Hi all, I’m new to the forums. A colleague of mine advised me to ask my question here since I am not able to figure it out myself
[Problem]
I like to play online games that require fast reaction and my performance suffers with high latency or packetloss. The game I have troubles with is Overwatch. Under normal circumstances I can run the game without troubles. A constant ping of 8ms and a RTT of about 20ms. But every now and then, I am unable to move my character, it starts rubberbanding. As long as I hold a movement key the game shows me moving but I can’t move beyond a few inches from the place where the problem started. I can see other characters moving and once I can move, most of the time my character’s dead. Since I can see others move but I am unable to move myself, I would see this as an upload problem, but I’m not sure. There is no consistency between the drops. Somedays it happens more often than other days.
[Hardware / network]
rb2011uias-2hnd running firmware 3.41 (latest at the moment of writing) on mostly factory defaults (except forwarded ports)
ethernet over powernet connection (500 Mb/s network)
glassfiber ISP capable of 80 - 100 Mb/s up- and downstream
Computer – Ethernet over powernet → Mikrotik router – Ethernet cable → glassfiber modem → the internets
[Observations]
No consistency between drops.
Length of a drop is usually not more than 3 seconds, but I have had a few with 6 seconds or more.
A continuous ping via command prompt to a Blizzard server shows a timeout at the moment of the drop.
This problem does not occur if I use a VPN (Private Internet Access) to tunnel to another endpoint (and thus bypassing my router with encrypted data).
[Solutions tried]
A VPN eliminates the drops, but adds additional latency.
Wireless and ethernet cable via the router have the same problem.
Ethernet cable directly to the glassfiber modem has no issues (but connecting directly to the internet poses a security risk).
Portforwarding the ports used for Overwatch to my PC does not work.
I have arrived at a dead-end with my limited networking knowledge. If I was able to find something that would be a possible cause I would try to eliminate that. But I don’t know Router OS well enough to know if there are ways to log this behaviour or get some other insights in what is going on. I would think it has domething to do with UDP upstream. I am really hoping someone here has had the same problems or knows of ways to test possible causes. And if additional information is needed, please let me know.
Could be a mtu problem. You are maybe pushing thru bigger packets that are not able to pass. Just an idea. You need to observe what the game does… Or maybe there is someone else who is familiar with it.
From experience, powerline adapters can be unreliable. Can you test a setup without them?
With connection over vpn, which is most likely over TCP (?), the vpn will guarantee delivery of every packet, potentially delayed. That’s probably the reason you can bridge the connection gap.
On the other hand, I’ve also discovered during search, that connection issues are not uncommon…
MTU is set to defaults, which is 1500 in my case. That shouldn’t pose a problem with games should it? How would you suggest observing this?
Yes, powerline adaptors are unreliable, but more reliable than wireless (for gaming that is) as packet drop is less likely I found. But as mentioned in my original post: I’ve tried wired, wireless and powerline connections to my router, all experience issues. The issues goes away when I connect to my modem directly (mthout the Mikrotik router in between).
Upnp is enabled, I forwarded the ports, just to be sure. But they don’t change the outcome.
Have you ran a continuous traceroute to see if maybe its a saturation issue at a peering point between providers? The fact that a VPN seems to resolve it makes me think that the VPNs path to the server is less congested vs your default path. I have seen this with some Comcast connections in the USA. In situations like this I force that traffic to make a hop to one of my other Mikroik routers in another area and then from there its path is less congested and it works well.
