serious stuttering

[zuzomuzabi]

The game runs fine framewise and the whatnot, but I'm having serious in game lag to the point that playing duel just isn't feasible. ATM I have about 50 ping (and only connect to the 2 closest servers ) and 70mb/s download, 60mb/s upload (according to the Ookla speed test). Do I need higher speeds or something? For other games like CSGO and Overwatch it's been fine, but just not as of recently in Quake.
Thanks!

[Frankster]

I suspect you've got what is needed but it needs to be dialed/turned better. I had a similar circumstance for some bit of time. Look at some of my older threads, especially the ones about router settings, video setting and getting the proper ports open on your network.

Also, make sure your steam overlay is disabled, that can cause some of the stuttering your describing.

Are you getting packet loss during these "stuttering" episodes? It would show as an "!" inside a small orange box in the upper left hand corner during gameplay, for me, it usually show's up in groups of 3's, but since I set my router (Thanks DCR) it's been much better.

[zuzomuzabi]

I am getting packed loss, but it seems everyone gets that. Steam overlay was already disabled for me, so that couldn't have been causing the problem. What do you mean getting the proper ports open on my network? Thanks for the response btw

[D. Mouse]

As far as I know, manually forwarding ports through NAT in your router settings shouldn't be necessary. If your traffic was being stopped from getting between you and the server you wouldn't be able to connect/join multiplayer games.

What kind of graphics settings do you run, and have you tried lowering them? What's your typical framerate (which you can have shown in the corner through QC settings)?

[a.D]

Ping in QC is unrelated to lag. You need a cable connection to play with minimum lag. No wireless links between you and your provider! If you feel lag even with 50 ping, you can try to limit your fps to 60. If that won't help, your only option is to try a different provider.

[Frankster]

This recommends the following:
https://portforward.com/quake-champions/
Quake Champions - PC
TCP: 11700-11725
UDP: 48800-48900

I believe DCR gave me some other settings as well. Here are the one's I've got set on my router that are in relation to Quake Champions and Steam.

Name Trigger Protocol Trigger Port(s) Open Protocol Open Ports Delete
Quake Champions 1 TCP 11700-11725 TCP 11700-11725
Quake Champions UDP 48800-48900 UDP 48800-48900
Steam TCP/UDP 27000-27100 TCP/UDP 27000-27100

I also have these settings for some of the other Quake games and MIRC:
Quake 2 TCP/UDP: 27910
Quake 3 TCP/UDP: 12201-12210,12300,27950,27952,27960,27965
Quake 4 TCP/UDP: 27650,27666
mIRC Chat TCP/UDP: 6660-6669


Post your results please.


As DontOMGitsBOPnotBOE stated, be sure to hard wire your system, wireless networks are nothing but problems. Even an older 10/100 network would be better than wireless, or ANY cable. Check and recheck connection plugs on an ongoing basis, especially if there in a spot where they can move around. Virtually everything should be wired. Many of the pro's still use wired mouse and keyboards, as I do.

[DCR]

There's quite a few things one can do to make pc run better and thus games on it. But ultimately QC should just be more optimized, because i could rant out some pages of tweaks to do, but we cannot and should not expect everyone first do these things to make the game run smoother.

For instance by default practically all gpu's are given first and highest priority over cpu (and everything else, including usb/chipset etc(and thus your input devices))on the pci-e bus chain, and games that are strongly driven by cpu will always stride against that. But from a manufacturer standpoint it makes sense because for benchmarking one will get marginally perhaps 1-2% more performance this way, despite it could create bottlenecks for other things, such as gaming where everything needs to be working with input at the same time.

The easiest way to get stable performance right now is to just find an acceptable fps limit where you don't drop frames that much. This way the gpu doesn't try to over compensate where it cannot deliver. Coincidentially this also creates the best chance for lowest input lag, because the gpu has time to spare to start on new jobs, so to speak. Which has always been the case. Ie it achieves "ready-to-draw" the next full cycle of frame faster.

As for router things, if you use mobile on wifi, use the ping tool from router config to check your latency to phone, to where it can sometimes get down to 5-6ms response.

