Periodic Lag on TF2

KometeKomete Member
edited July 2011 in Team Fortress 2
My TF2 game play can very minute to minute. I really like the game but I can't seem to get any consistent game play out of it. I'm guessing it's because I'm playing behind a wireless connection. It's just weird because everything will be fine and then bam it starts lagging out the blue. If anyone has any experiences with lag and a solution to playing MP through a wireless connection, please share.

My specs are

AMD phenom2 @ 3GHZ
4 gigs of memory
8800gt
2 500gig hard drives in raid 0
ASUS 802.11n Wireless card
Buffalo router using tomato firmware

Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited July 2011
    In 9 years on a wireless connection, I have never once had trouble gaming. Not at all. Not ever.

    Start with setting up a ping -t to your router and see if your lag coincides with what's going on in the ping window.
  • BuddyJBuddyJ Dept. of Propaganda OKC Icrontian
    edited July 2011
    I've played TF2 over wifi for years too. Are your drivers up to date? What are your video settings at?
  • KoreishKoreish I'm a penguin, deal with it. KCMO Icrontian
    edited July 2011
    I've experienced problems similar to Komete. I can play other games online (SC2, Borderlands etc.) with only an occasional lag spike but TF2 even on the lowest setting can become unplayable at times with the amount of lag I get. Its the entire reason I stopped playing TF2 in the first place.

    I'll keep an eye on this thread in case a problem / solution is discovered.
  • KometeKomete Member
    edited July 2011
    Really? well I checked out -T ping to my router and am seeing some wide results. for about 10 minutes I was getting 1ms to 295ms. It was all over the place. Now it's mostly 1 and 2ms and when I tried TF2 it was running good, no lag. I'll try it again the next time there is lag and report back.

    Buddy J My video card is up to date. Everything else has been a couple of months.
  • Nate_LapTNate_LapT Ferndale MI. Icrontian
    edited July 2011
    Grab a copy of insidder http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/ load it up on a system with a wifi card and see how many of your neighbors are also on the same channel as your router. Then promptly move it over to a free channel. Less likely the router is flaking out. I vote interference first.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited July 2011
    Komete wrote:
    Really? well I checked out -T ping to my router and am seeing some wide results. for about 10 minutes I was getting 1ms to 295ms. It was all over the place. Now it's mostly 1 and 2ms and when I tried TF2 it was running good, no lag. I'll try it again the next time there is lag and report back.

    Buddy J My video card is up to date. Everything else has been a couple of months.

    Your router is on a crowded channel, or your router's firmware just plain sucks. The latter is often the true culprit when people claim that wireless is bad for gaming.

    Is its bandwidth lower than wired? Yep. Can you notice the few nanosecond difference between 2ms to the router on wireless and 2ms on wired? Absolutely not.

    But you will notice when the router is lagging out (295ms) or dropping packets because its firmware blows or it's being interfered withg by other routers crowding its spectrum.
  • KometeKomete Member
    edited July 2011
    Well I've scanned for free channels and have tried 3 different ones so far and nothing. Tomato is supposed to be good firmware. I just tried the ping on my wife's laptop and it's getting mostly 1ms with it occasionally going up to 12. I'm wondering if it's my wireless card. Right now it's doing 1ms than 1000+ms then back to 1MS. Weird.
  • QCHQCH Ancient Guru Chicago Area - USA Icrontian
    edited July 2011
    I saw it at EPIC when I hosted a TF2 game and anyone joined... a second of lag.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited July 2011
    You could try defragging the TF2 cache in Steam
  • ErrorNullTurnipErrorNullTurnip Illinois Icrontian
    edited July 2011
    Also useful is using net_graph # in the console window. Works in all source games (afaik). Shows ping and framerate.
  • KometeKomete Member
    edited July 2011
    Well I updated my wireless card driver and didn't have any lag problems tonight. I also saw someone switched to another channel. Maybe they were having lag problems too. I don't know what fixed it but hopefully it stays fixed.
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