Why am I always die before I see the enemy? INPUT LAG :(

Everything about latency. Tips, testing methods, mouse lag, display lag, game engine lag, network lag, whole input lag chain, VSYNC OFF vs VSYNC ON, and more! Input Lag Articles on Blur Busters.
Post Reply
canx66
Posts: 24
Joined: 22 Jan 2020, 16:01

Why am I always die before I see the enemy? INPUT LAG :(

Post by canx66 » 10 Aug 2020, 22:18

Hi guys,

Iam in to this past 3 years. I tried everything. Litterally everything. Optimazation, new Hardware, new Mouse. EVERYTHING!

I still cant get rid this f***ing delay when its comes to gaming. I want to play competetive, but its nearly impossible for me.

I ALWAYS see the enemy to late, in Valornt as a example. I die before the enemy comes around the corner. Its feeling like most of the players are faster and than me, has very less input lag then me. Even dough I practicing everyday and play on 24Hz. Its nearly impossible that every enemy has 240Hz even 144hz is rare. My mouse feels like a brick and everything is delayed, not snappy, to late. I dont know how to describe it. Microstuttering, everything that f**ks my online gaming experience. I really desperate, I really dont know what should I do.

Problems:

- seeing enemy to late
- hitreg is f**ked
- mouse feels like brick
- every enemy is faster (dying before the enemy is around the corner)
- my aim is stuttery
- everything is stuttery

System & Settings

Ryzen 7 3700X
ASUS B-450-F Strix
MSI GAMING Z RTX 2070
16GB G.SKill 3600Mhz-16-16-16-36
be Quiet! Straight Power 11 650 Watt
Corsair H100i SE Water cooling
Corsair x465 Case

Apex Pro TKL
Razer Viper Ultimate

Germany Cable (Vodafone) prioritized Business Line (500down/50up)
Netgear Nighthawk S8000 as a switch for my streaming pc

LatenyMon ~ 50us
0.5 Resolution Timer
ISLC on
no bloat
fully optimized
Win 10 - 2004

Pls for the sake of god, tell me what can I do? PLS tell me!

Would it help to switch to Intel 10900k?

TN_fun
Posts: 138
Joined: 26 Jun 2019, 11:09

Re: Why am I always die before I see the enemy? INPUT LAG :(

Post by TN_fun » 11 Aug 2020, 11:26

The new home helps. But not always, sometimes a new home and a new computer.

User avatar
Chief Blur Buster
Site Admin
Posts: 11647
Joined: 05 Dec 2013, 15:44
Location: Toronto / Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Contact:

Re: Why am I always die before I see the enemy? INPUT LAG :(

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 11 Aug 2020, 12:07

Unless there's a surge of cheaters, I'm 90% sure it's Internet latency related factors when getting hit registrations before enemy visibility.

Streaming Side
Streaming a game simultaneously, will often add latency. Do you play better when streaming is turned off?

Internet Connection Side
There are common rule of thumbs for esports champion teams where "price is no object".
- Always Ethernet, no WiFi
- Always high-performance router/switch
- FTTH instead of cable, if possible
- For some games, low TCP/UDP jitter is more important than low TCP/UDP lag. Thus, keep bufferbloat under control
- Separate connection for your game system than the rest of the home (occasionally, that means two FTTH connections for your house). That way, other people's stuff (streaming, downloading, etc) avoids interfering with your Internet connection, creating latency variances and bufferbloats.
- Pay the premium for a business connection. The latency behaviors of a business connection is often better.
- Try all the ISPs
- Try a latency-optimized VPN such as a gaming. This may produce a more optimal route to your online matchups, versus so-so default ISP backbones

Also, the latency consistency effect -- your loaded latency should be as identical as possible to unloaded latency. You prefer to play at consistent 20ms-21ms Internet latency rather than variable 10ms-19ms Internet latency, because of the aim training effect as well as all the talk that Battle(non)sense talks about too. A 100 Mbps FTTH connection (with nearly no latency jitter) will also generally produce better esports scores than a 1 Gbps coaxial cable connection, due to the neighborhood node-sharing effects and other latencies inherent on DOCSIS -- though it depends on how the ISP has implements their infrastructure. This is because your neighbors' sudden downloads (even across the street) can suddenly add latency jitter to your connection, and there are many "bufferbloat-beyond-control" situations that pop up on many ISPs. It's getting better and better as the nodes become smaller and more resemble FTTH network topologies but historically cable has long been more prone to bandwidth-sharing issues.
Head of Blur Busters - BlurBusters.com | TestUFO.com | Follow @BlurBusters on Twitter

Image
Forum Rules wrote:  1. Rule #1: Be Nice. This is published forum rule #1. Even To Newbies & People You Disagree With!
  2. Please report rule violations If you see a post that violates forum rules, then report the post.
  3. ALWAYS respect indie testers here. See how indies are bootstrapping Blur Busters research!

ffs_
Posts: 47
Joined: 24 Jul 2020, 00:57

Re: Why am I always die before I see the enemy? INPUT LAG :(

Post by ffs_ » 11 Aug 2020, 12:28

Chief Blur Buster wrote:
11 Aug 2020, 12:07
Try a latency-optimized VPN such as a gaming. This may produce a more optimal route to your online matchups, versus so-so default ISP backbones
Would you give any recommendations? I was considering this option recently because I have 80-90 ping on ALL faceit servers, even though in Valve's matchmaking I always have 30-60.

