Please help me with my internet (gaming) issues

[Trevor 345]

Every time I play video games I get massive lag spikes every 15-30 seconds causing the game to be unplayable. This has been happening ever since I got wifi. The weird thing is, if I started a live stream the lag spikes would go away for some reason. It made no sense, but now the streams don't help anymore. The past month the lag spikes have become more often and unbearable. I have turned the breaker box off, tried a new router, reset the wifi and console, called my wifi provider, and nothing has worked. I am on the verge of quitting because it is impossible to play anymore. Please, if you see this I need help. I attached a video of the lag spike that occurs. It is the same pattern every time. I also attached a picture of the packet loss test, which looks very similar to the lag spikes.

[AndreiArgeanu]

A wired connection will most likely fix your issue. Though it's hard to determine what actually cause the lagspikes through wifi, whether it's an issue with the provider, router, or wifi receiver itself.

[Trevor 345]

I have tried a wired connection, and it still occurs.  I have literally tried just about everything.  The only thing I can think of is the roku tv in my house.  My parents watch tv on that, and the overall lag tends to be much worse.  Though, even if everything in the house is off, the big lag spikes happen no matter what.

[Applefreak]

3 minutes ago, Trevor 345 said:

Every time I play video games I get massive lag spikes every 15-30 seconds causing the game to be unplayable. This has been happening ever since I got wifi. The weird thing is, if I started a live stream the lag spikes would go away for some reason. It made no sense, but now the streams don't help anymore. The past month the lag spikes have become more often and unbearable. I have turned the breaker box off, tried a new router, reset the wifi and console, called my wifi provider, and nothing has worked. I am on the verge of quitting because it is impossible to play anymore. Please, if you see this I need help. I attached a video of the lag spike that occurs. It is the same pattern every time. I attached a picture of the packet loss as well.  

I'm not an expert on wifi gremlins but try disabling windows system sounds. That usually helps on wired connections. Used to be my biggest issue in BF3 and BF4 at the time. Do you have an alternative to wifi to rule it out? 

[Slottr]

-Merged-

 

Please don't triple post

[Trevor 345]

Just now, Applefreak said:

I'm not an expert on wifi gremlins but try disabling windows system sounds. That usually helps on wired connections. Used to be my biggest issue in BF3 and BF4 at the time. Do you have an alternative to wifi to rule it out? 

What do you mean by alternative?  Also, disabling windows system sounds probably would not work because this is occuring through console.  I can rule out it being the console, because my brother's console did the same thing, and I have played at someone else's home and it worked fine.  

[Trevor 345]

1 minute ago, Slottr said:

-Merged-

 

Please don't triple post

Okay sorry.  I am new to this site, and I didn't know.  I am just super frustrated with the issue, and I wanted people to find my issue.  

[BlackManINC]

14 hours ago, Trevor 345 said:

I have tried a wired connection, and it still occurs.  I have literally tried just about everything.  The only thing I can think of is the roku tv in my house.  My parents watch tv on that, and the overall lag tends to be much worse.  Though, even if everything in the house is off, the big lag spikes happen no matter what.

When you say you tried a wired connection, what does that mean? Did you connect it directly to a router? Access Point? Modem? Is the wire Cat 5E? Cat 6?

[Trevor 345]

On 12/17/2020 at 2:53 AM, BlackManINC said:

When you say you tried a wired connection, what does that mean? Did you connect it directly to a router? Access Point? Modem? Is the wire Cat 5E? Cat 6?

I have connected with an ethernet, and I have directly connected to the router.  I have no clue how to fix this.  If I connected straight to the router box, that means nothing in the house could be interfering.  The only thing possible is a bad wire or something.

[BlackManINC]

6 hours ago, Trevor 345 said:

I have connected with an ethernet, and I have directly connected to the router.  I have no clue how to fix this.  If I connected straight to the router box, that means nothing in the house could be interfering.  The only thing possible is a bad wire or something.

