Terrible lag on all games

[nickmouse9]

Hey everyone. I've been playing FPS online for about 4 years, and just starting about 5 months ago I have terrible lag. About a year ago I had no lag at all, and I still have the same computer setup, same games, same internet, same everything. I moved away, then came back about half a year ago only to find myself lagging like crazy on every game (I play CoD4, CoD : MW2, BF2, and BF1942). Comcast is my ISP. They came out last week and told me that the internet is working perfectly fine...which can't be true because I often have trouble opening web pages too. According to SpeedTest I am getting 20mb/sec. download speed (I pay for 12) and a 2.8 upload speed. I'm not very tech-savy, but here's my computer specs:

Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium
System Type: 64-bit Operating System
Manufacturer: Dell
System Model: Studio XPS 435MT
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz(8CPUs), ~2.7GHz
Memory: 6134MB RAM
Page file: 3345 MB used, 9118MB available
DirectX Version: DirectX 10

Graphics Card:
Name: ATI Radeon HD4670
Chip Type: ATI Radeon Graphics Processor (0x9490)
DAC Type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Approx. Total Memory: 3315MB
Current Display Mode: 1024 x 768 (32 bit) (60Hz)

I don't really know what all of that means, but if anyone can help me try to solve my lag issues it would be greatly appericiated.

Thanks,

Nick

 

[Schfifty Five]

You need to be a little more specific on what kind of lag you are getting.

Is it FPS lag (aka you are getting low frames per second) or latency lag (high ping times).

Are your vid card drivers up to date?

When was the last time you ran a spyware/virus scan of your pc?

When was the last time you defragged your HD?

 

[Wag]

Every once in a while I do a fresh install. Yes it's a pain but it's a good way to keep things going smoothly.

But yes, please be more specific.

 

[nickmouse9]

You need to be a little more specific on what kind of lag you are getting.

Is it FPS lag (aka you are getting low frames per second) or latency lag (high ping times).

Are your vid card drivers up to date?

When was the last time you ran a spyware/virus scan of your pc?

When was the last time you defragged your HD?

I defragged my gaming folder last week. It is a latency lag. I don't know if my card drivers are up to date, how do I check? The computer is only about 13 months old. I was thinking...what if I System Restored my computer to like a year ago? Is there any chance that would fix the problem, or is that a bad idea?

 

[VulgarDisplay]

If you spent around $150 dollars on a new video card you would have a much better experience more than likely. You could drop around $300 and have an even better experience. If your problem is FPS lag then an upgrade to the rather weak 4670 would provide quite a boost.

You could also go to http://www.speedtest.net and running some speed tests. It also gives you numbers for pings. If they seem abnormally high then there is a problem with your internet.

 

[CKent]

Since you said the mystery lag causes webpages to sometimes not load, I'm guessing you mean latency.

Power cycle your router (if applicable) and cable modem. To do this just unplug them for a few minutes, then plug them back in.

Scan your computer for malware, viruses, etc. Last I checked, adaware and spybot s&d were the big two to use.

If all else fails try an OS reinstall like someone else suggested. It's a great time to do anything you're curious about trying, like dual-booting with Linux, creating a partition for your OS, etc.

 

[nickmouse9]

If you spent around $150 dollars on a new video card you would have a much better experience more than likely. You could drop around $300 and have an even better experience. If your problem is FPS lag then an upgrade to the rather weak 4670 would provide quite a boost.

You could also go to http://www.speedtest.net and running some speed tests. It also gives you numbers for pings. If they seem abnormally high then there is a problem with your internet.

I don't think you quite understand. With the same rig, same game, same ISP, same EVERYTHING, it was working before, and now i'm laggy. Are you saying my video card could have just gone to crap?

 

[minmaster]

maybe... check your video card fans to see if there's a reason for it to not cool well and cause throttling problems.

 

[nickmouse9]

maybe... check your video card fans to see if there's a reason for it to not cool well and cause throttling problems.

Honestly, I have no idea how to do that.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

I don't think you quite understand. With the same rig, same game, same ISP, same EVERYTHING, it was working before, and now i'm laggy. Are you saying my video card could have just gone to crap?

That's where the second part of my post came into play. Try out a few speed tests to different locations.

 

[BFG10K]

Try disabling vsync in your video card's control panel.

 

[NoQuarter]

If you spent around $150 dollars on a new video card you would have a much better experience more than likely. You could drop around $300 and have an even better experience. If your problem is FPS lag then an upgrade to the rather weak 4670 would provide quite a boost.

You could also go to http://www.speedtest.net and running some speed tests. It also gives you numbers for pings. If they seem abnormally high then there is a problem with your internet.

