Can Some Explain What the Cause of Packet Burst Is, That is Not CoD related?
Hey all, I was wondering if someone could explain the most likely causes of packet bursts, but not just as it pertains to Call of Duty? All Google searches return links to videos, from some Call of Duty player, and they talk about all of these fixes that worked for them.
I just want to try to learn what the actual cause of packet bursts in Online Gaming is.
Re: Can Some Explain What the Cause of Packet Burst Is, That is Not CoD related?
One of the super common causes of this is playing over a wireless connection. This is an easy way to ensure some packets are getting dropped, so please make sure you're always playing over wired where possible!
Congestion on your network is another big factor to consider, if possible, please share here your current QoS settings and we can look at optimising that for you.
If you're only noticing packet loss on Vanguard and not in any other type of game or network activity, it could also be possible that it's just the game server you're playing on.
Re: Can Some Explain What the Cause of Packet Burst Is, That is Not CoD related?
Hey, plemans. I'll go ahead and just go one by one on your list, if that's OK. I know it will make me appear dull doing it this way, but here goes:
1. I have Comcast Cable, which runs directly to my Arris Surfboard SB6183. The modem is connected, via a 3ft Cat 6E patch cable, which runs directly to the "Internet" port on the back of my Netgear Nighthawk XR500. From the 4th LAN port in the back, I have a 25ft CAT 6E cable running directly to the back of my PS4.
2. My house is "decent size", but I'm not sure of the particular square footage. It is a 2 story, aluminum siding house with 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a living room, and a kitchen.
3. I do live relatively close to neighbors all around me. I live at the end of a cul-de-sac (court), with about 75 feet of spacing from our house to the neighbors directly to my left and right. We have neighbors behind us, as well, as another street in the subdivision runs behind ours. From our back door, to the closest neighbors back door, is 295ft (roughly, according to Google maps).
4. I am gaming via a 25ft, cat 6e cable running from port number 4, directly to my PlayStation. My router has the ports for Call of Duty port-forwarded to my PlayStation 4. My PS4 has a static IP address assigned to it.
5. I game exclusively on PlayStation 4. That being said. . . there are 3 of us living in this house now, and the number of connected devices can be ridiculous if I don't seek out each device and turn them off, and delete them from the device manager. Once I actually start to game, there are usually around 4 or 5 devices online, but one of them, I believe, is causing a problem. The devices online while I game are a Galaxy S9 phone, my laptop (so I can watch my router GUI), my PS4, an iPad, and an XBox One (not the newest one). I believe the XBox one is part of my problem because it is always online, even when it's not in use. Despite my pleas, and explanations, I can not get my Dad to turn off his XBox. Instead, he leaves it in that "standby" mode that boots it up a few seconds quicker. Frustratingly, he doesn't even use any of the online features of the Xbox one- he just wants to have it online so he will get his Sniper Elite 4 updates (that is the only game he plays, and he has an embarrassing amount of days put into the game. Not once has he tried to play an online match, and I never game if I know he's playing his XB1. The XB1 connects via the 5ghz connection.
I know you're going to ask if I have "something" enabled (the name escapes me right now), and the answer is no.
Re: Can Some Explain What the Cause of Packet Burst Is, That is Not CoD related?
It does sound as though QoS could help greatly in your setup, and if that's the 'something' that isn't setup then that also explains why you'd be experiencing packet burst/loss.
If you haven't got it setup, I'd suggest following to below guide to get it configured for your network.
Re: Can Some Explain What the Cause of Packet Burst Is, That is Not CoD related?
Sorry, I knew I was leaving something out, even after trying to be as thorough as possible.
My QoS, when gaming, I have my PS4 set for traffic prioritization, but have not click the "all dumaOS games" tab. Oh, and uPnP is what I have disabled.
As for the sliders; they are both set to 70%, and "always" when I'm gaming. On the bandwidth flower, I always go in and manually change the allotment so that the PS4 has roughly 95% of both down, and upstream bandwidth. To be perfectly honest, I don't normally have any kind of packet burst during my games for some reason, but I hear groaning in my headset from other players about how the gunfight was unfair bc they couldn't hit a player (me) that was skipping all over the place. Oddly, the only time I can tell you I know I will have packet burst icons is prior to even connecting to online services (in the game, not the PS4 in general). As it establishes a connection to the demonware server to fetch my profile, I always get the packet burst icon. As for in game; I'd say 1 in every 150 games or so displays the packet burst icon. So I'm really just trying to wrap my head around why so many people seem to be dealing with this issue. The entire vanguard subreddit is nothing but players complaining about getting packet burst, and swearing it is "the Activision servers" that is causing it, because none of their other games have this problem. And you can not have a civil discussion over there. When you ask if they are hardwired or on WiFi, it's always wifi, and it's always to someone who happens to have 1gb down and up.
I am curious about what role, if any, the Xbox simply being online at the same time as me has to do with any connection issues I may get. I know that there are shared ports between CoD, and XBox Live, and what issue that can cause, if any, since I have port forwarded my PS4. Am I receiving traffic that is meant for the XB1?
Also, I do not share any excess bandwidth. I know that's a jerk move, but it's what I have to do.
Re: Can Some Explain What the Cause of Packet Burst Is, That is Not CoD related?
If you have disabled UPnP and only set up port forwarding for the PS4 then the router has a harder time determining where traffic should be directed, this is why UPnP is disabled by default as it allows the router to determine this on the fly. If you had DumaOS Classified Games enabled then that could prioritize the Xbox over the PS4.
Sounds like it's not too much of a problem for you though which is good. As Liam said, WiFi, local congestion (resolved by QoS can be factors, but also the distance and routing to the server. If you're a normal player who doesn't have access to the Geo-Filter you could be playing anywhere - those players in your game could be from the other side of the country which won't be helping their case.
Re: Can Some Explain What the Cause of Packet Burst Is, That is Not CoD related?
Thank you so much for this reply, which I somehow managed to miss earlier. This is exactly what I thought the main causes could be, yet if you look at the vanguard subreddit, the amount of misinformation is absolutely mind blowing. Even YouTube is full of videos giving useless pointers, but prefacing their silly suggestions with "the servers are trash in this game." Honestly, I've not had much trouble with the servers, and have even had luck with the Geo-Filter working. I don't play a lot of Vanguard, but I want to be able to chime in, at some point, and let people know what is causing their packet loss issue.
Thank you, both of you, for helping a guy like me try to learn about this stuff. It's very, very fascinating.
