100% packet loss spikes

[Sudo]

I'm having a very weird problem.

I behind a gigabit network, utilizing about 10% of 400Mbps when streaming.
It happens randomly, I'll be running around at 60FPS and all of a sudden "BAM". My screen freezes for about 2-3 seconds and it comes back and my packet loss is gradually lowering from 100%. It goes from 100% back down to 0% in about 5 seconds, although I don't think it's accurate as it feels as if I'm running at 60FPS again as soon as the screen un-freezes. Regardless, I'm not sure what's causing these random spikes, I have a brand new Netgear N600 5Ghz router running DD-WRT, both pc's are hard-wired and plenty of bandwidth is available for it to run.

Is there a logfile that gets saved anywhere? I'd really like to help investigate this problem and hopefully find a fix for it, the in-home streaming feature is by far (imo) the best feature steam has ever implemented.

Moooooooo.

[Sudo]

Here are the logs:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51365502/streaming_log.txt
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51365502/StreamVideoTrace.txt
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51365502/StreamAudioTrace.txt

[Rich Burns]

Same for me. Noticed an update recently regarding improved streaming to older dual core systems. I'm using a laptop, core 2 duo and old intel 4 series integrated graphics. Since the update 2 things have happened: the streaming has massively improved, up from 20FPS to a rock solid 60fps, no lag, lovely, except that about every 5 seconds or so I get a massive spike, frame loss goes up to 100%. Playing at the moment. Will check with some other games.

Where do i find the logs? I'll post mine. I looked under C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\logs but cannot find any streaming logs under there.

[Sudo]

That's the correct folder, although the streaming logs are located on the host, not the client (At least that's where I found streaming logs, there were none in that folder on the client).

[Sk@nkw0n]

This seems similar to my experiences. Perhaps not so frequent, but they make racing and FPS games unplayable. I'm on wireless though.

I posted here --> http://steamcommunity.com/groups/homestream/discussions/0/540735426015343711/#c540735426062929574

[Rich Burns]

Originally posted by Moo:

the streaming logs are located on the host, not the client (At least that's where I found streaming logs

That explains it, thanks. Here:

https://app.box.com/s/2c4qslxp4z2tijr221xs

Edit: I'm on wireless too, 5Ghz. Windows 7 x64. The host is connected to the router via gigabit ethernet, Windows 8.1 x64. I've also tried L4D2 and Far Cry Blood Dragon, exact same happens with these games.

[slouken]

Rich Burns, it looks like you're legitimately running into network problems. What ping is reported on your network? How does it fluctuate when the network goes haywire? What happens if you reduce your bandwidth to 10 or 5 Mbit?

[Sk@nkw0n]

Okay, I'd only tested via WiFi up until this morning, just managed to run a couple of tests wiring the laptop client directly to router. So on a 1GBs LAN connection these lag spikes weren't happening and both Portal 2 and Dirt 3 ran very smoothly :-


