Possible Network Fix

[saggiN but Backwards]

Hi y'all,

This past week I've been having incredibly annoying high PING/unplayable network issues. Every time I would boot up the game, Steam would lose network connection, which in consequence, would prevent SM2 from connecting. After days of troubleshooting on my end, I believe I've found a fix (for now).

Note, I am using WiFi until my cat. 8 cable gets delivered.

I've narrowed it down to two possibilities:

I was originally using 5Ghz WiFi signal. I've switched to 2.4Ghz.
Prior to this, I uninstalled my WiFi card, restarted my computer, and connected to 2.4Ghz
Prior to THAT, I disabled my AV.

I don't know out of all those 3 which one worked, but I will say, it fixed "temporarily" my connectivity issue.

Give it a shot, let me know if it worked for the rest of you (using WiFi).

[Munchmatoast]

As someone with 10 years of telco experience, please do not use 2.4ghz for gaming, especially if you're using any Bluetooth device, mouse, headphones, keyboard etc.

[saggiN but Backwards]

Originally posted by Munchmatoast:

As someone with 10 years of telco experience, please do not use 2.4ghz for gaming, especially if you're using any Bluetooth device, mouse, headphones, keyboard etc.

Besides interference, why shouldn't I? I haven't noticed any significant changes in the gameplay and performance (as of yet).

Amazon is about to deliver my cat. 8 ethernet cable tomorrow, which I believe *should* do SOMETHING about this issue; however, since I've switched to 2.4GHz, the problem has essentially gone away and hasn't shown itself since.

The only action different from the initial post and this comment, is that my AV is re-activated during gameplay. That in of itself has not had negative impact in network connectivity.

[Munchmatoast]

Like you said, in a simple sense, interference. It's more unstable than 5ghz and will result in a higher likelihood of packet loss and latency (lag spikes, high ping).

It conflicts with modern technology in substantially more circumstances, for example, put on some Bluetooth headphones and then stand next to a microwave. The moment you turn on that microwave, you will experience latency, packet loss, lack of speed and dropouts on the headphones immediately until you are very far away from the microwave. The same thing happens to the 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi. You are much more likely to have external sources interfere with your wireless connection on this frequency.

If you're having issues on the 5 GHz network then your router is probably going through a couple brick walls to get to you. Alternatively it's probably an old router or one you got from your ISP.

But yeah this is just an info dump and not here to flame you, if it works for you then cool, but I just would not give it out as general advice to use that frequency for the above reasons.

[DanaramaPyjama]

As above, bear in mind that wireless headsets, keyboards and mice all use 2.4Ghz too, so yeah definitely use 5 or 6e

[saggiN but Backwards]

Originally posted by Munchmatoast:

Like you said, in a simple sense, interference. It's more unstable than 5ghz and will result in a higher likelihood of packet loss and latency (lag spikes, high ping).

It conflicts with modern technology in substantially more circumstances, for example, put on some Bluetooth headphones and then stand next to a microwave. The moment you turn on that microwave, you will experience latency, packet loss, lack of speed and dropouts on the headphones immediately until you are very far away from the microwave. The same thing happens to the 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi. You are much more likely to have external sources interfere with your wireless connection on this frequency.

If you're having issues on the 5 GHz network then your router is probably going through a couple brick walls to get to you. Alternatively it's probably an old router or one you got from your ISP.

But yeah this is just an info dump and not here to flame you, if it works for you then cool, but I just would not give it out as general advice to use that frequency for the above reasons.

Any advice is absolutely greatly appreciated, so thank you! No flames felt here.

An update for this thread in general: It looks like this cat 8 cable is doing absolute wonders. It has fixed the problem, going on a week plus strong. I've shut off my WiFi on my desktop and removed the antennas. So far so great!