Might the lag spikes be fixed if I try another network adapter card?

Grim Dawn General Discussion
#1

Hello!

Trying to get smooth gameplay when I play with my friends. It’s not going well. I’ve tried upnp, I’ve tried buying a new fancy gaming router, I’ve tried using TCP optimizer utilities, I’ve tried port forwarding… nothing changes the fact that my guests get long lag spikes intermittently. My log.html is full of complaints about packet fragmentation and other issues.

I’m thinking to buy a new network card. Perhaps the one in my mobo is trash?
In no other game do I have these issues, but I know people are playing GD mp without issues so there must be a way.

Please help :frowning:

#2

Just to check my assumption, you are on a wired connection, not wireless, between computer and router/modem, yeah?

Assuming so… both good and bad news, the answer is almost certainly not. It isn’t impossible that this is the network card, but it almost certainly isn’t – not least because most of the time the onboard NIC is an Intel ethernet controller part of the chipset, and those are just fine.

To find out for sure, posting the log somewhere for people to see might help, but the best thing to do is measure to find out where the problem is. The best tool and guide I know that covers every step is https://www.pingplotter.com/fix-your-network (The free version is more than fine for this.)

If you point that at 8.8.8.8 (Google DNS) you have something with a known good server-side to test against; if you point it at an IP used while you are playing with friends that’ll show you the details of communication between you and them. Both have value, and sometimes 8.8.8.8 will show up the problem quickly.

Feel free to post screenshots if you need help understanding the results of PingPlotter.

Beyond that, word of advice: almost all the “TCP optimizer” things are either snake-oil, or actively counter-productive. They usually “solve” problems that don’t really exist, and can make things much, much worse by, eg, disabling features that make it possible for the OS to communicate effectively with other systems.

If you can undo whatever they did, probably a good idea.

#3

Hello Slippy and thank you so much for your reply!

I am on a wired ethernet connection to my router yes, and my router is connected to the fiber wall outlet by ethernet cable.

Too bad it’s unlikely that it’s the NIC’s fault - I already ordered one. Heh… they’re not expensive though so could’ve been worse.

I’m downloading PingPlotter now and will report back with results. The GD logs reset on every launch and last I played my friend would host (he’s on wi-fi and I get lag spikes when there’s lots going on, then I’m dead).
I will find the time to get you a screenshot or copy of my log file, some time this week.

Thanks again!!

#4

wi-fi on either end is pretty much always going to have periods of packet loss or high latency, unless you live in the middle of nowhere miles from any other people.

so absent anything else - like pingplotter pointing to something - I’d probably guess it was that. sad, but true.

#5

Hello again!

masklin
masklin.png1533×979 71.1 KB

And the log:
https://pastebin.com/06byt0vF

I asked my friend to open a few UDP ports and then told PingPlotter to tracert with UDP to those ports but PingPlotter complained about invalid arguments or something so didn’t tell us much.
I don’t know what to do… ;(

EDIT: I restarted my router between off/on -ing the upnp setting, and now GD considers upnp enabled, but the log isn’t much better:
https://pastebin.com/XwcfXh9v

EDIT2: This is what the log looks like when my wi-fi friend hosts and I join him:
pastebin[dot]com/zTN2ChPs

EDIT3: This what my wi-fi friend’s log looks like when he hosts:
privatebin[dot]net/?35650ed313b4976c#GxRL4ENzqsNovmQhMpspg1h1Jibe5w5YLx4L7mwRfPFz

#6

Well, that trace shows no problems. Those two 100 percent “loss” are just not responding, rather than anything real. So whatever the issue, it isn’t evident from that. So you can, IMO, mostly rule out network things – or at least, not ones that’ll show on a check like this.

#7

Hmm, well if it’s not network-related I don’t know what it could be. I tried lowering all graphics settings to the lowest possible but it changed nothing.

Any ideas? I could ask my friend to use a cable just for testing it. Not sure he has a long enough one though, I’ll see.

#8

Trying a cable would be the place to start, yeah. Otherwise, I’m at a bit of a loss, because it doesn’t seem like anything is wrong on the network. You could try running PingPlotter longer, while playing, and see if the problem shows up on it then, or something strange like that.