what is the issue with realtek ethernet desync?

[mocha__]

ive been trying to figure out this weird desync issue i get in games, i have a stable connection, good bufferbloat but it always felt like i was left with no chance to react in games, bullets feeling late for relatively low ping. i tried everything, all adapter settings under the sun. now i heard a lot of these issues regarding realtek ethernet but i kept using it as its superior to wifi. but ive been playing on wifi for the past week now and right from the start i was mindblown, bullets would hit enemies quicker, i could see and hear the instant of shots hitting, even on higher ping servers. 50ms server on wifi even felt better than 30ms on ethernet

in valorant for example, this issue was atrocious. id be on 30ms and no lag spikes, no packets dropped, completely flat and perfect RTT/ping and shots would hit there head almost a frame late or sometimes it felt like i was hitting headshots early, while moving or not visibily on their head. but with playing on wifi, everything seems to make more sense. i shoot, hit and kill and its all at the same time, no frame early or late. i dont know how else to describe this. but does anyone know what the issue with realtek is? why is wifi doing such a drastic and better change? it makes 0 sense to me. im not joking, its night and day difference. yeah wifi is worse technically speaking, but in all senses - hearing, seeing, feeling, all of it is noticeable by 10 fold the second i switch to wifi. on ethernet im scratching my head. ive played on it exclusively for years trying to understand this issue. the second i switch to wifi, things actually make sense in terms of the feeling of games

ive tried every combination of this ethernet adapters settings. ive went thru the side scaling stuff, the registry tweaks, the affinities, msi mode undefined. all of it across all these posts. but what is the actual issue. what type of packet delays is realtek causing where it doesnt show up in testing or in games? cause obviously this cant be tested, there isnt any visible issue in testing. you can make the latency better, the issue still remains. so are realtek ethernet adapters just chalked up garbage, is there any actual way to fix this or is wifi just the way to go?

[Assticker]

same issue, made almost the same thread lmao, somethings off with realtek, even my mouse feels like shit

[sadboytunaswag31]

ive been trying to figure out this weird desync issue i get in games, i have a stable connection, good bufferbloat but it always felt like i was left with no chance to react in games, bullets feeling late for relatively low ping. i tried everything, all adapter settings under the sun. now i heard a lot of these issues regarding realtek ethernet but i kept using it as its superior to wifi. but ive been playing on wifi for the past week now and right from the start i was mindblown, bullets would hit enemies quicker, i could see and hear the instant of shots hitting, even on higher ping servers. 50ms server on wifi even felt better than 30ms on ethernet

in valorant for example, this issue was atrocious. id be on 30ms and no lag spikes, no packets dropped, completely flat and perfect RTT/ping and shots would hit there head almost a frame late or sometimes it felt like i was hitting headshots early, while moving or not visibily on their head. but with playing on wifi, everything seems to make more sense. i shoot, hit and kill and its all at the same time, no frame early or late. i dont know how else to describe this. but does anyone know what the issue with realtek is? why is wifi doing such a drastic and better change? it makes 0 sense to me. im not joking, its night and day difference. yeah wifi is worse technically speaking, but in all senses - hearing, seeing, feeling, all of it is noticeable by 10 fold the second i switch to wifi. on ethernet im scratching my head. ive played on it exclusively for years trying to understand this issue. the second i switch to wifi, things actually make sense in terms of the feeling of games

ive tried every combination of this ethernet adapters settings. ive went thru the side scaling stuff, the registry tweaks, the affinities, msi mode undefined. all of it across all these posts. but what is the actual issue. what type of packet delays is realtek causing where it doesnt show up in testing or in games? cause obviously this cant be tested, there isnt any visible issue in testing. you can make the latency better, the issue still remains. so are realtek ethernet adapters just chalked up garbage, is there any actual way to fix this or is wifi just the way to go?

I’ve tried 3 Different Intel Nics as well. 2 of them were pcie addons and 1 was a completely different high end mobo that had Intel. It’s not the nic unfortunately. But what helps tremendously on Realtek and on Intel is using the netadaptercx driver instead of ndis. There’s not much that u can do software and driver sided.

