Why so laggy?

[JeanLu]

Hi,

since some days, all my 1v1 ladder games are laggy and I don't know why:
- My internet connection is very OK, everything reponds fine
- I have 100Mb/s fiber down and 50 Mb/s up
- Ping in game is very nice (about 120ms)
- I don't download anything while playing

But game is laggy, one replay (not sure you can see this from a replay however) : 3343545

Any idea on how to know why?
So far all my games were not laggy.

Thanks,
Jean

[JeanLu]

Hi again,
some details:
using ren_showNetworkStats, many lines like:
bottleneck data 5000 (1) 6000 ms
Lags occur when second figure (6000) is getting greater.
No idea why btw
CPU seems OK: 1 core on 4 at 100%, others quiet
Any explanation?

[JeanLu]

More tests:
- Used another computer, got update to latest FAF : same issue
- Updated network driver on original computer: same issue

It happens with every player I play against,and these ones do not experience troubles with others.
Any clue is welcome...

[JeanLu]

More tests (again):
- internet box rebooted : same issue
- using internet from my mobile : same issue

The only 2 things I can now imagine that could be responsible for that:
- Internet (mobile & home) is the same provider : Orange (I'm in France) but except that, internet is very fast
- A FAF patch has been deployed on previous week, that corresponds to the beginning of my troubles, could that be?

Am I the only one experiencing these lags?
A guru explaning ren_showNetsworkStats would be useful

Help !
Jean

[JeanLu]

Forgot to mention:
- Played with someone from Belgium : lag
- At the same time using TeamSpeak with him : no problem at all with TS (but still with FA)

And I believe the TS bandwidth is more or less the same than the FA one; so I'm more suspecting the FAF patch.

Help!
Jean

[Ionic]

It appears you have two issues:

First:
If one core is 100% then your CPU is too slow or overheating and under clocking.

Second:
Also, if ping is 6000 ms then you are losing packets, make sure you are not on wifi.

If you are on Ethernet which I doubt, then the issue is your switch, router or ISP hardware somewhere along the line.

To test to your router here: http://freeola.com/line-test/

Run it a few times and make sure you latency is below 500, and you have 0 packet loss.

If the above test passes to check your internal ping use command prompt

type Ipconfig

Write down the default gateway number (192.168.1.1 usually)

then type:

ping 192.168.1.1 -n 50

This ping should be always below 5ms.

If you see a problem here, it is your switch or router.

[Ionic]

Also, for additional information view this wiki article: http://wiki.faforever.com/index.php?tit ... _Sim_Speed

[JeanLu]

Hi Ionic,

thanks a lot for these hints, I will check on my PC but here are already some answers:
- I'm using wired Ethernet 1GB
- Will check against ping again but as per now, in game ping is always < 200ms even when lag occurs. For some reason, it seems that packets are delayed somewhere.
Strange thing also maybe: FAF is using 100% 1 core, I wrongly assumed that as FAF main thread (simulation) is highly using CPU, one CU only has to be to 100%, actually it is smarter than this as since Vista OS is able to balance threads among CPUs, so this 100%CPU charge on one core should be shared in some way. Will investigate that.

[JeanLu]

So, new tests:
- pings to my gateway are very good (<1ms)
- 1v1 to someone in belgium : same issue
- 1v1 to someone in France with another ISP : same issue
- 1v1 to someone in France with SAME ISP : same issue
- Tried to put PC in DMZ : same issue
- Set all ISP box firewall rules to let everything pass : same issue
- http://freeola.com/line-test/ result : 0 packet lost, 32ms latency, jitter 14ms
- Anti virus ran (Trend Micro) : nothing detected
- About 1 core to 100% : other people without this issue have also this kind of thing
- local network test using FA (not FAF because of same account) : NO issue

So the weirdest thing is that when lags occur, ping reported by ren_showNetstats is still very nice (<200ms) but there are some packets behind and bootleneck reports increasing time (last figure on line) from 0 too 7000ms, then back to some reasonable figure ... for some seconds
Here is an example when lag starts to occur: http://jlusetti.free.fr/images/FAnetstat.jpg
This 4th line can easily go to : bottleneck: data xxxx (1) 5000 ms

Maybe just a coincidence but my troubles started when latest patch was deployed. I don't think my ISP has some responsibility as it lags also with someone from this same ISP (Orange).

I don't dare to make any more 1v1 ladder games; this is really annoying.

Any suggestion welcome,
Jean

[E8400-CV]

Antivirus can be a cause too. They might not recognize the patched FAF and delay every packet and some a lot in order to sniff each packet before letting them go. Teamspeak can deal with delayed / lost packets by just temporarily giving shitty audio. There is no option to make FA work on 99% of packets.

I believe the reported ping is an average. If you have 99 packets with 200 ms and one with 2000 ms, it will report 218ms, but the 2000 ms packets make it unplayable.