That's good enough, and it should run with zero packet loss, and it's acceptable for a few houndred ms latency on your wifi phone. You should be gaming on cabled network, so wifi/mobile should be secondary priority.

Also disable things like WPS which at least in my experience is a) not necessary and b) can create very annoying buffer bloat. I had that issue a lot some years ago in quakelive and it was WPS doing a call to printer every now and then.

Use direct IP instead for printer/scanner/phone etc. If you dont use wifi for phone calling or such, you can set the beacon interval to max (usually 1000 on asus) and dtim interval to max as well. I use i think 1 dtim and 1000 beacon but on a schedule or just turn off wifi on phone when gaming. It's also important to setup a DNS block list in either router, or make your pc be the internet access point for phone, and setup DNS block list there (in hosts file) or something like a raspberry pi (recommended). I have like 50-100 things blocked on phone when sleeping, when im not even using it. You dont want that.

As for cpu, overclock it to the max stable for gaming. The next gen cpu's in the coming 5-10 years will make today's cpu's look like complete garbage. Get your value out of it.

[D. Mouse]

Originally posted by DCR:

The easiest way to get stable performance right now is to just find an acceptable fps limit where you don't drop frames that much. This way the gpu doesn't try to over compensate where it cannot deliver. Coincidentially this also creates the best chance for lowest input lag, because the gpu has time to spare to start on new jobs, so to speak. Which has always been the case. Ie it achieves "ready-to-draw" the next full cycle of frame faster.

In case it's of interest, a recent Battle (Non)Sense Youtube video seemed to find this to be the case, and he didn't seem to know why.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CKnJ5ujL_Q

[DCR]

Originally posted by D. Mouse:

In case it's of interest, a recent Battle (Non)Sense Youtube video seemed to find this to be the case, and he didn't seem to know why.

Well I actually just said why this is the case. He/she would have an easier time doing research on it if simply considered that things may have been pondered upon before her/him, for practically all things for the most part in these matters, it has all been figured out.

More over it is profounded in that gpu has top priority like i said. So logically, if the gpu is being overrun by jobs that take x amount of time to get a specific or set of tasks done, everything else will get an extra wait state cycle for what you see. And so discrepancy between what gpu does, and rest of system, in a heated fire fight (or laggy game due to its performance issues rather) gets increased and the result will be a feeling of input lag not being in sync with the game, and you are effectively playing catch up. It may not just be limited to input lag but it is usually the most obvious one, with how sound is done in qc, you're likely to also chock up audio issues on there.
-
But that is also an issue with how sound is being "rendered" in qc, by pathways travel time, and not regular, and traditional for quake and fps games in general - echo location. Ie if sound was coming from behind the wall it, it goes thru the wall albeit a bit dumbed down. Path location travels around it. Which effectively would color the sound pending on how it's coded.
-
Now, to me this isn't news at all or for anyone that would think about it that has played quake for going on now 2 decades+. It's why for the longest time the quest for stable maximum 250 fps was so longing, and how if cpu didnt catch up, despite a seemingly constant max fps target being drawn, one could experience weird slow downs on input. In QL this was dealt with com_idlesleep and so on, where as previously it was very important to tweak both OS and bios side for those cpu power related things, and it still probably is even with modern cpu's.

Basically, you need to have a better system for what you want to target with something to spare or you'll likely to run into buffer bloat, especially on newer games. Especially considering lazy coding, things arent done as much in assembly code anymore etc.

[zuzomuzabi]

Originally posted by a.D:

Ping in QC is unrelated to lag. You need a cable connection to play with minimum lag. No wireless links between you and your provider! If you feel lag even with 50 ping, you can try to limit your fps to 60. If that won't help, your only option is to try a different provider.

Welp that's probably where my issue lies. I'm not using an ethernet cable, and I won't be able to connect to one, based on where my computer is. The strange thing is that my connection used to be fine, and the game felt really smooth, it's only as of recent that this has started to become an issue.

Originally posted by Frankster:

This recommends the following:
https://portforward.com/quake-champions/
Quake Champions - PC
TCP: 11700-11725
UDP: 48800-48900

I believe DCR gave me some other settings as well. Here are the one's I've got set on my router that are in relation to Quake Champions and Steam.

