I know this should be in tech help but... *{Please Read}*
- Thread starter Kibo
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There are different kinds of lag. Hardware lag is cause by a bottleneck in your computer performance. Internet lag is caused by your connection. Internet lag should not be as prevalent these days with everyone on DLS and cable. Make sure you defragment your computer, and your cache files steam. Right click on a game and go to properties in steam. Go to local files and defragment cache files. Lowering settings help as well, but you need to play with it to find the middle ground.
As frank said, it depends on the slowdown that your encountering
There are two things that cause slowdowns
Hardware
When you get a slowdown due to your computers hardware, its cause framerate drops. Which means your game is skipping frames or running less frames. which is really obvious looking because the game will look awful animation wise, and you'll have trouble moving around.
Connection
This deals with your internet service provider. If your running DSL/Cable which most people are, you'll have a ping of anywhere between 30 - 90 (im widen'ing the average just because you see pings in that range alot)
Cause's
Hardware slowdowns are caused from you having crappy computer specs such as a slow processor or an outdated graphics card.
Connection slowdowns deal with you having a slow internet connection.
How to tell which one your getting
Hope this helps
There are two things that cause slowdowns
- Hardware
- Internet Connection
Hardware
When you get a slowdown due to your computers hardware, its cause framerate drops. Which means your game is skipping frames or running less frames. which is really obvious looking because the game will look awful animation wise, and you'll have trouble moving around.
Connection
This deals with your internet service provider. If your running DSL/Cable which most people are, you'll have a ping of anywhere between 30 - 90 (im widen'ing the average just because you see pings in that range alot)
Cause's
Hardware slowdowns are caused from you having crappy computer specs such as a slow processor or an outdated graphics card.
Connection slowdowns deal with you having a slow internet connection.
How to tell which one your getting
- Open up your DEVELOPERs console in-game [~]
- Type in
- A bit of information will appear in the bottom right hand corner of your screen
- FPS = Frames Per Second, HIGHER IS BETTER. lots of frames means smooth gameplay
- PING= Internet connection speed, LOWER IS BETTER, low ping generally means you have a solid connection to the server.
Hope this helps
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www.speedtest.net
Try this website, let us know what your internet score is and then we should be able to determine if its your internet or your pc that is causing you to lag.
Try this website, let us know what your internet score is and then we should be able to determine if its your internet or your pc that is causing you to lag.
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You might get more people responding to your question here, but you will get more people who know about your topic posting in tech help. I scan the tech help all the time looking for PC problems I have had and give what I did to fix them. Like on this one, I had to up grade our internet service and I had to go buy a new wireless router.
So always post in the forums your topics belong. You will still get help that way.
So always post in the forums your topics belong. You will still get help that way.
I cannot play games on our wifi via my Vista box... must be plugged directly into the router. That's probably a long shot, but if you are using Vista and everything is going smoothly until you randomly lag completely out every few minutes, wifi is likely your problem.
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Giantcat,
(Wassup fellow Gopher!)
Actually, your net connection is better than mine:
And I usually don't have (knock on wood, salt over shoulder) any net lag problems. So, I'm guessing the problem is on your side of the fence - not the ISP's.
There are quite a few other things to consider though:
1. Are you connected via a hardline (wired) or wirelessly? Use a wired connection if possible.
2. Are you sharing your net connection with anyone else?
3. Is your router "stable"? (Check its log) Does your PC log indicate issues when you begin to have problems with "lag"?
4. Is your wired connection wrapped around a bunch of other power cords or over 100 feet long? Or if wireless, are you more than 40 feet or so? Are there other devices broadcasting in the 2.4 Ghz range? (like microwaves, cordless phones, etc)
5. Are you running any other background tasks which could take up (a large chunk of) CPU time on your PC? AV checkers are the big ones. But any autoupdaters (Google, Java, Microsoft, Adobe), VoIP apps, chat windows (except Ventrilo, of course!), etc.
6. Can you describe your PC in more detail? How much memory do you have? How fast is the memory? If your PC is writing things to swap space, that will greatly slow down your PC. Do you use dedicated video memory or shared (video) memory? What's the state of your hard drive? 5400 RPM? 7200? Heavily fragged?
If you give some more details, that'll help diagnose the issue.
PS: Test to see if you're really from Minnesota. Complete the phrase: "Duck, Duck..."
(Wassup fellow Gopher!)
Actually, your net connection is better than mine:
And I usually don't have (knock on wood, salt over shoulder) any net lag problems. So, I'm guessing the problem is on your side of the fence - not the ISP's.
There are quite a few other things to consider though:
1. Are you connected via a hardline (wired) or wirelessly? Use a wired connection if possible.
2. Are you sharing your net connection with anyone else?
3. Is your router "stable"? (Check its log) Does your PC log indicate issues when you begin to have problems with "lag"?
4. Is your wired connection wrapped around a bunch of other power cords or over 100 feet long? Or if wireless, are you more than 40 feet or so? Are there other devices broadcasting in the 2.4 Ghz range? (like microwaves, cordless phones, etc)
5. Are you running any other background tasks which could take up (a large chunk of) CPU time on your PC? AV checkers are the big ones. But any autoupdaters (Google, Java, Microsoft, Adobe), VoIP apps, chat windows (except Ventrilo, of course!), etc.
