Frequent ping-spikes, a new issue
Jakkar
Join Date: 2006-12-02 Member: 58826Members
Join Date: 2006-12-02 Member: 58826Members
Ahoy there.
Recently returned to the game for Reinforced after a break, having been a very heavy player last winter/during the Gorgeous release.
... Suddenly, lag. Suddenly, every 15-40 seconds I'll experience a 1-5 second spike of lag during which I'll rubberband repeatedly back to one location, usually waking up dead as combat tends to increase the incidence of these events. Ping will jump to 200-400, but never any higher, presumably due to the short duration of the events.
It will be instantaneous, and vanish as quickly. I'm a heavy online gamer, my primaries current being Red Orchestra 2 and Planetside 2, neither of which present any lag issues whatsoever. I'm running on a high spec computer, running PS2 and NS2 at maximum settings with smooth framerates.
I can, however, play effectively between these spikes. I'm absolutely fine nomming up all of the marine-pie until a spike, then I'll glue to a wall and the game will connection-freeze for 1-3 seconds.
I'm running through a Virgin Media superhub modem, but via Ethernet, so there's no wireless interference to take into account. I have no other activity on my home network, and as I mentioned have no issues with any other game. To reiterate, I've also not had this problem with NS2 before, having not played since some time in Spring.
I'm not running any firewalls, unusual proxies, or other software of any significance. No AV. Bare minimums, and the issue remains.
According to netstats every server I've been playing on averages a tickrate of 30, my ping averages 30, and my client tickrate averages 60 with drops to 54 but no lower. 0.0% choke even in heavy combat.
I've dropped graphics settings to minimum and whacked them back up to max without effect.
The only redlight I can see is that *while I'm running NS2*, a ping to google is snapping between 12ms and 108ms frequently, and at times jumping to over 600ms - but this isn't happening unless I'm running the game at the time, and isn't harming other games.
I'm stumped. Ask for logs if you really must, but only if you feel they'll be of use. I've spent hours trying to fix this and this post represents "running out of fucks to give" time, and I'd hate to drop straight back out of NS2.
Any solid advice appreciated, but I can't think of what I've missed.
Recently returned to the game for Reinforced after a break, having been a very heavy player last winter/during the Gorgeous release.
... Suddenly, lag. Suddenly, every 15-40 seconds I'll experience a 1-5 second spike of lag during which I'll rubberband repeatedly back to one location, usually waking up dead as combat tends to increase the incidence of these events. Ping will jump to 200-400, but never any higher, presumably due to the short duration of the events.
It will be instantaneous, and vanish as quickly. I'm a heavy online gamer, my primaries current being Red Orchestra 2 and Planetside 2, neither of which present any lag issues whatsoever. I'm running on a high spec computer, running PS2 and NS2 at maximum settings with smooth framerates.
I can, however, play effectively between these spikes. I'm absolutely fine nomming up all of the marine-pie until a spike, then I'll glue to a wall and the game will connection-freeze for 1-3 seconds.
I'm running through a Virgin Media superhub modem, but via Ethernet, so there's no wireless interference to take into account. I have no other activity on my home network, and as I mentioned have no issues with any other game. To reiterate, I've also not had this problem with NS2 before, having not played since some time in Spring.
I'm not running any firewalls, unusual proxies, or other software of any significance. No AV. Bare minimums, and the issue remains.
According to netstats every server I've been playing on averages a tickrate of 30, my ping averages 30, and my client tickrate averages 60 with drops to 54 but no lower. 0.0% choke even in heavy combat.
I've dropped graphics settings to minimum and whacked them back up to max without effect.
The only redlight I can see is that *while I'm running NS2*, a ping to google is snapping between 12ms and 108ms frequently, and at times jumping to over 600ms - but this isn't happening unless I'm running the game at the time, and isn't harming other games.
I'm stumped. Ask for logs if you really must, but only if you feel they'll be of use. I've spent hours trying to fix this and this post represents "running out of fucks to give" time, and I'd hate to drop straight back out of NS2.
Any solid advice appreciated, but I can't think of what I've missed.
Comments
The game is, in effect, unplayable.
A quick google search for that modem and "lag spikes" yields a high amount of results.
NS2 is really network demanding.. far more so than most other games. This means that it can sometimes "flood" certain routers or modems that are not prepared for this level of traffic.
Best thing to do to eliminate controlling factors, so if you can, attempt :
DMZing the modem if applicable
Setting the QoS settings to make games a priority, in particular ns2.exe
Looking out for any floodrate settings
Setting the modem to "modem only" mode and using a decent router.
Goodluck and let us know!
I finally got around to eliminating my superhub as a router, and plugged it modem-only through my old Linksys. All problems solved. I've known this was causing issues for a long time, but workarounds had succeeded so far.
Strange that NS2 had this issue when even *planetside 2*, with a thousand people fighting at once, didn't...