Consistent frame drop on university campus

[Cyan Cobra]

Hello,

 

Whenever I am home (on a wireless connection) and playing Overwatch, I consistently get around 120 fps. However, every time that I am on campus, while the ping is fine, I only get 30-60 fps, regardless if I am using a wired or wireless connection. The internet, especially with the Ethernet runs smooth and fast. Also, my settings (in-game and system) are never touched at home or on campus. I have been to home and back quite a few times throughout the semester and the results are always consistent, so it is no coincidence. Is there perhaps a certain setting on Windows that is usually set to automatically change certain settings depending on your location, which causes frame drops on games? Any help with this matter would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Synawke]

Internet doesnt affect FPS. are you plugged in to the wall charger at home? and not on campus?

[unkn0wn1]

if you are on battery your laptop is probably using power saving features and lowering your fps to give you a longer battery life.

[Damascus]

24 minutes ago, Synawke said:

Internet doesnt affect FPS. are you plugged in to the wall charger at home? and not on campus?

Not necessarily true, PUBG was a great example of internet having a direct effect on gameplay before they fixed the netcode

[Cyan Cobra]

40 minutes ago, Synawke said:

Internet doesnt affect FPS. are you plugged in to the wall charger at home? and not on campus?

I didn't think the Internet was responsible at the first place, but I am being lead to believe that for some unknown reason, am I getting different, but consistent results at home and on campus. At home, I am always wireless. On campus, I am usually on Ethernet plugged to my Dorm's wall outlet. Also, wire or wireless on campus, the frames both low, although, of course, there is no lag when it is wired. The only issue appears to be the frames.

[Cyan Cobra]

42 minutes ago, unkn0wn1 said:

if you are on battery your laptop is probably using power saving features and lowering your fps to give you a longer battery life.

My battery power is always left on best performance, so I do not believe it is that.

[Synawke]

3 hours ago, Cyan Cobra said:

I didn't think the Internet was responsible at the first place, but I am being lead to believe that for some unknown reason, am I getting different, but consistent results at home and on campus. At home, I am always wireless. On campus, I am usually on Ethernet plugged to my Dorm's wall outlet. Also, wire or wireless on campus, the frames both low, although, of course, there is no lag when it is wired. The only issue appears to be the frames.

and the laptop charger? at campus are you gaming on battery?

[Synawke]

2 hours ago, Cyan Cobra said:

My battery power is always left on best performance, so I do not believe it is that.

if you are gaming on battery. without the laptop plugged in. you will get worse performance. no matter what battery settings you have 

[kirashi]

21 minutes ago, Damascus said:

Not necessarily true, PUBG was a great example of internet having a direct effect on gameplay before they fixed the netcode

While you're not wrong, you say that as if they've actually fixed the netcode! Haha! Ha Ha Hahaha!  That's a funny thought. Ahem OK but seriously, PUBG has gotten a lot better with each patch over the last 3 months, so I do appreciate where they're heading with stability and optimization. They're still a long ways off from properly optimized development though, but should get there before Star Citizen is released.  

 

@Cyan Cobra as others have said, if you're using a laptop and the framerates change that much, it definitely won't be internet related. You can test this by playing an offline training match. Your issue is 100% battery related - even if you set battery performance to BEST, you will still NOT see the same performance as if the laptop is plugged into AC power from the wall. Batteries cannot (yet) deliver the same power requirements as an AC wall outlet, so despite having a best performance setting, your laptop is not getting enough power to run the CPU/GPU at high enough wattage to achieve clock speeds that will deliver the same performance as being plugged in.

 

Please plug in your laptop to the wall and re-test your framerates. Source: IT Consulting experience over the past 10 years has taught me invaluable troubleshooting skills.

[Cyan Cobra]

21 minutes ago, kirashi said:

While you're not wrong, you say that as if they've actually fixed the netcode! Haha! Ha Ha Hahaha!  That's a funny thought. Ahem OK but seriously, PUBG has gotten a lot better with each patch over the last 3 months, so I do appreciate where they're heading with stability and optimization. They're still a long ways off from properly optimized development though, but should get there before Star Citizen is released.  

