Help With Finding Source of Jitter?

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lep
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Help With Finding Source of Jitter?

Post by lep »

Hey yall,

I was hoping to get some ideas on what could be causing my jitter because I honestly don't know what causes it. My lag is never out of the ordinary (can range from 70-130ms depending on server location), but my jitt is never lower than 15-20ms. I'm not sure if it's my hardware, my internet, both, or what. I've included the specs for my Macbook Air below, I'm by no means an expert in hardware so it could just be that I shouldn't be gaming on this laptop. I've also run internet speed tests (I play over WiFi) and don't see any problems with ping, jitter, or download/upload speeds. I've played over WiFi ever since I started playing BZFlag and never had ping/jitt issues on my old Macbook Pro. I also checked Activity Monitor and don't see anything that's eating up CPU other than WindowServer, but at a pretty minimal amount (10-20% max if that's minimal lol).

Any thoughts based on the specs below? Or other things I can check? Thanks yall.

Macbook Air (Early 2015)
1.6 GHz Intel Core i5
8 Gb 1600 MHz DDr3
Intel HD Graphics 6000 1536MB
macOS Catalina 10.15.6 (although I've had similar issues on previous versions of macOS too)

-ll
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blast
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Re: Help With Finding Source of Jitter?

Post by blast »

Things to try:
  1. Run plugged in to AC power (not just battery) (Reason: Some systems run the WiFi in more of a power-save mode when on battery)
  2. Try enabling or disabling the FPS Limit in the game.
  3. Move closer to your WiFi access point
  4. Try changing the 2.4GHz WiFi channel on your router (1, 6, or 11)
  5. Try forcing your laptop to use 5GHz (and then 2.4GHz) by either settings or by using different SSIDs for each frequency band
  6. Try a wired connection instead of WiFi (which I believe would require a dongle, such as Apple's Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet adapter)
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Re: Help With Finding Source of Jitter?

Post by trpted »

Agree with the above. Also the following: What brand+model of NAT router, What brand+model of modem?
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Re: Help With Finding Source of Jitter?

Post by trpted »

The OP replied that they have a Netgear C7000v2.
**********************

#1 No separate RJ-45 NAT router behind it?

#2 No spare RJ-45 WAN port NAT router?

------------

The RJ-45 WAN port NAT router could be either hardware based or DIY.

By hardware based, for example I got the Linksys E4200 v1 behind my modem.

By DIY I mean turning a computer into acting as a NAT router.

For DIY NAT router it can be either be pure or a distro designed for connection sharing (ex pfSense ).
--
Moving along...

#3 Log-in to your modem combo (Netgear C7000v2).

Defaults

LAN IP 192.168.0.1
Log-in info: The user name is admin. The default password is password. The user name and password are case-sensitive. By default the first time that you log-in, you must change the password to the modem combo.

REFs
a) https://www.downloads.netgear.com/files ... _UM_EN.pdf
b) https://setuprouter.com/router/netgear/c6900/

---

Moving along..

#4 In there go to Cable Connection.

#5 Not including the Startup Procedure info, how is it?

#6 Now go to ADVANCED > Setup > WAN Setup

#7 How is your MTU and Respond to Ping on Internet Port set to?

#8 You do not have the DMZ enabled. did not Disable IPv4 Firewall Protection and did not Disable Port Scan and DoS Protection?

#9 Go to ADVANCED > Advanced Setup >UPnP

#10 You do not have that enabled?

#11 Now go to Basic -> Wireless

#12 You have the SSID set to Broadcast?

#13 What channel it is set to use for 2,4 GHz? If auto, change to channel 1, 6 or 11 - as directed.

#14 Now go to Basic -> Guest Network

#15 You are/were not connected the Guest Network?

#16 What is your ISP?
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Re: Help With Finding Source of Jitter?

Post by blast »

trpted, please explain how most of that is relevant.
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Re: Help With Finding Source of Jitter?

Post by trpted »

All of those things could affect jitter - unless I am mistaken.
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Re: Help With Finding Source of Jitter?

Post by blast »

UPnP allows software running on computers to manage some aspects of the network's router, such as forwarding ports. UPnP is irrelevant with the exception of a non-default build of the game server that, as far as I know, is only built that way on Gentoo. And even then it's only to automatically forward a port on the router for the self-hosted game server, so it wouldn't do anything if you're only running the game client and playing on public servers.

The SSID Broadcast is irrelevant because that only prevents the access point from broadcasting the WiFi network name(s). A WiFi client will still connect to a known network that isn't broadcasting their name, at least if you indicate that it's a hidden network. Once connected, it should really be no different.

The ability to respond to ping from the WAN interface is also irrelevant, since that only blocks ICMP echo requests from the Internet.

MTU I have less experience with, but I'm thinking that an incorrect MTU would cause packet loss, not jitter.

I've never enabled the DMZ option in a residential grade router. I'm thinking that isn't relevant, but I'm not sure. Either way, most people should not be enabling the DMZ unless they really know what they're doing.


The guest network could be relevant if the guest network was restricted to only one of the frequency bands or had a lower QoS priority than the main network.
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Re: Help With Finding Source of Jitter?

Post by trpted »

As far as UPnP / port forwarding or even the DMZ is related relevant. While Bzflag (if you want to to techincal: BZFS), is not the only server that exist.

How can you say it is irrelevant as maybe someone (them or otherwise) behind the same NAT router (brand+model+non spoofed[or cloned ]MAC Address and or serial number) is using bittorent?

This is not to say that they are, I just assuming something for the purpose of explaining (an example).

Please and thank you
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Re: Help With Finding Source of Jitter?

Post by blast »

Sure, running BitTorrent or other downloads could impact BZFlag. But then the question should really be "Are you running downloads on your computer/network?" instead of "Is UPnP enabled?", since the latter isn't the cause of the network issues.
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Re: Help With Finding Source of Jitter?

Post by trpted »

I am not to disagreeing with you by any means, but I must point out that UPnP not open ports in the NAT router: It does so automatic without asked for the router's control password.

Another question to the OP: Are you the only one of your network when this happens? If unsure then answer as far as you know. Then we go from there to find out what the other people are up to, as need be.
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