[mocha__]

ive been trying to figure out this weird desync issue i get in games, i have a stable connection, good bufferbloat but it always felt like i was left with no chance to react in games, bullets feeling late for relatively low ping. i tried everything, all adapter settings under the sun. now i heard a lot of these issues regarding realtek ethernet but i kept using it as its superior to wifi. but ive been playing on wifi for the past week now and right from the start i was mindblown, bullets would hit enemies quicker, i could see and hear the instant of shots hitting, even on higher ping servers. 50ms server on wifi even felt better than 30ms on ethernet

in valorant for example, this issue was atrocious. id be on 30ms and no lag spikes, no packets dropped, completely flat and perfect RTT/ping and shots would hit there head almost a frame late or sometimes it felt like i was hitting headshots early, while moving or not visibily on their head. but with playing on wifi, everything seems to make more sense. i shoot, hit and kill and its all at the same time, no frame early or late. i dont know how else to describe this. but does anyone know what the issue with realtek is? why is wifi doing such a drastic and better change? it makes 0 sense to me. im not joking, its night and day difference. yeah wifi is worse technically speaking, but in all senses - hearing, seeing, feeling, all of it is noticeable by 10 fold the second i switch to wifi. on ethernet im scratching my head. ive played on it exclusively for years trying to understand this issue. the second i switch to wifi, things actually make sense in terms of the feeling of games

ive tried every combination of this ethernet adapters settings. ive went thru the side scaling stuff, the registry tweaks, the affinities, msi mode undefined. all of it across all these posts. but what is the actual issue. what type of packet delays is realtek causing where it doesnt show up in testing or in games? cause obviously this cant be tested, there isnt any visible issue in testing. you can make the latency better, the issue still remains. so are realtek ethernet adapters just chalked up garbage, is there any actual way to fix this or is wifi just the way to go?

I’ve tried 3 Different Intel Nics as well. 2 of them were pcie addons and 1 was a completely different high end mobo that had Intel. It’s not the nic unfortunately. But what helps tremendously on Realtek and on Intel is using the netadaptercx driver instead of ndis. There’s not much that u can do software and driver sided.

so are you saying in your case its also an issue on some intel NICs? i heard the i-225 or i-226 is different but idk. i remember after the valorant update to UE5 i would crash and stutter all the time up to a couple months after the update, and then saw others having the same issue. i thought it was just the trash UE5 engine alone but it really seems like it was a realtek ethernet thing also.
and when it comes to netadaptercx drivers. ive tried those on and off for probably over a year now and i dont feel any difference. im at the point where i believe wifi might be more unstable as a tech, but it is far more reliable in games and syncing. my internet is optimized so ill only get a ping spike on wifi once in a blue moon if the channel gets congested or something

[Sz3ypy]

ive been trying to figure out this weird desync issue i get in games, i have a stable connection, good bufferbloat but it always felt like i was left with no chance to react in games, bullets feeling late for relatively low ping. i tried everything, all adapter settings under the sun. now i heard a lot of these issues regarding realtek ethernet but i kept using it as its superior to wifi. but ive been playing on wifi for the past week now and right from the start i was mindblown, bullets would hit enemies quicker, i could see and hear the instant of shots hitting, even on higher ping servers. 50ms server on wifi even felt better than 30ms on ethernet

in valorant for example, this issue was atrocious. id be on 30ms and no lag spikes, no packets dropped, completely flat and perfect RTT/ping and shots would hit there head almost a frame late or sometimes it felt like i was hitting headshots early, while moving or not visibily on their head. but with playing on wifi, everything seems to make more sense. i shoot, hit and kill and its all at the same time, no frame early or late. i dont know how else to describe this. but does anyone know what the issue with realtek is? why is wifi doing such a drastic and better change? it makes 0 sense to me. im not joking, its night and day difference. yeah wifi is worse technically speaking, but in all senses - hearing, seeing, feeling, all of it is noticeable by 10 fold the second i switch to wifi. on ethernet im scratching my head. ive played on it exclusively for years trying to understand this issue. the second i switch to wifi, things actually make sense in terms of the feeling of games

ive tried every combination of this ethernet adapters settings. ive went thru the side scaling stuff, the registry tweaks, the affinities, msi mode undefined. all of it across all these posts. but what is the actual issue. what type of packet delays is realtek causing where it doesnt show up in testing or in games? cause obviously this cant be tested, there isnt any visible issue in testing. you can make the latency better, the issue still remains. so are realtek ethernet adapters just chalked up garbage, is there any actual way to fix this or is wifi just the way to go?

