High Ping/Server Connection issues when gaming and streaming

[rosemonttt]

Hello there!

 

I have come here becuase I am honestly lost for what to do. I cannot think of what else there is to do to fix these issues.

 

So basically, I am a streamer and I play games such as Modern Warfare and Apex Legends. I am having a TON of connection issues to the servers. I have gone in to my physical router settings and enabled QoS and set specific rules for the ports the games and streaming software use as well as forwarded those ports. I have also set up a static IP address for my computer as well as using Cloudflare DNS servers (not sure if this even affects gaming). I have done hours and hours of research and watching videos on it. I have gone into the actual port connection on my mobo and adjusted those settings appropriately based on countless videos and forums I have watched and looked through. I am so honeslty confused at what I should do here. 

 

My connection to Apex Legends servers is to the SLC data center

My connection to Modern Warfare servers I am assuming is to the LA servers but I don't think there is a way to really know what I connect to. 

 

My internet speeds based on numerous Speedtest.net tests to multiple servers near me: 310mbps download, 28-33mbps upload. I am running a Cat6 Ethernet cable.

 

My PC Hardware:

9th gen i7 9700F

EVGA Nvidia GeFroce 2080 Super XC Ultra

MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Plus mobo

Corsair H115i CPU AIO

750 Corsair modular PSU

 

Does anyone have any advice?

 

[BlackManINC]

1 hour ago, rosemonttt said:

Hello there!

 

I have come here becuase I am honestly lost for what to do. I cannot think of what else there is to do to fix these issues.

 

So basically, I am a streamer and I play games such as Modern Warfare and Apex Legends. I am having a TON of connection issues to the servers. I have gone in to my physical router settings and enabled QoS and set specific rules for the ports the games and streaming software use as well as forwarded those ports. I have also set up a static IP address for my computer as well as using Cloudflare DNS servers (not sure if this even affects gaming). I have done hours and hours of research and watching videos on it. I have gone into the actual port connection on my mobo and adjusted those settings appropriately based on countless videos and forums I have watched and looked through. I am so honeslty confused at what I should do here. 

 

My connection to Apex Legends servers is to the SLC data center

My connection to Modern Warfare servers I am assuming is to the LA servers but I don't think there is a way to really know what I connect to. 

 

My internet speeds based on numerous Speedtest.net tests to multiple servers near me: 310mbps download, 28-33mbps upload. I am running a Cat6 Ethernet cable.

 

My PC Hardware:

9th gen i7 9700F

EVGA Nvidia GeFroce 2080 Super XC Ultra

MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Plus mobo

Corsair H115i CPU AIO

750 Corsair modular PSU

 

Does anyone have any advice?

 

Do you know what the I.P address of those servers are? If you do, you can use the pathping command in the command prompt. It tells you if packets are being received and how fast it gets there from hop to hop, or router to router towards that particular server. It will also tell you if there is any packet loss and tells you exactly when it was lost on the entire route. If there is any loss, you can go into your routing table and replace that router with another one. I've never done it myself, so just make sure you know exactly what you are going before you do it, I only know it can be done. I'm not sure what your internet service provider can do for you in this instance either. From my understanding, sites like 'Speedtest.net' won't really do much for you, because its not actually testing the connection speed to the specific servers in question that you are actually having trouble with. All that site tells you is if you are getting the service quality you paid for, but your problem might not be on your end. 

 

[rosemonttt]

29 minutes ago, BlackManINC said:

Do you know what the I.P address of those servers are? If you do, you can use the pathping command in the command prompt. It tells you if packets are being received and how fast it gets there from hop to hop, or router to router towards that particular server. It will also tell you if there is any packet loss and tells you exactly when it was lost on the entire route. If there is any loss, you can go into your routing table and replace that router with another one. I've never done it myself, so just make sure you know exactly what you are going before you do it, I only know it can be done. I'm not sure what your internet service provider can do for you in this instance either. From my understanding, sites like 'Speedtest.net' won't really do much for you, because its not actually testing the connection speed to the specific servers in question that you are actually having trouble with. All that site tells you is if you are getting the service quality you paid for, but your problem might not be on your end. 

 

Apex doesn't release the IP addresses of their servers. I dont even know what servers I'm connected to on Modern Warfare. All I can do is test the ping and traceroute to battle.net and easo.ea.com or whatever they are to see. Attache are to PingPlotter tests to EA servers. Image 65252 is without Apex running and image 660050 is with Apex running.