Name Trigger Protocol Trigger Port(s) Open Protocol Open Ports Delete
Quake Champions 1 TCP 11700-11725 TCP 11700-11725
Quake Champions UDP 48800-48900 UDP 48800-48900
Steam TCP/UDP 27000-27100 TCP/UDP 27000-27100

I also have these settings for some of the other Quake games and MIRC:
Quake 2 TCP/UDP: 27910
Quake 3 TCP/UDP: 12201-12210,12300,27950,27952,27960,27965
Quake 4 TCP/UDP: 27650,27666
mIRC Chat TCP/UDP: 6660-6669


Post your results please.


As DontOMGitsBOPnotBOE stated, be sure to hard wire your system, wireless networks are nothing but problems. Even an older 10/100 network would be better than wireless, or ANY cable. Check and recheck connection plugs on an ongoing basis, especially if there in a spot where they can move around. Virtually everything should be wired. Many of the pro's still use wired mouse and keyboards, as I do.

Even with a wireless connection would this still help?

[DCR]

if u have to play on wifi lower DTIM and beacon like i described above, 1-3 dtim and as low beacon as possible, tho you could run into having it be just sending too much beacons so that it creates a bottleneck for actually sending/receving the data.

[Bane]

After a year of playing i giveup the game is pointless if the never ending rubber banding never gets fixed.You shouldnt have to mess with a router to get a game to work.Maybe the developers should pull the game all together its garbage

[DCR]

Originally posted by Bane:

After a year of playing i giveup the game is pointless if the never ending rubber banding never gets fixed.You shouldnt have to mess with a router to get a game to work.Maybe the developers should pull the game all together its garbage

I completely agree with that the end user shouldn't have to mess with stuff to make the game playable and smooth - enjoyable. Which is why i've stopped saying specific stuff one can do. Because the core of the game needs to perform well, otherwise we'll just end up with a product that needs specifc tweaks to be workable to play with and not a smooth game. Any client side settings should only serve as to make a very smooth game just even happier - so to speak - not be in an attempt to fix it.
Alltho when he has to play on wifi only that's out of the ordinary issues that's completely game related.

I see practically everyone that's streaming now who has fps set unlocked - no limiter, with fast systems, have fps going from 300+ down to 100ish. That's unacceptable to have 200 fps drops.

[crogeek]

Originally posted by DCR:

I see practically everyone that's streaming now who has fps set unlocked - no limiter, with fast systems, have fps going from 300+ down to 100ish. That's unacceptable to have 200 fps drops.

To be honest, my fps limit is set to 150 and it feels smooth, but problem is that corrupted keep and ZTN can lag insanely for no known reasons. I know that Corrupted Keep is not optimized since its release, so it's known issue.

[Frankster]

Originally posted by crogeek:

Originally posted by DCR:

I see practically everyone that's streaming now who has fps set unlocked - no limiter, with fast systems, have fps going from 300+ down to 100ish. That's unacceptable to have 200 fps drops.

To be honest, my fps limit is set to 150 and it feels smooth, but problem is that corrupted keep and ZTN can lag insanely for no known reasons. I know that Corrupted Keep is not optimized since its release, so it's known issue.

LOL, "Corrupted Keep" is literally corrupted, who would guess that. And they "kept" it anyhow.

Actually, I've been experimenting with limiting my fps downward to 60fps, ie. 1/4 of my refresh rate. Game appears pretty smooth for me without any framerate drops whatsoever, although I still notice occasional packet loss, especially during big fights.

However, I suspect that loosing some shot's, especially in regards to the railgun where I'm shooting against an opponent with a higher framerate setting than me, because he's registering the hit a few ms faster than my 60fps limit. It's difficult to determine if the shot is a result of the settings or that the opponent was simply faster than me on the trigger (which is often the case). It's a trade-off and I haven't found the sweet spot quite yet, I might up it to 1/3 or 80fps or 1/2@120fps.

Edit: Checked the current setting and It's currently set for 1/2 refresh rate@120fps which seems to be the best setting so far without any drops in fps experienced.