Why you will NEVER Fix "Desync/Lag" in CSGO.

[mago]

https://streamable.com/copuwz

what is weirder that also cant do nothing in that time moving or docking
like the shoot already been shoot

its like the server is going into power saving, keep the packets in the server when all the packets are ready
then the server start sending them

[pracc]

I've just stumbled upon this simple video which I guess is an accurate representation of what we're suffering from?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zwvQZHUTr4

Yes this is exactly it.
I collected a few of those clips as well.
https://streamable.com/copuwz
https://streamable.com/kqarge
https://streamable.com/cdwt4x

And i strongly believe this problem comes from the server or the network beyond you house

its the absolut same for me. I used to play S TIER CS:Source. In the beginning of CS:GO i played also very well, but something feeled very off to me ... my Old CS:S mates are all 3000+ elo on Faceit, and i hover around level 7-8. Maybe its ISP ( old dsl lines ) related or either electric spooky shit. I dont know..

[imprecise]

I have been experimenting with NIC in legacy IRQ mode and have noticed a positive result.

Under MSI settings, my hitboxes would often get hit by the opponent in a location my character hasn't even reached yet, or would receive interpolated damage around corners for very high amounts of time like 200ms with both players having 30 ping or less. This almost never happened when playing from 2012-2017, but has plagued me in recent years.

Using IRQ mode, there is a higher # in net_graph 4-5ms average instead of 0-1ms, and those 4-5ms show up as network lag as far as feeling, for those of you who know the difference between network lag and system lag feeling. 4-5ms network lag is almost nothing, but 4-5ms system lag is really big. It seems like the 0-1ms sv lag is fake or something because the desync is tremendous compared to when it's 4-5ms.

This isn't isolated to CSGO for me either, as I've noticed improved synchronization in several UE4 games as well.

Here is my configuration for those interested:

image_2023-08-26_182658906.png (18.96 KiB) Viewed 8836 times

[Thatweirdinputlag]

I have been experimenting with NIC in legacy IRQ mode and have noticed a positive result.

Under MSI settings, my hitboxes would often get hit by the opponent in a location my character hasn't even reached yet, or would receive interpolated damage around corners for very high amounts of time like 200ms with both players having 30 ping or less. This almost never happened when playing from 2012-2017, but has plagued me in recent years.

Using IRQ mode, there is a higher # in net_graph 4-5ms average instead of 0-1ms, and those 4-5ms show up as network lag as far as feeling, for those of you who know the difference between network lag and system lag feeling. 4-5ms network lag is almost nothing, but 4-5ms system lag is really big. It seems like the 0-1ms sv lag is fake or something because the desync is tremendous compared to when it's 4-5ms.

This isn't isolated to CSGO for me either, as I've noticed improved synchronization in several UE4 games as well.

Here is my configuration for those interested:
image_2023-08-26_182658906.png

I remember trying to disable MSI mode for my ethernet driver back in 2020, I've also set the affinity to only 1 core which was Core#5, Also disabled receive side scaling and made sure that RSS is set to 1 core in the driver's advanced settings. That's when I was playing CSGO and I immediately felt the difference, the game was consistent and somehow I was able to hold every corner no matter how ridiculous it was without the need to keep moving or to make sure that I'm the one peeking.

However after 3 days of applying this, for some reason I started having close to 50% packet loss all the time. I'm not sure whether it was related to my ISP or the settings themselves. I've reset the adapter and I still had the same packet loss in game. I called my ISP and they said there's nothing showing from their end. It was just so confusing and the packet loss stayed for 2 months, until I decided not to renew the contract with this specific ISP since I've reset everything in my PC and the problem was still there.

I've never tried doing anything similar afterwards with the new ISP since I was too afraid that it'll cause the same issue and I'll be stuck with a 2 year contract with the new one lol. Anyhow, I might try to disable MSI mode for this new adapter and see how it goes, its an intel I226 one and has by default either 4-5 IRQs. Will make sure to set a restore point before doing so though.

