Unusual TF2 Lag

RobH

RobH

RobH

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Joined
9 May 2005
Posts
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Nottingham
Ok, since I started playing TF2 back in the October beta until today I have never had any major problems playing on any TF2 server related to lag. However I've recently had problems with games lagging so badly that when I've shot the enemy has killed me and is miles away. The lag only occurs when there are a lot of players around.

It is nothing related to FPS and it doesn't seem to be anything to do with ping because it is happening on UK servers with pings <100ms yet I don't have a single problem on US servers with pings > 175ms. I've rebooted my router and PC which didn't do anything. I don't know if anyone can figure this out, I may have to go to the Steam forums or tech support.

Below are the net graphs for a game on a good server and a game on a bad server:

Good Server:
netok.jpg


Bad Server:
netbad.jpg
 
Are you talking about lag or your computing slowing. I consider 'lag' to be slow network activity.

You probably have vsync enabled for your gfx card.

But also try, in the console:
max_fps 100


Also
rate 10000
cl_updaterrate 100
cl_cmdrate 100
 
It's nothing to do with FPS as you can see it is maxed out to 59fps in both games. It seems like the client isn't getting updates frequent enough to be able to draw the correct position of the other players. You can see that the good game is updating many times a second whilse the bad game has far fewer updates which is causing this 'jumpiness'.
 
I guess you're at work or whatever, so I won't ask if you've tried them. But yeah 5 things to check.... Otherwise I'm clueless :)
 
I'm with BT, I suspected that it could be something to do with the choke but wasn't sure. It's strange because it only started a couple of days ago and it only seem to affect certain UK servers. I was playing fine on the Control Point Podcast US servers with a ping of 190ms yet on the jolt.co.uk one I was getting this horrible lag with a 55ms ping, it only srats when I go into a fight, it runs fine when I'm walking to the frontline.

Another thing is that it happens in spectator mode if I got to an area with a lot of people and watch, I can see people moving, pausing and then moving again, it's jumpy. The voice comms also drops in and out making it impossible to talk, I know everyone else wasn't suffering the same problem because I asked them. As I said it's nothing to do with FPS or ping because I was able to play at the frontline where there were 12+ people fighting on a US server with a high ping and it was fine.

I'll give the network commands a try later but I don't know if it will do anything. I'll let you know, thanks for the replies.
 
Yes it's not a ping issue, your ping can be fine but you can experience packet loss or choke. I'm not an expert, I vaguely understand the concept of packetloss and I assume choke is similar - you're basically missing pieces of the "jigsaw" of data you should be recieving.

Choke and packet loss should be 0 if your connection is solid. I'm pretty sure this is a network issue (i.e. blame your ISP) if you haven't changed anything recently. I've heard BT have had some congestion issues lately, perhaps it's something to do with the way they are shaping traffic. It seems strange that you don't get it to US servers though.

Just for the record, I randomly started getting high packet loss and choke (but ping of 20-30ms) with Virgin Media ADSL, it stopped immediately once I switched provider.
 
High packet loss is usually a problem with your connection.

High choke is usually a problem with the server's connection.

From what I can see, the "good" server not only has a lower ping but much less choke, so obviously has better connectivity. Of course this isn't always the case, as ISPs have various routing issues with certain IP clusters all the time. It's worth doing a traceroute to the gameserver's IP address to determine where exactly along the route the traffic is being slowed.
 
KingAdora said:
Also
rate 10000
cl_updaterrate 100
cl_cmdrate 100
Click to expand...

Just got aorund to trying these and it seems to have got rid of the problem. The graph looks like the good servers now. Any idea what causes the choking on certain server but not others?
 
Your settings for network traffic in and out were probably just too low, so you probably appeared jerky to others (your low output) and your game appeared jerked (your low input).
Your welcome..
 
RobH said:
Just got aorund to trying these and it seems to have got rid of the problem. The graph looks like the good servers now. Any idea what causes the choking on certain server but not others?
Click to expand...

im having the exact same problem with multiplay TF2 servers

is it those servers you were having problems with ?
 
KingAdora said:
Also
rate 10000
cl_updaterrate 100
cl_cmdrate 100
Click to expand...


just tryed these for the above problem. After taking a minute or so to bed in (had a couple of wierd lag spikes) i played for a further hour solid without a single stutter. I'd forgottent hese commands even existed its been that long since i played CS.
 
Do those settings stay after you close TF2? or should I enter them every time?

I have an issue where on some servers my ping starts at 100+ and rises to around 200 and stays that was for 2~ minutes and then all of a sudden it drops to usual levels (my usual is 20~)

Very strange, QOS is off, no network users downloading, I am wired to the router (WRT54GL on tomato).

Only started happening few weeks ago.
 
Its nothing to do with TF2 particularly, its the HL2 netcode that applies to any game that uses the engine.
They changed something about 15 months ago that started this problem for me, I was 0/0 for years before that.

Ticrate and server is what will alter it. The settings above might help slightly but you wont fix it sorry


The settings stick through restarts afaik but you can alter config files as well if you like
 
MrLOL said:
im having the exact same problem with multiplay TF2 servers

is it those servers you were having problems with ?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I play on them quite a lot and it suddenly started happening on them as well as a few other UK servers.
 
Well those commands seem to have helped, instead of my ping starting at 50 and rising to 200 then 2 mins later dropping to a stable 20~ it now starts at 100~ and drops promptly to 20~ :)
 
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