What causes network lag?

A

Alkohallick

Newcomer
OK not quite sure if this belongs here so please move if necessary.

Can someone please give me a brief overview of what lag is caused by, or how much does upload speed effect lag (if at all).

Brief history, I pretty much play COD exclusively and i notice that whenever people start complaining of lag that I'm the host. Now I'm not saying that I don't notice lag from time to time when others host but it is very noticeable when i host.

I'm semi-aware of distance from other players effecting this but I'm in the Midwest US (St. Louis, MO to be exact) and I mainly only play with people from US. Do the green "connection "bars actually mean anything as there normally all 4 green so i would think all is fine.

Also I don't have an issue with BFBC or KZ2 so maybe its just a COD thing?

I ask because I'm thinking of upgrading my internet connection from 2 to 3 Mbps upstream.

Thanks for any advise!
 
Alkohallick said:
OK not quite sure if this belongs here so please move if necessary.

Can someone please give me a brief overview of what lag is caused by, or how much does upload speed effect lag (if at all).

Brief history, I pretty much play COD exclusively and i notice that whenever people start complaining of lag that I'm the host. Now I'm not saying that I don't notice lag from time to time when others host but it is very noticeable when i host.

I'm semi-aware of distance from other players effecting this but I'm in the Midwest US (St. Louis, MO to be exact) and I mainly only play with people from US. Do the green "connection "bars actually mean anything as there normally all 4 green so i would think all is fine.

Also I don't have an issue with BFBC or KZ2 so maybe its just a COD thing?

I ask because I'm thinking of upgrading my internet connection from 2 to 3 Mbps upstream.

Thanks for any advise!
Click to expand...

Its more of a peer to peer thing.

With dedicated server only your distance and connection are to blame not the host.
But then im not a expert on this subject.
 
Maybe it has something to do with your connection quality/packet loss since 2Mbps up isn't bad at all. That's higher than the average here in Ohio.
 
Alkohallick said:
I ask because I'm thinking of upgrading my internet connection from 2 to 3 Mbps upstream.

Thanks for any advise!
Click to expand...

Anything else going on with the connection at the same time? Torrenting maybe? That tends to kill ping times quite effectively.
 
Lag is quite literally time taken for packets of data to reach their destination. It is influenced by various factors. Slow BW decrease the number of packets that can be sent, and thus time between them. The more internet nodes your data has to pass through, the more latency is added. The more packet loss you suffer, the more times you have to resend data, increasing the time it takes to get a message to or from the server. In theory, some ISP's may reduce priority of certain high-consumption traffic - I don't know if they do or not. Have you tried PingTest.net? Same folk as Speedtest but tests packet loss. I don't know how accurate it is as it claims 96% packet loss for me, but I don't have a huge problem with net gaming. Might be worth having a look though.

Anyway, connection speed isn't really the deciding factor. Most people are fast enough. I'd question you connection quality.
 
cjo said:
Anything else going on with the connection at the same time? Torrenting maybe? That tends to kill ping times quite effectively.
Click to expand...

Only thing powered on is my 360 or ps3, I may use my pc once a month. I'M almost 100% I dont have any neighbors leaching either
 
I believe the time it takes to enter a web URL and have the DNS server tranlsate that into an IP address. This shouldn't be an issue for any game that'll address the server via direct IP.
 
Could the mods please rename this thread to "What causes network lag?". I came here expecting 3d pipelining discussions.
 
Latency (round trip time), packet queuing due to lack of QoS and bandwidth from your standpoint. The other side would be how the netcode of the game is written.
 
Anything that has to do anything to your traffic to get it from your console to the player and back again. Each part adds a tiny bit and then we have as other people have mentioned, packet drops and lack of QoS or even the usage of QoS and DPI.

But the only parts you can influence is what is under your control ie how much bandwith you pay for and what equipment you got in your home.
For instance if your console is connected to to your router via WLAN, try to used wired connection.
If you are on xDSL try to switch to Cable or Fiber etc, stay away from Wireless if you can :)

If you got a decent home router, maybe some QoS rules will help out, but if buffers, queues etc are "wrong" then it might induce more problems. Or if you got a very cheap router with a weak CPU or SoC solution.

Try to give this one a go

http://netalyzr.icsi.berkeley.edu/

Feel free to either post the results on here or send it to me in a PM, if you need help with the results it gives.
 
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