Also, how on earth is your system not crashing if you're limiting both your NVMe and Sata to 1 IRQ? Unless it did not translate into the registry. Can you check that in the device manager?

[imprecise]

I remember trying to disable MSI mode for my ethernet driver back in 2020, I've also set the affinity to only 1 core which was Core#5, Also disabled receive side scaling and made sure that RSS is set to 1 core in the driver's advanced settings. That's when I was playing CSGO and I immediately felt the difference, the game was consistent and somehow I was able to hold every corner no matter how ridiculous it was without the need to keep moving or to make sure that I'm the one peeking.

I agree, holding angles under MSI mode feels like an impossible task and much more consistent using IRQ on my current system.

However after 3 days of applying this, for some reason I started having close to 50% packet loss all the time. I'm not sure whether it was related to my ISP or the settings themselves. I've reset the adapter and I still had the same packet loss in game. I called my ISP and they said there's nothing showing from their end. It was just so confusing and the packet loss stayed for 2 months, until I decided not to renew the contract with this specific ISP since I've reset everything in my PC and the problem was still there.

I've never tried doing anything similar afterwards with the new ISP since I was too afraid that it'll cause the same issue and I'll be stuck with a 2 year contract with the new one lol. Anyhow, I might try to disable MSI mode for this new adapter and see how it goes, its an intel I226 one and has by default either 4-5 IRQs. Will make sure to set a restore point before doing so though.

I had complete internet disconnects when experimenting with older NIC drivers in MSI mode which was fixable by flushing DNS cache, but kept returning often. Limiting to 1 core could be too restrictive, not allowing enough bandwidth for NIC under full load. Another restrictive setting is half duplexing, which could have been set during experimentation.

Also, how on earth is your system not crashing if you're limiting both your NVMe and Sata to 1 IRQ? Unless it did not translate into the registry. Can you check that in the device manager?

I'm not sure why the system would crash by limiting hard drive devices to 1 channel. I could see this limiting bandwidth but I just benchmarked and it appears to be full speed.

[Thatweirdinputlag]

I had complete internet disconnects when experimenting with older NIC drivers in MSI mode which was fixable by flushing DNS cache, but kept returning often. Limiting to 1 core could be too restrictive, not allowing enough bandwidth for NIC under full load. Another restrictive setting is half duplexing, which could have been set during experimentation.

I'm not sure why the system would crash by limiting hard drive devices to 1 channel. I could see this limiting bandwidth but I just benchmarked and it appears to be full speed.

Never had an actual disconnect on either MSI or Legacy mode. Pretty sure half-duplex does not lead into packet loss either. Not to mention I never do anything on the gaming PC except playing a game which means the NIC is never pushed to its limits, not even close.

Regardless, with my current system, doing anything regarding affinities, setting IRQs below 5, disabling MSI mode will lead into a blue screen with several restarts until I'm forced to restore.

You also have an NVMe driver that is set to 1 IRQ, by default its not. Even the standard driver! Do you have an NVMe driver or just hard drives? However, as I asked before, go to device manager -> View -> Resources By Connection -> interrupts "IRQs" from there you can check if MSI Utility translated the 1's that you entered into actual registry or not by finding if 1 or more IRQs are assigned to the SATA and NVMe drives.

[imprecise]

Never had an actual disconnect on either MSI or Legacy mode. Pretty sure half-duplex does not lead into packet loss either. Not to mention I never do anything on the gaming PC except playing a game which means the NIC is never pushed to its limits, not even close.

Regardless, with my current system, doing anything regarding affinities, setting IRQs below 5, disabling MSI mode will lead into a blue screen with several restarts until I'm forced to restore.

You also have an NVMe driver that is set to 1 IRQ, by default its not. Even the standard driver! Do you have an NVMe driver or just hard drives? However, as I asked before, go to device manager -> View -> Resources By Connection -> interrupts "IRQs" from there you can check if MSI Utility translated the 1's that you entered into actual registry or not by finding if 1 or more IRQs are assigned to the SATA and NVMe drives.

