[SOLVED] What provider should i go for gaming - streaming

Solution
Try using a different DNS server on your router, if that's configurable. If not, you can manually assign a DNS server on your PC. This really shouldn't do anything to help you because once the computer uses the dns to get the IP address, it really shouldn't matter. But it's worth a shot since it only takes a few minutes and it's free. You can use google DNS 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4
What are your current problems with your provider? Technical problems or just customer service issues? We can only help with technical issues.

I can't imagine any ISP would be better than fiber in regards to gaming. Latency should all be nearly the same in your neighborhood.
 

aurimasandrisiunas

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What are your current problems with your provider? Technical problems or just customer service issues? We can only help with technical issues.

I can't imagine any ISP would be better than fiber in regards to gaming. Latency should all be nearly the same in your neighborhood.
So my issues is that when i play CS:GO or Valorant game feels that im behind 1-2 SEC , terrible hitreg , feels like everyone using wallhacks, being play CS over 9 years, i know the game very well , and its unplayable, so this problem happend about 5 years ago, i was chagning my hardware, from mouse to cpu everything u name it, then i builded new pc eveyrthing is brand new, stil same, again new pc still same. Yesterday i was thinkning damn, the only thing i havent changed is my Interenet provider, so i took my setup, PC, Monitor , to my sisters, she is on fibre to but she is on BT , im with talktalk, and the prioblem was gone. Ive been playing in tournaments CS 1.6 , i remember when CS:GO came out i stopped playing , then i started again, it was fun ! and one day i woke up, i couldnt kill anyone, i barely played it , cuz with this problem isnt fun at all . And BTW u know whats funny, my interenet for download or browsing works fine, low ping 25-40. No packet loss. So i dont get it .
 
What's your current ISP speeds? What's the maximum available from your ISP?

If you can get fiber direct to the home(FTTP/FTTH), that would be the most ideal internet. But like in the U.S. very few people have that option. You'll need to do some local research. For most people, you'll only get fiber to the neighborhood cabinet. Then from there it's copper telephone lines to the house. Likely, if you're having problems with these lines, switching providers(most are just resellers) won't help you much.

You could also try Fixed Wireless Access broadband(NOT CELLULAR), if it's available in your area. Latency should be that much worse than fiber, in many cases very comparable.
 

aurimasandrisiunas

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What's your current ISP speeds? What's the maximum available from your ISP?

If you can get fiber direct to the home(FTTP/FTTH), that would be the most ideal internet. But like in the U.S. very few people have that option. You'll need to do some local research. For most people, you'll only get fiber to the neighborhood cabinet. Then from there it's copper telephone lines to the house. Likely, if you're having problems with these lines, switching providers(most are just resellers) won't help you much.

You could also try Fixed Wireless Access broadband(NOT CELLULAR), if it's available in your area. Latency should be that much worse than fiber, in many cases very comparable.
my upload is around 16-17 and download is 76 -70 . U say it wont change much, but then why in my sisters house was everything fine, she lives 5 min away from me
 
You should run pingplotter to see where (between your computer and the hosting server) your latency is coming from. Also if there are any dropped packets etc... That would give a much better idea of what's happening at your specific home.

I don't know who your provider is now, or who you're thinking about switching to. Basically, if you're just switching from one reseller to another reseller then it's just a matter of switching accounting. You aren't physically changing anything. So your connection won't be much different. Chances are the BT fiber line running to your neighborhood cabinet is just heavily congested and there is nothing you can do about that. Or if your copper lines are getting interference, there's nothing you can do about that either because all the resellers would use the same lines. SEE GRAPHIC BELOW.

ximg16649.png.pagespeed.ic.xffEq9gITJ.webp


You can try one of these other providers that aren't BT resellers(Plusnet, TalkTalk, and Sky). But it'll be a guess and check situation. Each cabinet is going to be different because every neighborhood has a different amount of customers for each service. Sky could be awesome in one neighborhood because they only have 2 customers on that cabinet. Then 10 miles down the road, Sky could be garbage because they have 100 customers on that cabinet. So, if you're going to try any of these providers, make sure there is a trial period and make sure you don't sign any long term contracts before testing it out for a while.

Now, there is another option I see in that graphic. That's Virgin Media's fiber to cabinet. Apparently this is based on newer G. FAST technology. Instead of using the copper lines to your house from the cabinet. Virgin runs Coax cable from the cabinet to your house. If this is available to you, then this may solve your problem by getting you away from that congested BT fiber line in the neighborhood cabinet or getting away from those copper lines which may have interference.
 
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aurimasandrisiunas

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You should run pingplotter to see where (between your computer and the hosting server) your latency is coming from. Also if there are any dropped packets etc... That would give a much better idea of what's happening at your specific home.

