Path of Exile latency and TCPOptimizer

[Lodg1k]

So in the past few weeks out of nowhere I'm getting 250ms - 2100ms of ping lag when there's a lot going on in the game causing deaths, rubber banding, and instant disconnections. Since a fraction of the player base is reporting these types of issues, I thought maybe a windows update screwed us up so I picked up TCPOptimizer in hopes to fix the issue. Before applying "optimal" settings, my latency was a flat line while doing nothing, however now it has small rises and falls - 30 to 50ms back and forth. Is this expected? It also did not fix the issues. The parent company is providing no help because of how overwhelmed they are right now so I thought maybe someone here might know something.

MTR readout: https://pastebin.com/nqMeCddr
DXDiag: https://pastebin.com/j2QWQd5Z

Yes, I'm getting desperate.

[Philip]

The MTR tool you are basing your results on seems to be using ICMP pings. That type of traffic is low priority, and congested nodes start dropping/delaying them especially when you send many packets consecutively, that may be part of the issue (a simple traceroute may suffice?).

A simple traceroute may show you at which hop from you the lag starts to increase, which in turn may be an indication of where the problem occurs.

I imagine you are using wired Ethernet, there is no EMI interference around the Ethernet cable, and your modem/router are at least 1 foot apart from each other? (they are rarely adequately shielded)

[Lodg1k]

The MTR tool you are basing your results on seems to be using ICMP pings. That type of traffic is low priority, and congested nodes start dropping/delaying them especially when you send many packets consecutively, that may be part of the issue (a simple traceroute may suffice?).

A simple traceroute may show you at which hop from you the lag starts to increase, which in turn may be an indication of where the problem occurs.

I imagine you are using wired Ethernet, there is no EMI interference around the Ethernet cable, and your modem/router are at least 1 foot apart from each other? (they are rarely adequately shielded)

Good thinking with the EM idea - I moved my modem away from my TV but it didn't seem to do anything. I don't use a router and my connection is indeed wired.

The parent company (GGG) knows about ICMP drops but they still require we post those logs to their forums for debugging. I'm not sure why. The traceroute won't show anything because the lag is intermittent and only occurs when certain things in the game happen.. i'm pretty perplexed myself. A traceroute I just did shows 80ms all the way to the server.

[Philip]

An intermittent problem that only occurs in high-traffic areas of the game may be caused by your hardware being overwhelmed (the network traffic may get bumped to a lower priority), or the server itself. It is generally hard to track down..

Microsoft sometimes shifts the default "congestion avoidance algorithm" in Windows (CTCP, New Reno, CUBIC, etc.), but it depends on whether you are under Windows 10, and whether your game is using TCP or UDP for that particular traffic, there are a lot of variables to consider.

Does your CPU usage spike a lot to coincide with those latency spikes?

[Lodg1k]

I fixed it but I'm not sure which of two things did it.

1) Forced windows update and got a "Welcome to the Fall update!" popup which was weird since I supposedly had it on an automatic schedule... and

2) In-game settings: Dynamic resolution: disabled (Graphics) and Packet mode: Predictive (from Automatic) -- It's possible the predictive setting stopped my client from lagging and my actual data connection is still having issues.

Also it could have been on their server's end for specific setups so there's that. Thanks for the help though!

[Philip]

Thanks for following up, glad it is working better

[BrandonMiller84]

Have you tried different servers? I'm perfectly fine on Washington DC but as soon as I swap to anything else - everything starts to lag. Also, are you on predictive or lockstep?
Edit: haven't noticed that it's a few weeks old Was too excited that someone else plays PoE here as well!