User avatar
Chief Blur Buster
Site Admin
Posts: 11647
Joined: 05 Dec 2013, 15:44
Location: Toronto / Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Contact:

Re: Why am I always die before I see the enemy? INPUT LAG :(

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 11 Aug 2020, 12:41

ffs_ wrote:
11 Aug 2020, 12:28
Chief Blur Buster wrote:
11 Aug 2020, 12:07
Try a latency-optimized VPN such as a gaming. This may produce a more optimal route to your online matchups, versus so-so default ISP backbones
Would you give any recommendations? I was considering this option recently because I have 80-90 ping on ALL faceit servers, even though in Valve's matchmaking I always have 30-60.
Alas, it's very location specific. One VPN may be great for a person in Chicago, but bad for a person in New York City. Likewise for Amsterdam versus London. Since there are hundreds of "best VPN" situations, I am unable to give specific recommendations. Try signing up for multiple VPN trials and testing them all out. One VPN will make your connection worse, and the next VPN makes your connection better.

VPN are inherently a routing trade that can sometimes be a dice roll: A "two steps forward one steps back" or a "one steps back two steps forward" type tradeoff. In exchange for adding a VPN hop, you may be reducing other traceroute hops / latencies / bufferbloats. So your routes may improve or worsen with the same VPN depending on your location. It's that kinda location-specific thing you just have to try out for yourself.

You may end up trying 3+ VPNs before finding 1 that miraculously improves your gaming (lower latency AND lower latency variability). The good news is you don't need to switch ISPs to try a VPN, and it takes only about 5 to 15 minutes to sign up and test a VPN (once you're familiar with configuring the VPN settings screen in a router). The first time will be the longest (like trying to figure out a brand new WiFi router for the first time, except you're learning how to use your existing router in a different way), but once you're familiar, it's relatively painless to switch VPNs.

While using the VPNs, remember to test loaded latencies too (of the same protocols as your gaming, TCP or UDP). The yo-yo (variable) latency problem (of all kinds, ISP, bufferbloat, WiFi, etc, etc) -- the variability -- is a huge cause of hitbox weirdnesses. You need to test a VPN's resistance to bufferbloat factors too.

Oh, and stick to paid VPNs. The free VPNs are almost always worse, mainly to help you curcumvent geolocation stuff. Your priority is performance. There are carrier-grade VPNs that have massively more network quality than a medium-size ISP, which can give you a vastly better route to your gaming servers.

The problem is VPN latency performance is a location-specific dice roll. If your gaming servers is on Backbone X and your ISP preferred routing is pushing your connectivity to a lesss optimal Backbone Y many bufferbloaty hops away from Backbone X. Then you go with a VPN that has a great routing to to Backbone Y. But my city or my ISP might be mostly on Backbone Z and the same VPN might not work well for me. This is a crude simplification, but this is the kinda factor that is hard to predict.

Also, good gaming-caliber routers that can cap your bandwidth and QoS, are also good -- and some of them have VPN capability directly in the router (i.e. L2TP) that keeps your VPN last mile as performant as possible. Household-side bufferbloat is far less likely if you cap total bandwidth well below your connection's max speed. For a reliable 500 Mbps connection capable of full speed, it could be as simple as 300-400 Mbps cap (or uncapped) for the Ethernet port going to your gaming system, 50 Mbps cap for the rest of household/WiFi, 50 Mbps unused bandwidth for avoiding household-side bufferbloat. But if your Internet peak speed or a speed-capped VPN is slower, like 200 Mbps, then you may want to cap your household bandwidth cap far lower plus have headroom. That way, bandwidth surges in the same household (pagesurfing clicks, Netflix bufferings, file downloads) no longer generate massive latency yo-yoing effects. Separate connection is better, but good traffic management can help the premises-side equation. This won't always help backbone-side bufferbloat (that's where you need to churn ISPs and VPNs to test out options).

Carefully optimizing bandwidth caps can be a good surgical knife to lower latency & latency variability.

__________

On related subject:

Also, gaming goals can dictate how high priority re-optimizing your Internet is, because it is expensive annually ($$$$). Are you are recreational competitive gamer (high or low budget) as a recreational streamer not focussed on earnings, or a professional career gamer that needs to earn a living gaming? And if professional, are you earning by esports earnings (part of a team, championship pots), or earning by streaming earnings?