I’ve tried 3 Different Intel Nics as well. 2 of them were pcie addons and 1 was a completely different high end mobo that had Intel. It’s not the nic unfortunately. But what helps tremendously on Realtek and on Intel is using the netadaptercx driver instead of ndis. There’s not much that u can do software and driver sided.

Intel nic use netadapter drivers ??

[Moontrance]

That's interesting cuz couple days ago I also switched to WiFi due to severe desync with Realtek onboard LAN and it kinda fixed issue, but I used 2.4ghz which is not very stable and has a lot interference/sudden spikes/jitter/etc. I'm thinking about buying 6ghz router to try WiFi 6E.

However I also did wireshark capture of wired and wireless connections to compare. I compared udp.length cuz there were a theory you get shorter packets (=more frequent?) on worse connection, but I didn't notice any difference. I've also checked histograms and seems like packet-size distribution is nearly the same for wired/wireless. Also compared udp.time_delta and there's nothing sus for me. Here's I/O Graphs: https://imgur.com/a/1tfCnnx. This is for CS2 btw, what games do you guys experience issue with?

P.S. I tried almost every combo, NDIS/NetAdapterCx, MSI On/Off, RSS On/Off, different affinities, etc. NDIS with RSS/MSI Off was the best, but it still doesn't resolve the issue completely. Also I've noticed that issue is not permanent, sometimes it can show up or go away mid game, but usually it depends on server. On some servers you just feel you're WAY behind even tho in-game telemetry shows no obvious issues.

[iwabik]

Anybody tried Marvell NICs?

[Sandy]

Anybody tried Marvell NICs?

I use the AQC107 network card. You should try driver versions 2.1.21, 3.0.19, 3.0.20, and 3.1.7; these are the best ones I've tested. There are many other versions, but I can't find them anymore.
# Marvell FastLinQ Edge Network Adapter Windows Driver - aqnic
Oct 1, 2021

## v3.1.4.0
_Date 11.08.2021_
* Added CodeQL changes.
* Increased chip reset timeout to 2s.
* Updated ASUS device description for model XG-C100C (ATLDRV-1740).

## v3.1.3.0
_Date 05.07.2021_
* Merged changes from dev-release-3.0.x.
* Added power management registry entry.
* Modified ASUS device description for model XG-C100C (ATLDRV-1740).
* Patched WOL issue.
* Added support for Windows 11.

## v3.1.2.0
_Date 02.06.2021_
* Fixed NDISTest failures introduced in version 3.1.0.0 (ATLDRV-1700).
* Added link state logging at every boot-up (ATLDRV-1715).
* Fixed 1c_OIDSwmi failure caused by DASH status indication (ATLDRV-1706).
* Updated driver to support Antigua DeviceIDs (ATLDRV-1711, ATLDRV-1718).
* Removed SleepOnDisconnect (D3D) (ATLDRV-1721).
* Added HWID for Lenovo AQC113C (ATLDRV-1666).
* Added HWID for Gigabyte GC-AQC113C (ATLDRV-1667).
* Added TODOs for minor issues observed after the merge (ATLDRV-1727).
* Addressed "dirty wake" issues with S3 and S4 states.

[Asesino34]

using Wi-Fi may work slightly better because, without proper grounding, an Ethernet cable can introduce a ground loop

[BARGHEST]

using Wi-Fi may work slightly better because, without proper grounding, an Ethernet cable can introduce a ground loop

I've checked it myself—I have a motherboard with Wi-Fi. Even if you have a fiber-optic connection, and even if you actually connect a fiber-optic cable to the monitor via DisplayPort, nothing will change, unfortunately.