Weird Lag only in CS

Okay, my friend has been having some problems with is connection in counter-strike 1.6. IDK if hes tried any other games but heres some info on what happens and what weve tried.

Here is a tracert result: mine is top, his is bottom. http://i44.tinypic.com/xc3ii1.jpg

Problem: Straight from him; "I skip around every second and my ms spikes to 100

What weve tried:
Called support, they came out gave him 1 free month of internet, and a new modem, did not solve it.

Tried a 2nd pc. Problem still exist.

Reset Mode. Problem still exist.

Direct connected to modem.

Tried a new modem.

Called Comcast, they say everything is good on their end.

What Ive ruled out: His PC, port forwarding, bad cat5 cable, firewalls, nic card, driver problem, and maybe something i forgot to add.

Oh yeah forgot to mention, he said

"well... there are like tree branches
hanging on the lines
outside"

Please help, we have a league match coming up for CS.

Also, for all my homies from TE, Im now majoring in "Computer Network Engineering"

BOOO required programing classes.

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Comments

jryantech

Probably should post the specs of the PC.

How much memory does his video card have? Should be at least 1GB

pLuhhmm

Why would it be the PC? Hes tried it on another PC and it still happens.

jryantech

What are the specs of the two computers and I can help you rule out if it is the computers.

And you should always be directly connected to the modem if you can be.

dynamik

The specs of the PCs would have to be pretty bad to increase ping and tracert latency

Plus, CS takes next to nothing to run. I'm sure pro (literally, I believe) gamers understand what they need.

Do you have anything else running in the background p2p, torrents, spyware? Any other computers using the network?

To be honest, all those times seem to be around what I get. Cable is a shared medium. Maybe one of his neighbors just started a large download, and Comcast threw a ton of bandwidth at him or her with their burst feature.

jryantech

dynamik wrote: »

The specs of the PCs would have to be pretty bad to increase ping and tracert latency

Never said the specs would have anything to do with the ping or tracert latency.

His initial pled was help to get his game to stop 'skipping'.
And yes having a bad system/video card can cause lag-like issues in Counter Strike.

I want him to post the specs so we can go from there. When you troubleshoot anything with a computer you start with... well the computer itself...

ElvisG

Has he tried connecting to another CS server?

*edit
It's either one of these issues.

1) You computer

2) Your connection

3) The Server

4) The Server Connection

If you can connect to another server and there is no issue then you know it's the server. If you do connect to another server and the problem still exist then it's either 1 or 2. Because of the tracert, I'm thinking it's a video card issue whether it's the driver or card itself, I don't know.

msteinhilber

tiersten wrote: »

No. phoeneous is right. You don't need a video card with 1GB of RAM. Even 512MB is way more than you need for CS.

This would be correct, even my old single core AMD with 2GB RAM and my 256MB X800XT card could handle this game with ease. As mentioned, does the problem persist on an alternate server? You could try a program like WinMTR (WinMTR - 0.8) and set it to poll at a reasonable interval and see if there is any packet loss occurring or spikes in latency at any particular hops over a longer term.

shednik

jryantech wrote: »

Nothing else I can do or say but /facepalm

Ok here's what I have to say here. First I'd like to help the OP since this is the point of the thread not to spat out things just because I think thats what will fix it. If the PCs are decent hardware and there are no known issues with both of them I think its pretty safe to conclude there is some sort of network issue happening.I would load of a sniffer and take a look at the traffic to try and see of there is anything funny going on, TCP Retransmits, UDP Packets with no reponse. It could be a multitude of things but you need to take a look at the traffic to really diagnose.

As for jryan I really have to say I understand you are trying to help the best way you know how to, but you need to not be so stuborn. You're what 19/20 and half the time you talk like you know it all and don't need to provide any sort of backing to your statements. Don't get mad because someone doesn't agree with you, if you think you're still right. PROVE IT! Don't be immature about it and put your hands in your face, like it's been said try that with a co-worker or your boss see how well it goes over. The mature thing would be to say I disagree and here's why and here's where I cam to that conclusion. I'm done ranting i'm just tired or seeing you being immature and stuborn when someone doesn't agree with you.

JDMurray

Is he playing CS in Steam? I notice that some games (TF2) are choppy when I load new maps until I defrag the partition. Anti-virus also plays Hell with some games too. Try deactivating all programs that are dynamically filtering or scanning.

GT-Rob

Regardless of his 'specs' I doubt that it the problem. I used to play 1.6 on a P3 with 64mb video card, with no issues.