Many streamers focus on streaming earnings instead of being the best champions, and many champions focus more on championship earnings without focussing on streaming (when championships are streamed, sometimes it is done via external video capture to avoid bogging down the computers with streaming processing). Regardless of what kind of gamer you are, recreational, aspiring, professional, it helps to understand what your long term goals are since streaming can interfere with a champion career and vice-versa, so you see those esports players "specialize" themselves, and optimize accordingly based on the balance they're aiming for.

Also, don't underestimate the potential of having two simultaneously installed Internet connections that you can test A/B. One for all your downloads/updates/Netflix/WiFI, and one just for your gaming. This is a good way to test multiple ISPs, cancelling the worse connection and getting the next ISP installed to A/B test against too (e.g. residentical cable versus business VDSL, cable vs FTTH, etc), or keeping both if one has better routings to some servers, and a different has better routings to other servers, or one of the connections is more peak-period resistant or outage-resistant. Yes, it is easy to be balking and barfing badly at the sticker shock of a $250 business 100Mbps FTTH versus $100 residential gigabit Cable, but, guess which one can end up becoming better for your gaming career? ;) It costs a lot of money (3x to 4x bigger monthly bills) if you double-up + go-business, but it can save a gaming career!

Trade secret of well-financed career gamers.
Head of Blur Busters - BlurBusters.com | TestUFO.com | Follow @BlurBusters on Twitter

Image
Forum Rules wrote:  1. Rule #1: Be Nice. This is published forum rule #1. Even To Newbies & People You Disagree With!
  2. Please report rule violations If you see a post that violates forum rules, then report the post.
  3. ALWAYS respect indie testers here. See how indies are bootstrapping Blur Busters research!

canx66
Posts: 24
Joined: 22 Jan 2020, 16:01

Re: Why am I always die before I see the enemy? INPUT LAG :(

Post by canx66 » 11 Aug 2020, 16:18

I unfortnatly dont have a FTTH to my house. I only have cable, as a business line, which is prioritized. OF Course on LAN and the problems are the same, even when I dont stream. I really dont know what to do.

stefanbk
Posts: 12
Joined: 09 May 2019, 18:07

Re: Why am I always die before I see the enemy? INPUT LAG :(

Post by stefanbk » 11 Aug 2020, 17:27

sry to hear that. It's so sad, I had this problem for years, because the peering is COMPLETELY broken. You can test it with pingplotter(udp setting). Now I have a new provider and everything is fine.

stefanbk
Posts: 12
Joined: 09 May 2019, 18:07

Re: Why am I always die before I see the enemy? INPUT LAG :(

Post by stefanbk » 11 Aug 2020, 17:29

wait .. you have vodafone cable? Write me a pm I know everything about it(had the same)
( you are ******)

User avatar
Chief Blur Buster
Site Admin
Posts: 11647
Joined: 05 Dec 2013, 15:44
Location: Toronto / Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Contact:

Re: Why am I always die before I see the enemy? INPUT LAG :(

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 11 Aug 2020, 18:37

Occasionally a VPN will bypass broken peering, but it depends on the very specific situations of the ISP, the peering, and the VPN. For example, if 4 of 5 backbones have crappy peering, and the VPN uses one of the good backbones, you'll potentially be able to bypass the bad peering.

The more broken the peering, the harder it is for a VPN to bypass.

But it's still worth a few dice roll attempts of trying out VPN providers. Sometimes unfixable, sometimes partially fixable. It might only improve things a few %.
Head of Blur Busters - BlurBusters.com | TestUFO.com | Follow @BlurBusters on Twitter

Image
Forum Rules wrote:  1. Rule #1: Be Nice. This is published forum rule #1. Even To Newbies & People You Disagree With!
  2. Please report rule violations If you see a post that violates forum rules, then report the post.
  3. ALWAYS respect indie testers here. See how indies are bootstrapping Blur Busters research!

User avatar
Chief Blur Buster
Site Admin
Posts: 11647
Joined: 05 Dec 2013, 15:44
Location: Toronto / Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Contact:

Re: Why am I always die before I see the enemy? INPUT LAG :(

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 11 Aug 2020, 18:40

stefanbk wrote:
11 Aug 2020, 17:29
wait .. you have vodafone cable? Write me a pm I know everything about it(had the same)
( you are ******)
P.S. Network problems is on topic in Latency forums. You don't have to write a PM;
Head of Blur Busters - BlurBusters.com | TestUFO.com | Follow @BlurBusters on Twitter

Image
Forum Rules wrote:  1. Rule #1: Be Nice. This is published forum rule #1. Even To Newbies & People You Disagree With!
  2. Please report rule violations If you see a post that violates forum rules, then report the post.
  3. ALWAYS respect indie testers here. See how indies are bootstrapping Blur Busters research!

Post Reply