[BlackManINC]

@rosemonttt

 

I'm assuming the "PL%" section in your ping plotter software means packet loss, and it does look like you are losing quite a few packets at certain hops. I never used that software so I can't really say. Here is what I came up with using pathping in the command prompt interface to those specific sites. Using this command gives you a little more information. It should look like mine if the connection works as intended. Don't mind the hops saying 100% loss. The round time trip stat (RTT) being blanked out means that particular router isn't accepting ICMP requests. As long as you don't see any frames being lost to the next hop (under the 'This Node/Link' section), its likely not an issue. This will tell you if the problem is on your end, or on their end. If it also shows packet loss at certain locations like it seems to be showing with your ping plotter software, it means its on their end. At that point you should be able to contact customer service and tell them where the problem is occurring, the I.P address, etc. 

 

 

Pathping to Easo.ea.com:

 

 

Pathping to battle.net:

[rosemonttt]

@BlackManINC 

hello there! so i did a path ping to both EA servers and Battle.net. Results from the cmd prompt are linked below! 

 

 

Route to easo.ea.com

 

 

Route to battle.net servers

[BlackManINC]

26 minutes ago, rosemonttt said:

@BlackManINC 

hello there! so i did a path ping to both EA servers and Battle.net. Results from the cmd prompt are linked below! 

 

 

Route to easo.ea.com

 

 

Route to battle.net servers

 There is some packet loss, I'm just not sure if its enough that it would be noticeable. Nevertheless, it does look like your connection isn't the problem in either case, its on their end. What kind of network issues are you seeing exactly? Is it lagging or just having trouble connecting to a match,  or the server rather? And one thing you can try is limiting which CPU threads the games and software you use to stream will operate on in the "affinity" option in the task manager. There are other ways, but I never messed around with it myself. The problem is, your CPU only has 8 threads available, so you never had a lot of room to work with to start with for streaming. So if the problem is on your end, it might be more of a hardware related issue as well. if you are trying to game while streaming, you should upgrade to a CPU with more threads, no less than 16 threads preferable, if not even more. Others may have their own suggestions. 

[rosemonttt]

@BlackManINC My stream is always fine, never an issue with that. In Apex i am getting a ton of packet loss and get a ton of rubber banding. In modern warfare I just know the servers are rough right now because of the increased traffic to them. It looks like its a game server issue and I just happen to be an unlucky person with my path to their servers through my ISP I guess.

[BlackManINC]

1 hour ago, rosemonttt said:

@BlackManINC My stream is always fine, never an issue with that. In Apex i am getting a ton of packet loss and get a ton of rubber banding. In modern warfare I just know the servers are rough right now because of the increased traffic to them. It looks like its a game server issue and I just happen to be an unlucky person with my path to their servers through my ISP I guess.

I'm not saying the streaming itself is the issue, its your CPU. It only has 8 threads, and a video game alone will use up to six threads on average. That barely leaves enough room for streaming, if at all. Are you still having issues gaming when not streaming? It looks like your path to the server is mostly fine with no more than a 1% packet loss at only one hop. I had an I7-4790K on my old computer, a 4 core 8 thread CPU, and it almost always gave me fits whenever I tried to record or stream while gaming.

[rosemonttt]

@BlackManINC still having issues with Apex with nothing else but the game open and it gives me issues. Very few issues with MW other than their badly optimized and bad PC servers through Blizzard and Battle.net

[BlackManINC]

3 minutes ago, rosemonttt said:

@BlackManINC still having issues with Apex with nothing else but the game open and it gives me issues. Very few issues with MW other than their badly optimized and bad PC servers through Blizzard and Battle.net

Ok, well, based on your ping plotter data, I would say the problem is on their end, at least in part, BUT, I would still consider upgrading if you are trying to stream or record. You really don't have enough threads for that kind of activity. 

[rosemonttt]

I am going to upgrade toi an i9 9900 KF as soon as I am able to 

[BlackManINC]

31 minutes ago, rosemonttt said:

I am going to upgrade toi an i9 9900 KF as soon as I am able to 

Good deal, because I think your CPU is whats bottle necking you. 

[rosemonttt]

2 hours ago, BlackManINC said:

Good deal, because I think your CPU is whats bottle necking you. 

weird thing is, I constantly monitor my usage % and my temps and both of those even with everything running full steam, are in good places and don't exceed what they shouldn't. So it could be that or it could be servers. Who knows.

[BlackManINC]

8 hours ago, rosemonttt said:

weird thing is, I constantly monitor my usage % and my temps and both of those even with everything running full steam, are in good places and don't exceed what they shouldn't. So it could be that or it could be servers. Who knows.

I think its a combination of server side issues and your low thread count cpu. The low thread count is certainly not helping you.