 

@Cyan Cobra as others have said, if you're using a laptop and the framerates change that much, it definitely won't be internet related. You can test this by playing an offline training match. Your issue is 100% battery related - even if you set battery performance to BEST, you will still NOT see the same performance as if the laptop is plugged into AC power from the wall. Please plug in your laptop to the wall and re-test your framerates. Source: IT Consulting experience over the past 10 years has taught me invaluable troubleshooting skills.

I always have my laptop plugged into AC power as I game. Also, in an offline training mode (on campus, that is) I am getting 110 fps. I then hopped back into another online match and was running a choppy 60 fps (according the OW frame rate counter). It is certainly noticable and makes it quite hard to aim, as I feel like I am more looking at a series of gapped snapshots than a steady video stream.

[Damascus]

29 minutes ago, kirashi said:

While you're not wrong, you say that as if they've actually fixed the netcode! Haha! Ha Ha Hahaha!  That's a funny thought. Ahem OK but seriously, PUBG has gotten a lot better with each patch over the last 3 months, so I do appreciate where they're heading with stability and optimization. They're still a long ways off from properly optimized development though, but should get there before Star Citizen is released.  

 

I was honestly surprised how much better it got, I had a one month gap in between play sessions and it was massively improved on my budget rig (i7 860 + 770) though my high end PC saw a far lesser improvement (6950x + 980 ti)

[kirashi]

4 minutes ago, Cyan Cobra said:

I always have my laptop plugged into AC power as I game. Also, in an offline training mode (on campus, that is) I am getting 110 fps. I then hopped back into another online match and was running a choppy 60 fps (according the OW frame rate counter). It is certainly noticable and makes it quite hard to aim, as I feel like I am more looking at a series of gapped snapshots than a steady video stream.

Hmm then I'm at a loss as to why this is happening. My Dell XPS 15 gets the same framerate playing Overwatch at home plugged into power over wireless as I get when traveling plugged into power in a hotel using my phone's 4G connection on the Bell network. Something is affecting your laptop when you move it from place to place; the problem is finding out what it is.

 

One thing you can check is turning on the Display Performance Stats option in settings, and compare your actual ping values when you're at home vs. when you're on the university connection. If they vary greatly, then something at the university is adversely affecting your connection, which may not be anything you can change because of how the IT staff have setup the connection there.

[Cyan Cobra]

1 minute ago, kirashi said:

Hmm then I'm at a loss as to why this is happening. My Dell XPS 15 gets the same framerate playing Overwatch at home plugged into power over wireless as I get when traveling plugged into power in a hotel using my phone's 4G connection on the Bell network. Something is affecting your laptop when you move it from place to place; the problem is finding out what it is.

 

One thing you can check is turning on the Display Performance Stats option in settings, and compare your actual ping values when you're at home vs. when you're on the university connection. If they vary greatly, then something at the university is adversely affecting your connection, which may not be anything you can change because of how the IT staff have setup the connection there.

I have noticed at home, my ping is around 20ms, while here it is around 40ms.

[kirashi]

Just now, Cyan Cobra said:

I have noticed at home, my ping is around 20ms, while here it is around 40ms.

Excellent info, although that much of a difference won't adversely affect your framerate much, if at all. Since you were able to test in an offline training match, that tells us that it's definitely not network related, but more has to be a setting on the laptop that is lowering performance. Another thing you can try is testing different games for the same framerate drops, such as Rocket League, as it has both online games and offline training like Overwatch. Let us know how that goes between home and when you're away.

[Cyan Cobra]

48 minutes ago, kirashi said:

Excellent info, although that much of a difference won't adversely affect your framerate much, if at all. Since you were able to test in an offline training match, that tells us that it's definitely not network related, but more has to be a setting on the laptop that is lowering performance. Another thing you can try is testing different games for the same framerate drops, such as Rocket League, as it has both online games and offline training like Overwatch. Let us know how that goes between home and when you're away.

I just ran some tests on Paladins on Steam. Offline training mode and a couple of online deathmatches, the frame rate was around 60 FPS. Granted, it wasn't as noticable as in Overwatch, likely because aiming in that game is kinda oversimplified and I think its generally a lower performance game.