Not necessarily true. If simply connecting the wire directly to the modem/router was that bullet proof, they wouldn't have felt the need to release Ethernet cables with even better protection against electromagnetic interference. That's why I asked you what category the wire is you are using. If its Cat 5E, you have virtually no protection whatsoever beyond it them being twisted pairs. This doesn't mean that this is the real issue of course. Have you tried making some changes to your NIC adapter in the "network and sharing center" tab? 

[Trevor 345]

1 hour ago, BlackManINC said:

Not necessarily true. If simply connecting the wire directly to the modem/router was that bullet proof, they wouldn't have felt the need to release Ethernet cables with even better protection against electromagnetic interference. That's why I asked you what category the wire is you are using. If its Cat 5E, you have virtually no protection whatsoever beyond it them being twisted pairs. This doesn't mean that this is the real issue of course. Have you tried making some changes to your NIC adapter in the "network and sharing center" tab? 

I connected my playstation through the ethernet and nothing changed (same lag spikes).  Then, I removed the ethernet cable and connected a yellow cord (another ethernet)  from the black box directly into my playstation (same result again).  I am not sure what type of wire it is, also where is the network and sharing center?

[Falcon1986]

1 hour ago, BlackManINC said:

If its Cat 5E, you have virtually no protection whatsoever beyond it them being twisted pairs.

I’ve used shielded Cat5E before, so implying that all Cat5E has “no protection” is an over-exaggeration. Furthermore, it would take quite a bit of EMI to actually cause transmission problems for standard ethernet, even if it runs close to insulated home electrical cables. Cable damage or loss of insulation is likely to cause persistent quality problems.

 

39 minutes ago, Trevor 345 said:

I am not sure what type of wire it is...

It’s as simple as reading the writing on the cable itself. Not difficult.

 

40 minutes ago, Trevor 345 said:

also where is the network and sharing center?

You do use Windows, don’t you? If you don’t know, run a search from the Start menu.

 

@Trevor 345 - Let’s start from scratch and obtain some basic information:

1. What kind of internet connection do you have?
2. What speeds are you paying for?
3. What is the make/model of the ISP-provided unit?
4. If you have your own router behind the ISP-provided device, what is its make/model?
5. Do you have any other network devices between your computer and the ISP-provided device?
6. List the other active client devices on the network. Then run a test when all are off and gradually turn on 1 at a time to see when the latency spikes.

[Trevor 345]

1 hour ago, Falcon1986 said:

I’ve used shielded Cat5E before, so implying that all Cat5E has “no protection” is an over-exaggeration. Furthermore, it would take quite a bit of EMI to actually cause transmission problems for standard ethernet, even if it runs close to insulated home electrical cables. Cable damage or loss of insulation is likely to cause persistent quality problems.

 

It’s as simple as reading the writing on the cable itself. Not difficult.

 

You do use Windows, don’t you? If you don’t know, run a search from the Start menu.

 

@Trevor 345 - Let’s start from scratch and obtain some basic information:

1. What kind of internet connection do you have?
2. What speeds are you paying for?
3. What is the make/model of the ISP-provided unit?
4. If you have your own router behind the ISP-provided device, what is its make/model?
5. Do you have any other network devices between your computer and the ISP-provided device?
6. List the other active client devices on the network. Then run a test when all are off and gradually turn on 1 at a time to see when the latency spikes.

I have wireless connection running at 25 mbps.  I have a R6300v2 Netgear Router.  It is an older router, but I purchased a newer one to see if that made a difference and it did not.  I have turned everything off in the house and the lag spikes still occur.  Also, like I said, I connected the yellow cord directly from the black router box to my playstation.  This means, everything in the house can not connect to the wifi since it is directly in my playstation.  

[Trevor 345]

3 minutes ago, Trevor 345 said:

I have wireless connection running at 25 mbps.  I have a R6300v2 Netgear Router.  It is an older router, but I purchased a newer one to see if that made a difference and it did not.  I have turned everything off in the house and the lag spikes still occur.  Also, like I said, I connected the yellow cord directly from the black router box to my playstation.  This means, everything in the house can not connect to the wifi since it is directly in my playstation.  