Have you tried adjusting the settings within the game? Is this every server you try? Even ones in your area?

If your answer is yes to it all, its probably something on your provider's end that probably won't be fixed. Comcast does not care about your game, they don't even guarantee an uptime for you. I say call a DSL provider in and see if it resolves.

msteinhilber

JDMurray wrote: »

some games (TF2) are choppy when I load new maps until I defrag the partition.

I thought defrag only helped with your survivability in game?

Ahriakin

jryantech wrote: »

Good stuff... lol

Simply stated you start with the computer first before anything when troubleshooting. But it seems most of you work at Geeksquad and think booting to a "Magic" CD is suppose to fix everything.

Oh boy, grow up. You didn't understand the problem, posted a ridiculous statement and then didn't have the good grace (or sense) to laugh it off and backdown. You're just digging yourself in deeper.
And no, when you troubleshoot you start with whatever is the most likely component to cause the specific problem, in this case networking then work backwards. Making generalised assumptions and quoting the need for bloated hardware is exactly what Geeksquad and it's ilk are often accused of so if anyone in this post is lined up for a position with them you're at the top of the list.

Anyway:
One thing about steam to watch is the Flash videos they often have on their main page advertising specials is a very badly written CPU hog. On mine it ties up 30% cpu time when it's onscreen and before I realized it was the culprit had me troubleshooting my system for why I 'randomly' had slowdowns in TF2, the random part really just being down to whether I had navigated away from the main screen or not before launching the game.
Instead of a traceroute try pathping, it'll give you Packet Loss statistics for each hop aswell. I find it better for locating the source of these kind of issues.

macdude

Look up the sys requirements from CS, If his computer can't handle it being that old of a game it's time to upgrade.

I guy I work with had comcast cable and it was getting bad lag times. So he switched to ATT DSL because there were not has many hops in between as there are with comcast. Comcast is a shared medium. Anything can affect it. I know at my apt if I get on at certain hours, it slow, other times it just zips right along. When I had dsl I didn't have this issue. Have your friend take the system to someones house that has dsl and see.

As far as the 1GB graphics card, this is an old game, 256MB with xp should be fine and even with vista I would say 256-512MB should be more than enough.

macdude

jryantech,

Sometimes you have to start at the network. You don't always start with the computer. Since he has tried two different computers on the same connection you can rule the computer out. Why would an old game need a 1GB card anyway?

I am just saying when you troubleshoot sometimes you have to take a step back and just look at the obvious. I see where and why you want to start with the computer and video card. But he has tried to different computers and they both do it. Its a cable connection which is shared.

JavonR

Ahriakin wrote: »

Truly I stand humbled....You may be being ridiculed now in other threads and digging yourself in deeper with every post but that's just because we don't understand the depths of your genius. Now if only I could use your maverick 1GB video card solution to fix latency issues with my firewalls.

LOL.. you made me laugh at work

Edit: I just decided I should probably contribute to this thread, seeing as how I work for a cable company and all.

Part of that traceroute is cut off, what you need to do is find out what the first hop outside of his internal network is... usually a 10.x.x.x ip. This will be the cable co's CMTS (cable modem termination system) subnet that he is on.... run a continuous ping to this ip address (ping x.x.x.x -t, in a command prompt) then load up some CS. Wait for the lag to start up, minimize the game, and check the latency on your ping. If it's bouncing around all of the place, the node is probably getting saturated. If not, there is a downstream problem that is probably out of the cable co's hands. Even if there is saturation, GL getting comcast to fix it.... it's a very expensive ordeal

mikej412

JavonR wrote: »

I just decided I should probably contribute to this thread, seeing as how I work for a cable company and all.

Thanks -- good advice.

Please stay on topic until the issue is resolved. Refer back to original post for the original topic.

I tried a traceroute when this was first posted and all hops were under 20ms. Tonight the hops in iad1.us.nlayer.net were up to 30ms -- but still consistent -- except for an occasional spike. I used my DSL connection (since my cable won't be working again until Spring thaw).

deadpool287

*cracks knuckles* let me give this a try.

try the following commands in console "developer console" (he should know waht this is)

cl_cmdrate 100
cl_updaterate 100
rate 30000 <---thats 30k

Ahriakin

I came in here to edit one of my responses and see a mod got there first, thanks (seriously). Sorry but I do not like seeing people put down like that, but then I ended up doing the same thing to the original perp which was just as wrong. So apologies.