Extreme Lag

SgtCowUtters

<div class="IPBDescription">Sudden unexplainable lag!</div><b>Well like the topic says when I'm playing Natural Selection and I get to an area with a good amount of people and my ping suddenly shoots up towards the 400's and it becomes impossible to do anything but get killed. As far as I can tell this should not be happening, I have a GREAT connection, an alright computer (AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual core 3800+@ 2.00 GHz , 2 gigs of RAM and Radeon X1300PRO 256MB with latest drivers), firewall is off and anti-virus is off. Now with all that I can play Call of Duty 4 with low-medium graphics no problem. My friend has a way better computer than mine and this same thing happens, he's running 2 8800 GT KO's (In SLI) and >Intel® Core™2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz with 3 gigs of DDR2 Corsair RAM and again a good connection (not as good as mine but still <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" /> ). Only thing I can think of is my router blocking it but still that doesn't make much since to me. So please if you could help we would both appreciate it!</b>

corpsman

Lots of people + lag = sounds like a bad server connection. Not yours, the servers. Or maybe the server isn't that great. I have been on many servers where it was ran at someone's house, so when too many people joined, or it got a little crazy the server lagged out. Just join a different server.

SgtCowUtters

<b>I don't think thats it. One of my friends who lives not even 5 miles from me has the same internet and a computer that has a bit older things than mine and he doesn't get any lag while playing on the same server as us. It only seems to start when I get to a mixed group of Aliens and Marines. Also when I'm in a room of a bunch of Marines theres no lag but when an Alien comes in I start lagging like crazy. Like I said I don't think thats the problem, but thanks for the quick response.</b>

Thansal

stop posting everything in bold.

Now for some clarifications:
1) You say lag, do you flat out mean that your ping/choke/loss are jumping? or are you talking about FPS? (Lag normally refers to network connection, as as such is not effected by your computer's hardware outside of the NIC)

2) could you get us exact info about what happens to Ping/Choke/Loss and FPS during these times (do this by opening up the console and typing in "net_graph 3")

3) Information about NIC, Router, Network Connection, and OS could all be useful.

4) What are your settings for:
cl_cmdrate
cl_rate
cl_updaterate

SgtCowUtters

...But I like bold...
Anyway, yes I do mean lag. My FPS stays at a steady 70-75 when I get to a fight it goes to somewhere around 65 give or take a few. I already read the FPS problem a guy posted up and checked mine and that wasn't the case.
cl_updaterate 20
cl_cmdrate 30
cl_rate ?? (nothing came up for cl_rate)
When my ping starts going up my 'in' will jump between 500-1000 and my 'out' stays at 20. The choke jumped to 100 during this when it's resting (what seems to be resting) is around 0-20 and loss seems to stay at 0 the whole time.
I'm running Windows XP Media Center Edition. My NIC is Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC and my router is a Linksys BEFSR41-v3 I'm fairly sure thats the right model number or whatever. I use cable internet and generally run at 12-14 megabits per second

Thansal

hmmm

xp firewall is disabled?

and QOS Packet scheduler is another common culprit.

nurr, it is rate, not cl_rate. unfortunately, I just realized that I don't remember proper settings for HL's network settings any more.

You can poke around and find a guide about good rates and what not.

Or if you play any other HL1 games you can check their configs to see what they are set at.

SgtCowUtters

Alrighty then, I'll check out those things and yes my firewall is disabled. Again thanks for the quick responses and all the help.

**EDIT**
Well I disabled the QOS thing, went into other HL1 games checked the rates and everything and they were all the same as NS. Went back to NS to see if the QOS disabling fixed it and no, still lagging up a storm every time an alright size of marines/aliens gather around and start doing the death and destruction deal. Only thing I can think of now is it has something to do with the effects cause a large mixed group of aliens and marines in the waiting room does nothing, add the death and destruction and bam ya got a laggy Cow.

Thansal

well, here is the deal:

You problem lies in that jump in Choke and in 'in' traffic, they are basically one and the same. Choke is basically when you end up with a choke point between you and the server (in this case, it is probably you) and thus data flow has to be slowed down (this is also why your in spikes up, it is taking much longer for data to get from the server to you).


Unfortunately,
I have lost all of my really good guides about rates and what not, and really don't remember them that well my self. I would suggest 2 things:
1) Look around the internet for guides on these types of things
2) Check Steampowered.com

Basically this is not NS that is causing the problem, it is either the HL engine/your configurations, something in your set up, or worst case: Your ISP.