Incredibly bad ping spikes and rubberbanding.

[Lilshadow48]

Recently (about the past 5 days or so) my ping has begun spiking from 20-50 to 100-600 every couple of seconds, sometimes I can go for about 2 minutes at the most without a crippling spike.

The spikes only seem to be happening on multiplayer steam games, most noticeable on games like GMOD, TF2, or Awesomenauts.

Other multiplayer games that I play, WoW, Vindictus, (Not launched from steam) Minecraft, CoD4, and League, are all unaffected.

I defrag fairly often, I am wireless currently, all drivers are updated, and nobody else that is wireless in the house has said anything about problems, so I'm assuming it's only me (They also don't use steam as much as I do, nor do they play many multiplayer games) My anti-virus is up-to-date and I scan literally every single night, I even have two as a safety precaution.

I have genuinely no idea what could be or is causing this.


...halp.

[Lilshadow48]

To not make a giant post of specs and things, this is the list after I did the steam information check. http://pastebin.com/LiVYCJQq

I don't have Avast and haven't had it for quite some time for the issues it has always caused with games.

I haven't noticed any issues with other source games, but most of the other source games I play are singleplayer only. I'll test CSS to see if that's getting issues as well.

I've got no add-ons for GMOD.

I haven't changed any hardware.

I don't have Nvidia, so I doubt it's that.


Also, I said I wasn't having trouble with singerplayer, singleplayer is the only thing that isn't being effected due to it not needing a connection and all that.


Thank ya for the help, I appreciate it.



EDIT: As far as I can tell CSS is having no issues.

[Lilshadow48]

I can't really do that as I don't use XP anymore, I've been on windows 7 for quite some time.

Wireless Zero Configuration doesn't even appear, If there is a W7 version of said configuration I wouldn't know what it's called (As it isn't called that.)

[Lilshadow48]

I will try that, I'll edit this when I see if it works or not.

EDIT: As of now I'm not noticing it anymore, I'll check back if it happens to startup again.
EDIT2: Two hours and nothing so far, good signs. Goooood signs.

[SicilianCapo]

I have looked through your pastebin posting, and I see quite a bit of unnecessary software installed. You may want to go through your PC and cleanup a lot of Download Managers, "Driver Boosters", etc.

There are many things that could be causing the lag spikes, one of which may be software installed that interferes with some of your games for various reasons.

I have other comments, but we'll see if you have a solution first.

As a side note, I would disagree with: "windows 8 for one is not particularly friendly to games in general". I have had Windows 8, Windows 8.1 Preview, and currently Windows 8.1 running now on my gaming laptop. I have also experienced it on a tablet as well. I won't continue into reasons however, as this is off-topic.

[Lilshadow48]

Originally posted by SicilianCapo:

I have looked through your pastebin posting, and I see quite a bit of unnecessary software installed. You may want to go through your PC and cleanup a lot of Download Managers, "Driver Boosters", etc.

There are many things that could be causing the lag spikes, one of which may be software installed that interferes with some of your games for various reasons.

I have other comments, but we'll see if you have a solution first.

As a side note, I would disagree with: "windows 8 for one is not particularly friendly to games in general". I have had Windows 8, Windows 8.1 Preview, and currently Windows 8.1 running now on my gaming laptop. I have also experienced it on a tablet as well. I won't continue into reasons however, as this is off-topic.

The program called "Driver Booster" is actually something I intend to have for as long as possible, I'm not the most tech-savvy person and often forget to update(Or just plain don't know where to get the update) my drivers, Driver booster updates every out of date one for me which is a godsend.

I do need to do a cleanup, but this is a recent thing and I haven't gotten any software since about two weeks before this started, I doubt it's any software.


On the windows 8 note, I never intend to get windows 8 as I don't particularly like it.

[Lilshadow48]

As of now It's begun again, it seems to only be happening after about an hour of playing and then it spikes to 200+ and only goes back down for short bursts of 5 seconds.


TF2, Gmod, and etc. are still effected, CSS is still uneffected however (Which I still find strange)

The registry changing solution seems to have only lessened how soon it appears.

[Marble]

Get the server IP, open command prompt and use

ping -t SERVERIP

Replace SERVERIP with the IP address of the game server.

Check the ping results and see if there are spikes. If there are, then it's likely a problem with your ISP not properly prioritising low-latency traffic.

[Lilshadow48]

Originally posted by Canti:

Get the server IP, open command prompt and use

ping -t SERVERIP

Replace SERVERIP with the IP address of the game server.

Check the ping results and see if there are spikes. If there are, then it's likely a problem with your ISP not properly prioritising low-latency traffic.

Running that shows "Reply from (IP) bytes=32 time=30-50ms til=250." and once or twice a "request timed out" popped up. The highest that it's showing is 58.


EDIT: Running it while playing showed a spike to 146, 2059, 151, and another request timed out. And another at 113, 563, 178, 1988, and 389. You seem right. Dang fios.

Just got the highest one yet, 3059

[SicilianCapo]

Originally posted by Lilshadow48:

Dang fios.

I would say Verizon Fios may very well be your problem. I have no actual experience with it, but I would assume the data connection may drop occasionally (like you've been seeing), as cellular connections would.

In-ground type of internet connections seem (to me) to be the most reliable and stable.

[Lilshadow48]

Originally posted by silly2468:

In options... under video... click advanced. At the bottom, click "Enable Windows Aero Extensions". Make sure it ISN'T checked. This'll (hopefully) lower the lagspikes. Another option is to lower your res, as your GPU can be overloaded.

I'm not sure if it's fixed the ping spikes completely (Haven't noticed them since, but they tend to appear at random) but it has lessened them quite a lot, and dropped my overall ping from 30-50 to about 5-20.


Also a completely different issue I've been having with TF2 has seemingly been fixed by this solution, which is pretty awesome.

[Azza ☠]

Run super long ethernet cable from router, circling the house at least 3 times, going up the stairs, around many corners, having your annoying pet dog trying to eat it, half chewed through and then connect the other end to your PC. Still beats any wireless gaming!

[b a d]

wat about windows 10