Also, the cable is a cat .5 patch cable.

[Trevor 345]

Here is more packet loss photos....

[BlackManINC]

So, to be clear, you went to this screen as shown below and tried making some changes to the NIC adapter? What you can and cannot change will vary depending on your particular make and model. And, out of curiosity, what download speed are you actually paying for with your service provider? I think that matters as much as anything considering 300-400 mbps is the recommended speed for things like video streaming and online gaming, according to Comcast at least. You said for instance that your wireless runs at 25 mbps, and that's really not a lot to work with at all. Its probably not that much better with a wired connection if this is the case. 

 

[paddy-stone]

5 hours ago, BlackManINC said:

So, to be clear, you went to this screen as shown below and tried making some changes to the NIC adapter? What you can and cannot change will vary depending on your particular make and model. And, out of curiosity, what download speed are you actually paying for with your service provider? I think that matters as much as anything considering 300-400 mbps is the recommended speed for things like video streaming and online gaming, according to Comcast at least. You said for instance that your wireless runs at 25 mbps, and that's really not a lot to work with at all. Its probably not that much better with a wired connection if this is the case. 

 

Those figures are complete crap...

 

For example, the highest bitrate of a 4K movie I have is approx 60Mbps, and can stream fine on a 70Mbps internet connection. And that's not taking into account the fact that a lot of streaming sites compress or whatever too. I would say a relatively low rule of thumb would be around 100Mbps for a family internet connection. Obviously it depends on the family size and activities occurring simultaneously... but you have to live with what you have if there are no alternatives for better connections. I'd say if based on 4 people simultaneously using a connection, you'd easily be able to have a couple of them playing games, 2 or 3 1080p video streams, music playing etc with no problems with bandwidth.

[Trevor 345]

2 hours ago, paddy-stone said:

Those figures are complete crap...

 

For example, the highest bitrate of a 4K movie I have is approx 60Mbps, and can stream fine on a 70Mbps internet connection. And that's not taking into account the fact that a lot of streaming sites compress or whatever too. I would say a relatively low rule of thumb would be around 100Mbps for a family internet connection. Obviously it depends on the family size and activities occurring simultaneously... but you have to live with what you have if there are no alternatives for better connections. I'd say if based on 4 people simultaneously using a connection, you'd easily be able to have a couple of them playing games, 2 or 3 1080p video streams, music playing etc with no problems with bandwidth.

The highest speed my ISP offers is 25.  I can't get anything faster, and I can play video games with people on the internet and it works fine besides the lag spikes.  Though, like I said, even when nobody is on, it still does the lag spikes.  25 speed for one person is plenty.  Also, I did not go to those setting because I don't know what to do with any of those things.

[Trevor 345]

5 minutes ago, Trevor 345 said:

The highest speed my ISP offers is 25.  I can't get anything faster, and I can play video games with people on the internet and it works fine besides the lag spikes.  Though, like I said, even when nobody is on, it still does the lag spikes.  25 speed for one person is plenty.  Also, I did not go to those setting because I don't know what to do with any of those things.

Also, I watched a video about how pingplotter works, and they said the first line is your router.  My first line looks pretty good.  Then the video said anything below the first line is your ISP.  From my results, you can tell the lines below my router are much worse.

[BlackManINC]

3 hours ago, Trevor 345 said:

Also, I watched a video about how pingplotter works, and they said the first line is your router.  My first line looks pretty good.  Then the video said anything below the first line is your ISP.  From my results, you can tell the lines below my router are much worse.

I mean, you can try calling them and telling them exactly where packets are dropping, but since we're talking gaming, I'm not even sure how much the ISP can do. Beyond your modem/router, we're now talking about Border Gateway Protocol, and you have no control over how that routes data back and forth between you and a server except either the ISP or the people running the server you're gaming on itself.