I'm using 1 limit for testing purposes, not as a recommendation, and I need to update the MSI portion in my guide. I haven't noticed differences when limiting channels, but am getting some feedback that it can cause the device to stop working until the setting is reverted. I only have 1 drive attached to each controller... If you have more drives there might be more channels required. I checked device manager, which shows 1 IRQ each, and I think the MSI utility reads directly from registry.

The reason I posted this is legacy mode could improve performance on certain devices. I've had NIC in legacy mode for weeks and online games feel consistently in-sync with moments of lag (normal internet lag). In MSI mode it was the opposite, where the game would stay desynced constantly and try to re-sync whenever network actions happened, such as another player being nearby, or in rocket league where the ball, car, and opponent all resync every time the ball is hit. In legacy mode it's like I'm playing the game now instead of trying to overcompensate for the computer not keeping up.

[dermodemon]

Well i finally found a real fix for it.
It helps me a lot. Now it's consistent without any stupid comebacks.
Basically what i did:
1) Deleted 730 folder in steam userdata/steamid/completely
2) Deleted cfg folder in csgo folder
3) Made a cfg csgo registry tweak to move cfg folder from 730 to csgo/cfg folder

Code: Select all

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment]
"USRLOCALCSGO"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Steam\\steamapps\\common\\Counter-Strike Global Offensive\\csgo"

4) You can change it to your specific folder^^^^^
5) Rebooted pc
6) Verified local files for csgo in steam
7) Start csgo with launch parametr: +r_dynamic 0 +cl_interp_ratio 1.25
8) Change bandwith in game settings, not "rate" in console to UNRESTRICTED
That's all. Now i can finally play almost with 0 desync. Finally rank up to lem from dmg with ez kills without getting prefired.
I think the problem was exactly in the cfg folders. Something went wrong after steam updated cfg folder location so regedit tweak fixed it.

Please somebody test it out for me. I hope it will fix all of your desync problems!
Believe me i tried almost everything from changing isp and lan adapter to msi util and other "timer" and interrupt managment tweaks

[InputLagger]

Well i finally found a real fix for it.
It helps me a lot. Now it's consistent without any stupid comebacks.
Basically what i did:
1) Deleted 730 folder in steam userdata/steamid/completely
2) Deleted cfg folder in csgo folder
3) Made a cfg csgo registry tweak to move cfg folder from 730 to csgo/cfg folder

Code: Select all

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment]
"USRLOCALCSGO"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Steam\\steamapps\\common\\Counter-Strike Global Offensive\\csgo"

4) You can change it to your specific folder^^^^^
5) Rebooted pc
6) Verified local files for csgo in steam
7) Start csgo with launch parametr: +r_dynamic 0 +cl_interp_ratio 1.25
8) Change bandwith in game settings, not "rate" in console to UNRESTRICTED
That's all. Now i can finally play almost with 0 desync. Finally rank up to lem from dmg with ez kills without getting prefired.
I think the problem was exactly in the cfg folders. Something went wrong after steam updated cfg folder location so regedit tweak fixed it.

Please somebody test it out for me. I hope it will fix all of your desync problems!
Believe me i tried almost everything from changing isp and lan adapter to msi util and other "timer" and interrupt managment tweaks

Did you exec main (old) config afterwards?

[imprecise]

Well i finally found a real fix for it.
It helps me a lot. Now it's consistent without any stupid comebacks.
Basically what i did:
1) Deleted 730 folder in steam userdata/steamid/completely
2) Deleted cfg folder in csgo folder

I have used this fix in the past, and yes it can work. People often claim their smurf accounts run better than their main account, and this is part of the reason. This is a way to clear local cache that's interfering with the game, and may not affect everyone the same.

I do remember that the issue seems worse when the game restarts to live mode from warmup, perhaps now VAC is monitoring all of 730 and slowing down CSGO because of other games being installed? If this is the case, then VAC only having to monitor the folder for one game could be faster. This is just speculation but it does fit the symptoms from my observations.