6. Can you describe your PC in more detail? How much memory do you have? How fast is the memory? If your PC is writing things to swap space, that will greatly slow down your PC. Do you use dedicated video memory or shared (video) memory? What's the state of your hard drive? 5400 RPM? 7200? Heavily fragged?
If you give some more details, that'll help diagnose the issue.
PS: Test to see if you're really from Minnesota. Complete the phrase: "Duck, Duck..."
I am wireless internet. I can't get the cord to my laptop.
It's unsecured so maybe someone is using it?
Dont know where the log is =]
I'm about 10-15 feet away, with a cordless phone in the middle and a microwave outside my direct area.
viru scanners are running... as is the HPupdate.
My computer is:
AMD Turion X2-Ultra-Dual Core Mobile ZM-80; 2.10 GHz
2.00 GB of RAM
And an ATI Radeon Mobility HD 3450 or something. The number is right, I'm just not sure about the fancy words. And It;s integrated. I don't know the RPM, and I have't defragged for a while so prollly...
And BTW, I say Duck Duck Goose.
It's unsecured so maybe someone is using it?
Dont know where the log is =]
I'm about 10-15 feet away, with a cordless phone in the middle and a microwave outside my direct area.
viru scanners are running... as is the HPupdate.
My computer is:
AMD Turion X2-Ultra-Dual Core Mobile ZM-80; 2.10 GHz
2.00 GB of RAM
And an ATI Radeon Mobility HD 3450 or something. The number is right, I'm just not sure about the fancy words. And It;s integrated. I don't know the RPM, and I have't defragged for a while so prollly...
And BTW, I say Duck Duck Goose.
SECURE THAT ROUTER! You are probably letting half the neighborhood online by leaving it open with no WPA security!!!
Also try changing the wireless channel from default (1) to 6, or 11. Once that's all set, power cycle both your modem and router just for good measure.
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Giantcat,
If you're using wireless to connect to your (local) router and then out to the Net, I'm fairly certain your wireless is dropping and causing you lag from time to time.
Fusion is totally right: You should secure your access point. Not just to ensure other people aren't leeching your bandwidth, but it's also important from liability purposes. What if someone uses your connection for, uh, less than good purposes. It gets traced..and comes back to you? For security, sure, yes, but that's really secondary.
If your cordless phone is a 2.4 Ghz phone, it is almost certainly interfering with your net connection. You would need to get a 5.8 Ghz phone or move the phone far enough away (I'd recommend at least 20 feet).
Avoid using AV scanners when playing because some AV scanners will check each file you open every time you access a file. So, Steam tries to read a file and has to wait while the AV scanner checks for viruses.
You should also turn off any updaters - such as the HP update or the Steam autoupdater. Only download updates when you want to and know for what.
If you're using a laptop, it's a good guess you're using a slower hard drive. So, it's even more important to keep your hard drive and especially your Steam files, defragged. If you right click on TF2, go to Properties, you should see something about keeping local cache files defragged. A really good thing to do for anyone but especially you.
Your video card should be fine. I did a quick check (I'm lazy) and couldn't see if it uses dedicated memory or shared memory. If it's dedicated, that's great. If it's shared, then that might be a problem too - which you really can't fix because it's a laptop.
If you're using wireless to connect to your (local) router and then out to the Net, I'm fairly certain your wireless is dropping and causing you lag from time to time.
Fusion is totally right: You should secure your access point. Not just to ensure other people aren't leeching your bandwidth, but it's also important from liability purposes. What if someone uses your connection for, uh, less than good purposes. It gets traced..and comes back to you? For security, sure, yes, but that's really secondary.
If your cordless phone is a 2.4 Ghz phone, it is almost certainly interfering with your net connection. You would need to get a 5.8 Ghz phone or move the phone far enough away (I'd recommend at least 20 feet).
Avoid using AV scanners when playing because some AV scanners will check each file you open every time you access a file. So, Steam tries to read a file and has to wait while the AV scanner checks for viruses.
You should also turn off any updaters - such as the HP update or the Steam autoupdater. Only download updates when you want to and know for what.
If you're using a laptop, it's a good guess you're using a slower hard drive. So, it's even more important to keep your hard drive and especially your Steam files, defragged. If you right click on TF2, go to Properties, you should see something about keeping local cache files defragged. A really good thing to do for anyone but especially you.
Your video card should be fine. I did a quick check (I'm lazy) and couldn't see if it uses dedicated memory or shared memory. If it's dedicated, that's great. If it's shared, then that might be a problem too - which you really can't fix because it's a laptop.
Last edited:
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PS: If you say "Duck, Duck, ...Goose." that means you really aren't from Minnesota - are ya? Or at least, it means you were raised as a kid somewhere else....
