imprecise wrote: ↑30 Nov 2024, 07:24
After spending hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours of testing and research over the past few years on this subject, I have concluded the desync is an Internet issue.
Providing demos could potentially help Valve in improving this, but in my experience of rewatching a demo, the lag was completely smoothed out in the replay and the situation even looked different from what I saw and how I moved in the game.
There is desync caused by hardware and and software issues, but this is nothing new and settings changes can solve the latter. I spent a lot of time testing these settings and you can read my recommendations in my signature if interested.
Now, I've been thinking about writing a whole exploration of the Internet problems but at the moment here's an overview:
1. Dedicated bandwidth
A long time ago, I was able to download using over 90% of my bandwidth and still play without lag. There was a change at the Internet service provider where they no longer guaranteed the speed, and downloads had to be capped much lower for the same experience. I think what happened is they simply wanted more customers without paying for the necessary equipment, forcing bandwidth to be shared with the local area. In order to get dedicated bandwidth these days, you'll likely have to pay for a premium Internet service.
2. Congestion
Almost all Internet is on shared bandwidth, and as I shared above, ISPs have been providing less bandwidth than they're selling to a group of customers. Example: 1 person on a 10gig switch uplink has no problem using their 1gig bandwidth, as long as there are less than 10 other people connected. Unfortunately, you can have 40+ people connected and sharing the same 10gig outside connection. Testing congestion is easy, just do a speed test and see if your bandwidth is lower than advertised. Things have been much more congested since the heavy shift to online work in the past 5 years, and I can only imagine how neglected the hardware has become.
3. Fiber is slower than microwave towers, leading to increased latency for the wired-only connection.
4. Quality of service and peering
There are many ISPs providing service at tier 2, which I unknowingly had for a while. This means when your packets hit the switch, any tier 1 packets will have priority, effectively slowing your connection down under typical conditions.
On top of this, there is something called QCI levels. This one is complicated but basically you can get tier 1 or 2 connection internally on the ISP's network but the numbers are 6-9 where 6 is best, and the numbering system varies by ISP.
For best results, you'd want a tier 1 ISP at their best QCI level with dedicated bandwidth. And get a second tier 1 ISP and compare.
The easiest way to know you're going to have problems is if your speed test shows you have decreased bandwidth.
