240hz DYAC + monitor
The first two nights on Comcast the game felt just amazing! It was like playing on easy mode. ALL my shots registered effortlessly. I was hitting the wildest shots. The enemy players' hitboxes literally felt twice as large! But after 2 days the problem came back. I then tried using a VPN for a couple of weeks. The VPN introduced a good bit of lag but it did fix these problems. After a week of using the VPN now it doesnt make a difference. Now no matter which ISP I'm on or whether I'm on a VPN the problems are pretty much always present and I don't know what to do.
I'm always hardwired to my ISP with a high quality cable.
I've tried Windows 11 and Windows 10. I've tried rolling back updates. I've tried using older drivers for everything. I've cleaned my drive and reinstalled Windows from scratch over a dozen times.
I bought an external lan card
I've tried multiple SSDs, an RX580 8gb GPU, a 2700x 2 Ryzen CPU, 2 AMD motherboards, different 2 sets of ram, and a different PSU, I even bought an Intel i51200k (I believe that was the model number, it was almost $400) and an expensive Intel board and it still had issues. I ended up returning it. I've tried an older PC too and it seemed to have the same problems.
I was trying all this different hardware not sure if it was an internet problem or not. <Mod Edit>, I'm still not sure if it's the internet or not and I have 2 damn ISPs..
I've tried multiple controllers, 2 monitors on my main PC. 3 different pc cases. Now, I had been experiencing other issues while I was swapping these parts out so it's hard to say if my issues were present during all of them, but I know the issues were still present on the Intel board and both of my AMD boards.
I've tried running the game in a clean boot,
Disabling the factory overclock on my GPU,
unparking my CPU cores,
windows optimizations,
I also have an UPS that I have my PC and monitor plugged into.
I've tried a lot more...
I've posted on the hardforum.com and pchelpforums.net (both under this same username), and in the Microsoft community, under a different name. Lots of very helpful people in all of those places but unfortunately we haven't been able to fix it yet.
So please, if anyone cares to give me some ideas. I'm all out of them and I'm getting depressed over it! It's at the point where I'm about to throw in the towel lol and sell my gear and stop stressing over it.
Edited
Last edited by a moderator:
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