[2014-03-10 08:21:12]
=====================================================================
Game: Portal 2 (620)
[2014-03-10 08:21:12] Detected 4 logical processors, using 2 threads
[2014-03-10 08:21:12] Recording on device: Speakers (Creative SB X-Fi)
[2014-03-10 08:21:12] Audio client mix format:
[2014-03-10 08:21:12] format: 65534
[2014-03-10 08:21:12] channels: 2
[2014-03-10 08:21:12] samples/sec: 48000
[2014-03-10 08:21:12] bytes/sec: 384000
[2014-03-10 08:21:12] alignment: 8
[2014-03-10 08:21:12] bits/sample: 32
[2014-03-10 08:21:12] channel mask: 0x3
[2014-03-10 08:21:12] data format: {00000003-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71}
[2014-03-10 08:21:12] Initializing audio with 2 channels and 48000 samples/sec
[2014-03-10 08:21:13] >>> Capture method set to Desktop BitBlt RGB + libyuv + libx264 (2 threads)
[2014-03-10 08:21:15] >>> Capture method set to Game D3D9 RGB + libyuv + libx264 (2 threads)
[2014-03-10 08:33:02] "SessionStats"
{
"TimeSubmitted" "1394440382"
"ResolutionX" "768"
"ResolutionY" "480"
"CaptureName" "Game D3D9 RGB + libyuv + libx264 (2 threads)"
"DecoderName" "libavcodec software decoding with 2 threads"
"BandwidthLimit" "15000"
"FramerateLimit" "60"
"SlowSeconds" "0"
"SlowGamePercent" "0"
"SlowCapturePercent" "0"
"SlowConvertPercent" "0"
"SlowEncodePercent" "0"
"SlowNetworkPercent" "0"
"SlowDecodePercent" "0"
"AvgClientBitrate" "98.378875732421875"
"StdDevClientBitrate" "396.57022094726562"
"AvgServerBitrate" "10216.7822265625"
"StdDevServerBitrate" "171256.25"
"AvgLinkBandwidth" "279473.59375"
"AvgPingMS" "0.5738556981086731"
"StdDevPingMS" "0.42703092098236084"
"AvgCaptureMS" "18.893831253051758"
"StdDevCaptureMS" "8.4867124557495117"
"AvgConvertMS" "0.23040731251239777"
"StdDevConvertMS" "0.093563735485076904"
"AvgEncodeMS" "5.9024443626403809"
"StdDevEncodeMS" "3.3617002964019775"
"AvgNetworkMS" "0.35817429423332214"
"StdDevNetworkMS" "1.7915593385696411"
"AvgDecodeMS" "14.351234436035156"
"StdDevDecodeMS" "6.6030664443969727"
"AvgDisplayMS" "6.4228272438049316"
"StdDevDisplayMS" "4.6125345230102539"
"AvgFrameMS" "56.607692718505859"
"StdDevFrameMS" "35.078910827636719"
"AvgFPS" "49.36773681640625"
"StdDevFPS" "18.631219863891602"
}



[2014-03-10 08:36:19]
=====================================================================
Game: DiRT 3 (44320)
[2014-03-10 08:36:19] Detected 4 logical processors, using 2 threads
[2014-03-10 08:36:19] Recording on device: Speakers (Creative SB X-Fi)
[2014-03-10 08:36:19] Audio client mix format:
[2014-03-10 08:36:19] format: 65534
[2014-03-10 08:36:19] channels: 2
[2014-03-10 08:36:19] samples/sec: 48000
[2014-03-10 08:36:19] bytes/sec: 384000
[2014-03-10 08:36:19] alignment: 8
[2014-03-10 08:36:19] bits/sample: 32
[2014-03-10 08:36:19] channel mask: 0x3
[2014-03-10 08:36:19] data format: {00000003-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71}
[2014-03-10 08:36:19] Initializing audio with 2 channels and 48000 samples/sec
[2014-03-10 08:36:23] >>> Capture method set to Desktop BitBlt RGB + libyuv + libx264 (2 threads)
[2014-03-10 08:36:34] >>> Capture method set to Game async D3D11 NV12 + libx264 (2 threads)
[2014-03-10 08:41:06] >>> Capture method set to Desktop BitBlt RGB + libyuv + libx264 (2 threads)
[2014-03-10 08:41:06] "SessionStats"
{
"TimeSubmitted" "1394440866"
"ResolutionX" "768"
"ResolutionY" "480"
"CaptureName" "Desktop BitBlt RGB + libyuv + libx264 (2 threads)"
"DecoderName" "libavcodec software decoding with 2 threads"
"BandwidthLimit" "15000"
"FramerateLimit" "60"
"SlowSeconds" "0"
"SlowGamePercent" "0"
"SlowCapturePercent" "0"
"SlowConvertPercent" "0"
"SlowEncodePercent" "0"
"SlowNetworkPercent" "0"
"SlowDecodePercent" "0"
"AvgClientBitrate" "0"
"StdDevClientBitrate" "0"
"AvgServerBitrate" "0"
"StdDevServerBitrate" "0"
"AvgLinkBandwidth" "0"
"AvgPingMS" "0"
"StdDevPingMS" "0"
"AvgCaptureMS" "0"
"StdDevCaptureMS" "0"
"AvgConvertMS" "0"
"StdDevConvertMS" "0"
"AvgEncodeMS" "0"
"StdDevEncodeMS" "0"
"AvgNetworkMS" "0"
"StdDevNetworkMS" "0"
"AvgDecodeMS" "0"
"StdDevDecodeMS" "0"
"AvgDisplayMS" "0"
"StdDevDisplayMS" "0"
"AvgFrameMS" "0"
"StdDevFrameMS" "0"
"AvgFPS" "0"
"StdDevFPS" "0"
}


As you can see from the second log above, Dirt 3 was seamless, and both games very very playable.