I don't know who your provider is now, or who you're thinking about switching to. Basically, if you're just switching from one reseller to another reseller then it's just a matter of switching accounting. You aren't physically changing anything. So your connection won't be much different. Chances are the BT fiber line running to your neighborhood cabinet is just heavily congested and there is nothing you can do about that. Or if your copper lines are getting interference, there's nothing you can do about that either because all the resellers would use the same lines. SEE GRAPHIC BELOW.

ximg16649.png.pagespeed.ic.xffEq9gITJ.webp


You can try one of these other providers that aren't BT resellers(Plusnet, TalkTalk, and Sky). But it'll be a guess and check situation. Each cabinet is going to be different because every neighborhood has a different amount of customers for each service. Sky could be awesome in one neighborhood because they only have 2 customers on that cabinet. Then 10 miles down the road, Sky could be garbage because they have 100 customers on that cabinet. So, if you're going to try any of these providers, make sure there is a trial period and make sure you don't sign any long term contracts before testing it out for a while.

Now, there is another option I see in that graphic. That's Virgin Media's fiber to cabinet. Apparently this is based on newer G. FAST technology. Instead of using the copper lines to your house from the cabinet. Virgin runs Coax cable from the cabinet to your house. If this is available to you, then this may solve your problem by getting you away from that congested BT fiber line in the neighborhood cabinet or getting away from those copper lines which may have interference.
Im with TalkTalk right now, my sister is on BT. With her interenet problem was gone, backed home now agian, and its unplayable. So im switching to BT thats my plan .
 
Im with TalkTalk right now, my sister is on BT. With her interenet problem was gone, backed home now agian, and its unplayable. So im switching to BT thats my plan .

Don't sign any long term contracts. Try it out the first month and see if it's better.
But honestly, pingplotter is a free program. I would run that first to make sure it's not a problem with your copper lines.
 

aurimasandrisiunas

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Please do not create multiple posts for the same topic https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/internet-issues-with-gaming.3658204/ https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/problems-with-games.3657562/#post-22038375

Did you try a different router or talk to your ISP about the issue? Maybe try a different modem from them?
Yep i did it loads of times, they runned tests didnt find anything at all , and they send me few months ago their brand new broadband, nothings changed .
 

aurimasandrisiunas

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Don't sign any long term contracts. Try it out the first month and see if it's better.
But honestly, pingplotter is a free program. I would run that first to make sure it's not a problem with your copper lines.
I have googled the excange area, so my sisters is the same as mines. so i download that pingplotter , There is huge packet loss bar completely RED . So whats going on? And my latency is huge 170 . So test is runing around 10 minutes, i have 40% packet loss sometimes even more
 
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You have to be very careful about using tools like this that you understand the results. Way too many people go "red bad" need to fix. actual problems you care about start in hop xx and then continue to end most times getting worse. If you have issue with just a hop in the middle but not hops farther down the chain and in particular the final node then it is just a issue with the testing and not a actual issue.

Now if you get 40% loss to the end node you have a really bad problem. The issue though is what hop does it start in. You are not going to get it fixed if the problem is in another ISP network. Realistically if you do not see issues in hop 1 (your router) or hop 2 (the first ISP router) there is not much you can do to fix it.
 
I have googled the excange area, so my sisters is the same as mines. so i download that pingplotter , There is huge packet loss bar completely RED . So whats going on? And my latency is huge 170 . So test is runing around 10 minutes, i have 40% packet loss sometimes even more

It all depends on which hop the packet loss and latency is at. Is it just 1 hop with the latency and PL?

Assuming Hop 1 is your router's ip address, are you getting lag between hops 1 and 2, or between hops 2 and 3?
 

USAFRet

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And you have to be careful about the concept of "which provider".

Given "fiber", all the providers you may sign up to and pay...all go through the same physical wire in your neighborhood.
There aren't 7 individual fiber lines running to your house, and you get to pick one.
Same with coax.

Really, you're just choosing what billing department you pay.
It's the same physical wire.
 

aurimasandrisiunas

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My packe loss comes to my router i guess , its the very first one at the top its called TTrouter , only there i get packet loss and its huge , i runned google google is like 40-60% packet loss, youtube over 70% twitch reaches 90% sometimes . Anyway thanks you all to trying to help me ! But anyway whats going on then ?
 
Do you ONLY see packet loss to the router but hops past that and most importantly the last hop do not show it. Or do you show that huge packet loss on all hops all the way to the end.

