Got Lag?

[DV_Potatobaiter]

Before you make a thread about it here are some steps to try to remedy the problem.

 

Is it hardware lag or network lag?

These are not the same thing. Network lag will appear as if you are lagging and can be accompanied by server disconnects, timing out and other issues but your FPS will remain relatively constant. The FPS counter displays the number of frames per second rendered by your GPU and is unaffected by your network connection. Hardware lag on the other hand will result in your displayed FPS dropping as well as (depending on the game, what engine it uses and what if any anti cheat software it's using) dropped connections, timing out from the server, quite a few PunkBuster restrictions on games utilizing it and other hardware specific issues.

 

Is your PC up to date?

It's surprising how many people overlook basic PC maintenance. It's not only drivers for your GPU which can affect performance but also drivers for soundcards, network interface cards, your CPU, USB hubs, hard drives, BIOS for your motherboard, and firmware for routers and modems. ALL OF THESE should be regularly maintained and kept up to date.

 

Is your connection optimized?

Have you ran a program such as TCP Optimizer to ensure you have the optimal settings in your NIC? Believe it or not, this one simple step can be good for a 15-25% decrease in ping. You can find the program here and it is freeware. http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php Set it for approximately 5% higher than your advertised download speeds from your ISP and it will do wonders for your ping. 

 

Ports

Nothing really to say about that as I couldn't find any documentation from WG as to which ports need to be forwarded. If a dev or moderator knows what they are feel free to add to this.

 

Test your connection

Pretty self explanatory really. Once you've completed all the above steps it's time to test your connection. I recommend using both http://www.speedtest.net/ for your download and upload speeds as well as http://www.pingtest.net/ to test for packet loss and line jitter. When it's all done your results should be comparable to the advertised speeds from your ISP with no packet loss and no more than 7% line jitter depending on how far away the test server is. While I live in the Kansas City, MO area I like to use East Coast servers to test on as probably 80% of the games I play have servers there.

 

 

 

Run a DirectX diagnostic on your system

If after trying everything above you're still experiencing lag it's time to run a DxDiag to get your exact system configuration so that additional steps can be taken without inadvertently making the problem worse. To do this hit the WINDOWS key and R at the same time to open a cmd prompt and type "dxdiag" without the quotes. This will open the tool allowing you to analyze your system. Click the Save All Information... button to save it as a text file in the place of your choosing. You can then upload it to a hosting site such as DropBox and link it in your thread.

 

Hopefully this helps you before you go through the trouble of making a thread and it will definitely help those trying to help you fix your problem by not giving you bad advice.

 

A SIDE NOTE ABOUT PROGRAMS LIKE RAZER GAME BOOSTER

Don't use them. Ever. They aren't worth any gains you may get from them. There is nothing they will disable that you cannot disable yourself either through Task Manager or the Microsoft Computer Management Console and it will not add yet another running background process eating up resources (the whole point of running it was to kill processes freeing up resources, right?).