So something is causing these massive lag spikes/packetloss over WiFi. I tried just using the 11n mode only (usually router is set to 11b,g,n mixed), but still had the spikes.

Can anyone please help and tell me what could be the cause?

The spikes are evident if the client is just a metre away from router, and I've tried many different combinations of the IHS settings to no avail. The only way I've gotten rid of the spikes is to wire the client directly to router. For the environment I'd like to use IHS in, (client down one floor from host), I really need to get rid of these spikes over WiFi. :(

[Rich Burns]

Originally posted by slouken:

Rich Burns, it looks like you're legitimately running into network problems. What ping is reported on your network? How does it fluctuate when the network goes haywire? What happens if you reduce your bandwidth to 10 or 5 Mbit?

Hi Slouken,

Thaks for your reply. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that it doesn't make complete sense for it to be my network. I've been using the same network and same host and client to Home Stream for weeks sucessfully and only suddenly in the last week am I having this problem. The only thing that has changed is an update to the beta client, all other factors have remained constant.

Ping:Packets sent 4, packets received, 4, 0% packet loss, minimum 1ms, maximum 1ms average 1ms. This is with Steam not running, how do I test this changing whilst a game is running?

Good suggestion on the bansdwith though, it's currently set to 15 mb/s. I'll try varying this ad see what happens and update this post shortly.

[slouken]

Please also try the latest beta update (March 10), we fixed some bugs relating to network bandwidth estimation.

[Rich Burns]

Originally posted by slouken:

Please also try the latest beta update (March 10), we fixed some bugs relating to network bandwidth estimation.

Beat you to it, saw the pop-up saying a new version available and downloaded it right away. Thanks :)

I noticed the 'ping' field in the F6 pop-up. Yes, when I get the spikes the ping also goes up massively, so it's hovering around 2ms normally then spikes up to well over 100ms for half a second then drops back down again.

Setting the game to 5mbps fixes the issue. 10, 15 and unlimited all end up with the game freezing. It's a workaround, but I'm still not convinced that this is normal.

Edit: screenshot https://app.box.com/s/mqr8h3svxlb9we6f2mld

[slouken]

Rich, can you try pinging the client machine from the host machine, and see if the ping time changes while the network appears to lock up? What is the estimated bandwidth normally, and when this happens?

We've seen lots of routers behave badly under the kind of load streaming puts on them.

[Rich Burns]

Opened up command prompt on the host PC and got it to ping the client at 1 second intervals. Every time the client freezes the ping shoots up, anywhere from 200ms to 1000ms. Also the estimated bandwith plummets from 65mbps to around 20mbps.

So conjececture on my part, does this sound feasible? Previously I was only able to stream at ~20FPS. Steam client update now gives me a lovely 60FPS, but the router freaks out at 60FPS. Limiting the bandwith to 5mbps makes the router happy again. Sound about right to you?

FYI Virgin Home Hub (The Super Hub 2 they call it) in the UK. I've noticed it has very poor WiFi range. If it's the WiFi on this unit it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

[slouken]

Yup, sounds right to me... Thanks for investigating!

[Rich Burns]

And thank you for helping.

In good news, your recent update that said about significantly improving streaming to older dual core stystems - 100% success. My laptop is an old Core 2 Duo, ignoring my WiFi problem, the streaming is vastly improved. Since the update the display latency went down by a factor of 3 and the FPS shot up from 20 to 60.

[Sudo]

I was also using an older Core 2 Duo, but getting a solid 60fps until the packet loss spiked. I just got the rest of my parts in to complete my new build today (core i3), maybe it will stop the spiking for me. May have to check into QoS in the router and see if limiting the bandwidth cures my problem as well.