If it is only the router then it is something strange about your router. Think of it this way. If those were traffic lights and you were driving to work. If a traffic light was actually broken and caused delays as you passed through it you would actually increase the time it takes to get to work. If it actually has no effect then there is something wrong with the way the tool represents the data.

This is why these fancy tools are bad. You are actually better off using real ping command and the tracert to find the path. Doing the testing yourself lets you learn how this really works.
 
Now if this was a commercial router I would say it was trying to prevent denial of service attacks. They only allow a certain percentage of cpu or some fixed number ping per second. A home router this is more likely some strange software thing. I guess if you just leave a constant ping run to the router IP and see if it does the same thing.

Not sure in any case it is not a issue.

All that really matters is do you get loss or large random ping spikes to the end node. You only need to investigate when you have a actual problem.

Any problems you have with games must be something else. All you need is consistent latency the game will adjust for differences between player latency so that someone with low ping time does not have a advantage. It can't fix say 150ms of difference but most do a good job on less. So getting a ISP that is say 10ms faster would make no difference at all.

Maybe open a couple of cmd windows and leave constant ping in the back ground run to your router IP and the IP in hop 2 (this is the ISP first router). When the game has issue see if these windows show anything. If not it is likely the game itself. It is not uncommon for video driver issues to cause all kinds of strangeness.
 

aurimasandrisiunas

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Now if this was a commercial router I would say it was trying to prevent denial of service attacks. They only allow a certain percentage of cpu or some fixed number ping per second. A home router this is more likely some strange software thing. I guess if you just leave a constant ping run to the router IP and see if it does the same thing.

Not sure in any case it is not a issue.

All that really matters is do you get loss or large random ping spikes to the end node. You only need to investigate when you have a actual problem.

Any problems you have with games must be something else. All you need is consistent latency the game will adjust for differences between player latency so that someone with low ping time does not have a advantage. It can't fix say 150ms of difference but most do a good job on less. So getting a ISP that is say 10ms faster would make no difference at all.

Maybe open a couple of cmd windows and leave constant ping in the back ground run to your router IP and the IP in hop 2 (this is the ISP first router). When the game has issue see if these windows show anything. If not it is likely the game itself. It is not uncommon for video driver issues to cause all kinds of strangeness.
I have contacted my provider, they gonna send engineer to me to help me get it fixed . I know what u saying , about games and all but , i know its not the game, i know the game so well believe me, and sure hows that a game ? I took my PC to sisters house as i said tried with different provider , she lives just 5 minutes away froom me, i took my whole setup , and the problem was gone . The game was so nice to play . Just backed home , same thing , everyone is prefiring me, terrible hitreg. Im completely sure that is my internet problem. I have low ping tho. 25-40ms
 
Good news, is switching providers will also get you a new router. So maybe it's the router or maybe it's the copper lines running to you house.

If it's the router, well that's an easy swap and fix.

If the copper lines are bad, the router will queue packets and it'll show up at hop 1 as well. If the copper lines running to the green cabinet are bad, then swapping providers other than Virgin, will not make it any better. The engineer should be able to tell you how far your copper lines run to the network cabinet.
 

aurimasandrisiunas

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Good news, is switching providers will also get you a new router. So maybe it's the router or maybe it's the copper lines running to you house.

If it's the router, well that's an easy swap and fix.

If the copper lines are bad, the router will queue packets and it'll show up at hop 1 as well. If the copper lines running to the green cabinet are bad, then swapping providers other than Virgin, will not make it any better. The engineer should be able to tell you how far your copper lines run to the network cabinet.
the thing is i lived in other street before, everything was fine, then one day i woked up, and csgo was terrible and uplayable , same adress, then i moved to other street, still same. Changed my hardware 3 times, including mouse keyboard all the cables and everything i knew thats defintely not my hardware but i never thought about trying with other internet until thursday, then i took my setup to sisters its like 5 mins. And everything was so good , i enjoyed playing . Backed home , terrible game again, i swear, all fps shooting games i play is feels that im behind everyone else like 1-2 sec, getting prefired every single time. And what about my sister then ? is she with same copper lines as me or what ? She has BT Infinity and im with TalkTalk
 
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The way that the cabinets work is that BT runs the fiber lines to the cabinet and UK law requires them to unbundle the local loop. So BT allows TalkTalk and others to install their own virtual server software in the cabinet. Perhaps there are just so many TalkTalk customers on that cabinet that the server is out of processing power to handle all the traffic. That's the only way I think changing providers would help in your situation.

Virgin runs their own fiber to the cabinet and runs their own last mile coax to your house. Personally if they aren't much more money, I'd go with them. But you can try BT in your cabinet as well. I would just make sure there is some kind of trial period before you lock yourself into a long 2 year contract.