Thread: Weird lag.

I'm getting werid lag from the server when ever somebody fires a gun on my team or the other team. And i dont have that high of a ping, 87 average. And i play on other servers that are based in CA and i dont get anylag. Any reason?

Your FPS? Something is overheating, it is summer time...try leaving your box open, I always leave it open during summer time to prevent overheats.

I'm in a basement where its cool all year round, we have Two 120mm fans for the two Intel's we have and i just cleaned out the whole thing last month. I also have a filter running near the computer to pick up some dust, I dont think it's overheating otherwise the video card would start beeping like it should.

Make sure PunkBuster isn't updating. Enable logging and check it out (PB_LogToFile [0=no, 1=yes]). Also, make sure to check out the console log shift+~ (Page Up and down for scrolling). Print your FPS (/cg_drawfps 1) as well as your latency (cg_drawlagometer 1).

It should be pretty obvious if your lagometer box spikes or your FPS drops during the slow down. Make sure PunkBuster isn't logging any crazy activity during that exact time. If none of the above indicators raises a red flag let me know and we can dig a bit deeper.

Originally Posted by PuppyF4RT

Make sure PunkBuster isn't updating. Enable logging and check it out (PB_LogToFile [0=no, 1=yes]). Also, make sure to check out the console log shift+~ (Page Up and down for scrolling). Print your FPS (/cg_drawfps 1) as well as your latency (cg_drawlagometer 1).

It should be pretty obvious if your lagometer box spikes or your FPS drops during the slow down. Make sure PunkBuster isn't logging any crazy activity during that exact time. If none of the above indicators raises a red flag let me know and we can dig a bit deeper.

I have all that done already from past lag experiences. No help there.

*new 2,250 dell computer w/o any problems and no overclocking* I dont think i overclocked anything nor do i need a new computer. I have highspeed internet with 3g routers and cables, so my connections fine. I don't use a card on the computer because i dont have the drivers, so vista ignores it and says it's not there.

Have you inspected the inside of the machine, specifically the graphic card fans? If it's really dusty that can cause slowdowns but not necessarily overheating (and the other way around). It wouldn't hurt to monitor the card temperature. Sometimes the cards will go bad and their components will overheat regardless of the ambient temperature in the case.

I assume your maxfps is set to 125? There have been reports of COD and PB accessing incorrect NIC ports. If you have dual on-board ethernet ports it wouldn't hurt to disable one and try again.

The fact that you only have the problem on the TTP server is strange. Are there any differences between the servers that you notice? Do they use PB on the CA servers you're talking about? Are you able to re-create the problem in a single player environment (both campaign and on TTP while it's empty)?

I take my cover off my video to get the dust off the heatsink, so thats not a problem. I don't have anything to monitor temperature, other than the beeping it would make if it's getting too hot and needs to cool off. When the dead bodies in CoD4 start to stretch, i either go to spectating or i get out of the game and take it on a cool off round.

My /com_maxFPS is set to 700, because i am actually able to get more than 125 with out a problem except for some maps. I only have one ethernet port on my computer but i have many on my router, but i don't have the time to allow all the ports open for me to experiment.

The CA server i am talking about DOES use PB and has a live stream to the PB Ban server. And there is a noticeable change in Ping, i normally get about 87-low and 105-high for pings. The CA server(s), i get about 56-low and 70-high for pings.

If i create my own dedicated LAN server, it is not possible to recreate to problem. Nor is it possible on CoD4: SP, i do get lag when i join the TTP server when it is empty. FYI, X-fire has had a video upload problem since last August so i can NOT upload videos to my profile anymore till the problem is fixed.

It's only on TTP that i get lag when somebody fires a gun, all the other server i play don't give me lag.

I guess the real question is this:

Is it a latency issue
or
Is it a configuration issue

If it is a latency issue then the lagometer would have tipped you off. Since you say the lagometer is not showing high activity when you experience the problem then we can somewhat safely say it's not the connection between you and the server that suffers.

You can take videos by recording a demo (in-game), I'm not sure if it records at the I/O level or not so it may or may not capture this lag. You can either find out a way to send the demo or you can record your output while watching it and then upload the recording to YouTube. There are a lot of ways to show us what's going on. I would really like a demo so that I can see the lagometer when you shoot (it does happen when you shoot as well, right?) as well as the behavior of the lag. It will also tell me how much it stutters or if it just freezes until the next frame. When it does refresh are other players in completely different positions or is it like watching stop motion?

Do you have any special configuration settings? Either way, just for grins try setting your graphics to the lowest possible settings and try again. Also try setting your dual graphics card settings to both options (dual and single) and attempt to play.

One thing to note is that I was using non-standard characters in my user name (I was using carrot numbers to color my name: ^6Puppy^3F4RT) and it caused me to lag. The problem was PunkBuster freaking out on my name. The lag sounded similar to yours but it only occurred when the server I was playing on had a LOT of activity. So it's probably not the case but do make sure your name is in Alpha Numeric form.

If you can't do a demo then I'll slap a few key phrases into Google and we'll see if there's anyone else with the same problem/solution.