Wallpaper Engine Slow down My Download Speed Drastically.

[CARTER8INFINITY]

i just brought this and installed on my laptop, i don't know why after running wallpaper engine my download speed decreased to 6-9 Mbps.

( Im Using 1000 Mbps Fibre Network, usually i go to speedtest local server test i can have 900+ Mbps upload/download rate)

i noticed this problems at first because i brought other game in steam and try to download them at the same time. On Steam, Only achieve 600 Kbps download rate (Use speedtest.net only get 3-6Mbps)
i speed-tested my Phone over same WiFi Network, phone achieve 900 Mbps download rate.

After i closed WALLPAPER ENGINE on my PC and Steam downloading speed increase back to usual and secondly i run speed-test again, it back to normal download speed.

[Tim]

Are you running any network software, firewall, antivirus application or similar? It could be that something is throttling your network speed by mistake because it's mistaken Wallpaper Engine to be some sort of media streaming software, especially when using wallpapers which are "Video" type wallpapers.

Also, there were some rumors that if the following registry key is misconfigured, Windows may throttle your network speed by mistake:

Open the Registry Editor (click on the Windows icon and just type "regedit" and it should show up. Then navigate to the following folder:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\SystemProfile

When you click on "SystemProfile", you should see this REG_DWORD key:

NetworkThrottlingIndex

Make sure it exists and that it's set to hexadecimal "ffffffff" (that's the letter f eight times). If it does not exist or has a different value, please create / change it to that value. Afterwards, restart your PC and see if the problem persists.

If that key is already set to that value and if you are unsure about what software could be causing this, please share the log file from our scan tool:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/431960/discussions/1/3307213006836797842/

[CARTER8INFINITY]

Originally posted by Tim:

Are you running any network software, firewall, antivirus application or similar? It could be that something is throttling your network speed by mistake because it's mistaken Wallpaper Engine to be some sort of media streaming software, especially when using wallpapers which are "Video" type wallpapers.

Also, there were some rumors that if the following registry key is misconfigured, Windows may throttle your network speed by mistake:

Open the Registry Editor (click on the Windows icon and just type "regedit" and it should show up. Then navigate to the following folder:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\SystemProfile

When you click on "SystemProfile", you should see this REG_DWORD key:

NetworkThrottlingIndex

Make sure it exists and that it's set to hexadecimal "ffffffff" (that's the letter f eight times). If it does not exist or has a different value, please create / change it to that value. Afterwards, restart your PC and see if the problem persists.

If that key is already set to that value and if you are unsure about what software could be causing this, please share the log file from our scan tool:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/431960/discussions/1/3307213006836797842/

Here is the log
https://pastebin.com/gF3CRVN6

[Tim]

If that registry key is set to what I had described above, then the issue cannot come from Wallpaper Engine directly. I assume that either the "Killer" network software throttles your connection by mistake (because it has these capabilities of "network optimization / throttling"). Try to uninstall all the Killer network software, it's not needed for your network adapter to function. Restart your PC afterwards and try again.

If it's not that, it could also be some issue with McAfee, I have not heard about this so far but their software can also monitor and affect network traffic by mistake. Try the Killer network software removal first, though.

[CARTER8INFINITY]

Even though i uninstall the Killer Control Center, the problem still exist. Here is the screen record of Speedtest Before and After Launching Wallpaper Engine

Before: https://recordit.co/lx1toXsu7w
After: https://recordit.co/Gd7tcIUDJK

i noticed that The Network speed decrease dramatically when i enable clock-type and Video-Type wallpaper in W.E.

But when i choose some Computer-generated visual effect type of wallpaper in W.E. , the network speed remain pretty much the same level.

Here is the screen record of their comaprison: https://recordit.co/Gb7hH12juY

[Tim]

Did you try the steps I outlined in my first response regarding the registry key? Please check and confirm the registry key from my first response, it's a known Windows issue which can be easily solved if the registry key is set properly.

[CARTER8INFINITY]

i did check the windows registry key, it is the same as you want me to set.
Did you check the recordit.co Record?

[CARTER8INFINITY]

is it the codes that used by clock or video type of wallpaper cause this problem?

[CARTER8INFINITY]

Or different wallpaper creators can edit their own codes (Can they injected some malicious code? And that caused the decrease of down&uplink speed)

[Tim]

Yes, I did check them and it's not like I do believe you, however, the only way that this can potentially be throttled is that either Windows is throttling it through the functionality I outlined in my initial response or because you have "some" program installed which throttles your internet connection when media playback is active.

Can you:

1. Show me a screenshot of the registry key so I can double-check if the correct DWORD value is set?
2. Double-check if you have any other applications on your system which are capable of throttling your network speed when Windows media playback is active?

Originally posted by Blessed Casheva:

Or different wallpaper creators can edit their own codes (Can they injected some malicious code? And that caused the decrease of down&uplink speed)

Originally posted by Blessed Casheva:

is it the codes that used by clock or video type of wallpaper cause this problem?

No, this is not the case, we have millions of users and we actually have Gigabit connections ourselves. The only instances we have throttling is when the aforementioned Windows feature is enabled, the only other alternative is that another application enables throttling for media streaming optimization purposes (potentially also in your network router but that would be new to me). Wallpaper Engine does not throttle your network speed and neither do the wallpapers.

[CARTER8INFINITY]

i checked in Wallpaper Engine>Installed>Filter Results , i select the Approved (tick-box) Most of the wallpaper seem not affected my network speed except Audio-Responsive Wallpaper: Download Speed decrease by half to around 400-500Mbps Uplload speed decrease by 3/4 to around 200 Mbps. And Clock Wallpaper is the worst, making Download speed dropped to 10-20Mbps and upload speed dropped to nearly 0Mbps

[CARTER8INFINITY]

https://pasteboard.co/IY3anyK.png Here is the screenshot

I think The Killer Control Center is the only QoS App that installed on my Laptop by default.

[Tim]

Which audio responsive wallpaper did you test exactly, and which clock wallpaper? I want to have a look at them myself just to double-check.

Other than that, the only other software suite I see that could potentially cause this is your McAfee setup. I would suggest you try to uninstall it completely, restart your PC and see if it goes away afterwards. Also, check your Windows task manager for network usage. There is no significant network code in Wallpaper Engine, so it should not show any network usage coming from there with few low usage exceptions.

[CARTER8INFINITY]

Here some example i tested, they are Clock type (audio responsive Wallpaper)
Nightfall (clock+audio) by Enekos
Fuji tower by Askar
Rainbow Matrix Clock By [DST] Lulz

[Tim]

All of them are web-based wallpapers and some of the ones you mentioned are well tested with over 2 million users, I am very confident that the wallpapers or Wallpaper Engine are not at fault here, we would have received a ton of complaints in the last three years if there was something wrong with those wallpapers. Again, try to uninstall McAfee and check if there really is not some sort of application on your system which enables some odd QoS "optimizations" causing the throttling of your network connection. The issue is definitely not coming from Wallpaper Engine or these wallpapers, I double-checked all of them and my network connection speed remains normal (on top of them being very popular wallpapers).