Will the USB Tethering performance bug ever be fixed?

[plaYer2k]

Hey all.

First of all, i do love many 2k games and especially the Borderlands and XCOM series. Though there is a huge performance issue that persists through all 2k games i have. One that got reported many times already and no official ever seemed to care.

The issue is a periodical stutter while using an USB device to tether your internet connection.

This video shall serve as an example for Borderlands 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK47zvVHcxo

The same issue was found in XCOM Enemy Unknown and Enemy Within
http://forums.2k.com/showthread.php?414651-XCOM-Enemy-Within-PC-Struttering-issues

And now in Borderlands Pre-Sequel, the same issue still persists. It still makes it impossible to play this game with an internet connection for some user.
We still can not enjoy this game with friends etc.

Thus i would like to both bring it to attention once gain aswell as ask for official informations about their intentions to fix/improve it.

PS: Even though i summon it with such a statement, but dont waste your time saying "Dont use USB Tethering then" or "Just use WLAN" and whatnot, you will just get ignored anyway :-)

[Ruuvan]

Hello
I've not played Borderlands so cannot say if this will fix your issue too, but I've had the same stutter/drops with Xcom using a tethered USB device

I found mention of a solution on the last post here; http://forums.gearboxsoftware.com/t/fps-low-framerate-stuttering-when-tethering-wifi-from-phone/196899/3

Your PC will still have a LAN connection (as I assume you've still got a network card; if not I'll post a link to something shortly).
Simply select your USB tethered connection and your 'unplugged' network port, right-click and hit Bridge Connection.

After this I was able to run Xcom Enemy Within with absolutely no drops!

No network card?
Install the Windows legacy driver for the "Microsoft Loopback Adaptor" (this will create a LAN connection you can 'bridge' with your usb tether
First go to 'My computer'
Right click & go to 'Manage'
'Device manager' & right click 'Add legacy hardware'
Press 'Next'
Choose second 'Setup manually'
Then find 'Network Adapter' & 'Next'
'Microsoft' or select the 'Loopback' adapter
Press 'Next'
Credit - http://superuser.com/questions/339465/creating-a-virtual-nic-on-windows-7

If this doesn't fix it then I apologise! I'm only going on the whole "2k games having this issue" bit.

[plaYer2k]

Thank you very much for forwarding and refining that nice quick how-to-fix.

Luckily i dont have the issue anymore due to not being forced to use my tethered phone anymore, but i hope that this information will be helpful for others in the same situation.

[toruvinn]

This actually deserves a sticky or at least a mention in one of the FAQs.

[Ruuvan]

I'm just more interested to know if it actually works for Borderlands/other affected games. As I said, I've only got Xcom and it sorted that, so I don't see why not.

Might not be worth mentioning, but I have no idea actually WHY it solves the issue. Possibly some mumb-jumbo that bridging the connection gives the USB tether whatever it might be missing as it's not a full LAN-oriented connection. Yay, IT!

[plaYer2k]

The question is more why it actually is an issue at all to have a usb tethered connection.
That sounds like the network layer is trying to dig too deep into your network adapters. Deeper than it should.

But most likely the tethered version lacks some support for function calls that cause exceptions internally that need to be caught every tick.
That could be a reason.
When using bridging, the tethered network device could be abstracted behind an interface that catches the cause of that exception like comparing against null to prevent the null exception and thus the performance is much better.... i dont know.

Fact is however that it is a very weird bug that should be fixed. But for several years now nobody seems to care at 2k and they never really replied outside the boring default low level tech support.
So i doubt it will ever be fixed to be honest. As sad as that lack of official support for such a large company is.

[Ruuvan]

Maybe the issue is down to a fundamental way in which all USB tethering works (mobile device or not) and there's no way to 'block' the accusing part in the game coding, so no fix is possible without a TON of work.

I know the workaround is not ideal, but it is at least permanent once the bridge is there as I'm not having to redo it every time.

If a lot of people were having the issue, like a VERY significant portion of their players, then they would have to do it. As it stands we have to rely on one another for such things : )

[cornoratu]

Originally posted by Ruuvan:

Hello
I've not played Borderlands so cannot say if this will fix your issue too, but I've had the same stutter/drops with Xcom using a tethered USB device

I found mention of a solution on the last post here; http://forums.gearboxsoftware.com/t/fps-low-framerate-stuttering-when-tethering-wifi-from-phone/196899/3

Your PC will still have a LAN connection (as I assume you've still got a network card; if not I'll post a link to something shortly).
Simply select your USB tethered connection and your 'unplugged' network port, right-click and hit Bridge Connection.

After this I was able to run Xcom Enemy Within with absolutely no drops!

No network card?
Install the Windows legacy driver for the "Microsoft Loopback Adaptor" (this will create a LAN connection you can 'bridge' with your usb tether
First go to 'My computer'
Right click & go to 'Manage'
'Device manager' & right click 'Add legacy hardware'
Press 'Next'
Choose second 'Setup manually'
Then find 'Network Adapter' & 'Next'
'Microsoft' or select the 'Loopback' adapter
Press 'Next'
Credit - http://superuser.com/questions/339465/creating-a-virtual-nic-on-windows-7

If this doesn't fix it then I apologise! I'm only going on the whole "2k games having this issue" bit.

I know I'm necroing a 5 y/o thread, but I just HAD to give you and the Mariuholos props and a big THANK YOU for help with this annoying issue.

It's not hard to find the solution online (aka this thread) once you know the issue only occurs on tethered connections, but it IS hard to find it before knowing that (and also figuring that out).

It's disappointing that this issue still exists even in 2020, but at least a solution exists.