He's playing at 1024x768. Even though the 4670 is a budget card it's gonna own at that resolution. I believe he has connection lag like he says. OP if you play offline games they run fine?

If Comcast says your connection is OK you might want to start working on your connection between the PC and the internet, make sure your ethernet cord is in decent condition, power cycle your router and cable modem, make sure you aren't downloading torrents or running a p2p application in the background or if you are at the very least cap the upstream and max connection values. You can also set up QoS in your router if you run p2p apps to decrease their priority over your gaming traffic.

Also try connecting your computer directly to the cable modem instead of your router, and run Windows update and check the optional updates for update to your network adapter, never know if that might help.

Check out the model number of you cable modem or just figure out how old it is, Comcast switches cable modems every few years and you can take your cable modem in for a free swap no questions asked. I had one that was just starting to drop packets and run like crap, after I swapped it everything was great. You can also browse to http://192.168.100.1 and check your cable modem's signal strength and noise levels and post 'em here.

If everything on your end checks out, direct connect to cable modem, no p2p running, new cable modem, good signal strength, good cord - then Comcast needs to check out the line again. I know at least a couple people irl that have had terrible connections that Comcast kept telling them was not Comcast's problem that DID turn out to be their problem they just didn't want to service the area, once they bitched enough Comcast fixed their issues and their connections got a lot better.


Not related but.. are you sure your monitor is running at the right resolution, 1024x768? At 60hz it must be an LCD, and most LCD's like that are 1280x1024.. unless it's really old? It's ridiculous to be using a really old 1024x768 monitor with an i7 920 though heh

 

[0roo0roo]

stop beating around the bush..whats your ping in these games.

 

[guyver01]

stop beating around the bush..whats your ping in these games.

seriously this..

are you complaining about going from 30 ping to 45 ping? or 30 ping to 5000 ping

 

[nickmouse9]

In servers located in my state I run an average 50 ping. When I lag it shoots up to 999 or just disconnects me from the server. Single player is running smoothly. NoQuarter I went to that URL, but where does it say my cable strength and noise levels?

 

[KeithTalent]

When this happened to me I needed to do a full re-install of my OS (absolutely nothing else worked) and I have had zero problems since then. I know it's a bit of a pain, but honestly it was better than pulling all of my hair out trying to find the specific issue after trying everything else I could think of.

Anyway, good luck man. Let us know how it all works out.

KT

 

[nickmouse9]

About reinstalling my OS...is there a way that I can do it without paying for it? Dell never sent me my OS disk with my computer when I bought it last year.

 

[NoQuarter]

In servers located in my state I run an average 50 ping. When I lag it shoots up to 999 or just disconnects me from the server. Single player is running smoothly. NoQuarter I went to that URL, but where does it say my cable strength and noise levels?

I dunno, that's an internal page served up by your cable modem, without knowing your brand/model I got nothing to google

As for reinstalling your OS you might have to google how to extract your product key, write it down, get a copy of the OS you're using and install off that then use the key. Dell may have a system restore partition that'll reformat your drive and set you up with clean Windows if you hit like F11 during bootup.


What brand/model is your router and what brand/model is your cable modem?

 

[Schfifty Five]

About reinstalling my OS...is there a way that I can do it without paying for it? Dell never sent me my OS disk with my computer when I bought it last year.

Chances are there is a recovery disk you can either download from dell's site, create from your current windows OS, or delivered to you from dell.

When I bought my Sony Vaio, I had to create my recovery disks using a program that was preinstalled on the OS.

 

[minmaster]

chances are dell made a small partition on ur HD and that's where the recovery "data" lies.

 

[NoWhereM]

NM, your problem started before that would have affected it.

 

[nickmouse9]

Try disabling vsync in your video card's control panel.

How do I do that?

 

[Bill Brasky]

In servers located in my state I run an average 50 ping. When I lag it shoots up to 999 or just disconnects me from the server. Single player is running smoothly. NoQuarter I went to that URL, but where does it say my cable strength and noise levels?

For in state servers where you get 50 ping, how often do you get these huge lag spikes? I'm thinking you have a background service or application hording your bandwidth like windows update.

I believe Vista has a resource monitor built into the task manager that monitors internet activity. Try opening it and then play a game that has been lagging. When a lag spike begins, alt-tab to the desktop, and watch the resource monitor for internet activity and the process monitor for services that could be eating cpu cycles.

Also, how confident are you that your computer is secure and virus free? Download Avira Antivirus Free and run a full system scan just to be sure.

 

[CraigRT]

How do I do that?

Have you even looked?

Look for Vsync : enable / disable.

Will be in the ATI section of your display properties.