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Hello I'm a former professional Rocket League player who is suffering from something called "heavy car bug" within our community and are usually assumed as the player itself just has gotten worse at the game and suffering from "heavy brain lag" (meme). Enough of that.

What I am experiencing is extremely fast and good gameplay at night time (Thursday to Sunday afternoon) around 02 am to 06 am. CET. (europe).
At this specific time I'm able to pull off every single mechanical movement within the game itself and not struggling at all what so ever).

At day time half of the mechanics in the game isn't really possible at all, and if something goes true with that is it that in day time there is often "less skilled people" as well.

I've been tweaking with windows itself as well tried different versions of windows and I find 1709 working the best but not optimal as in general. (even tried Windows 7 but it isn't better).
I've also measured my input lag within the system via Latency Monitor and its overall better then most results I find in communitys where there is tweaking going on. My results vary around 10-20μs which I found very good. might go to 50 while having active gameplay. So no spikes.

I've been tweaking Ethernet adapter a tried most possible settings for a better connection which didnt help, from speedguide.net etc. also tried disabling nagle

Tweaked Nvidia Profile Inspector "Disabled Framelimiter V2 and using V1 (less input lag)" <--- this helped a tiny bit

Lowered "DWM.exe" from High Priority to Low <--- this help a small amount as well

Did some bcdedit settings which also improve it a small amount
- useplatformtick Yes
- disabledynamictick Yes
Got the ISLC program to clean memory standby as well and checked it is set to 0.500 (0.5) Timer Resolution.

I also checked I'm running proper fullscreen within the actual game all the time with Native Resolution, and have set it to No Scaling, Scaling on Display in Nvidia and also 240hz there. I've also tried Consistent Performance and Prefer Maximum Performance.

Disabled unnecessary devies in Device manager like High Definition Audio, and in general my OS is kinda stripped down so there isn't really any bloatware or unnecessary drivers installed.

Tried MMCSS tweaks with the myth tweaks? GPU, CPU etc. from 6-8 etc Normal to High no results.

I bought a Furman 10mx-E? in hope of maybe having bad grounding? even tho it seems that my electricity is grounded in the contact when I plug it in? But didnt get any worse or better performance

What only seems to matter is the timestamps and the days at this point at its really frustrating ofc, but I'm hoping that someone here may know of something I'vent tried or haven't heard of. Been reading a lot of posts here last couple of months, this problem started like 2-3 years ago back in 2017. I've tried a few things from this forum some worked towards the better feeling "gladly", but I'vent nailed down the cultprit here some I'm hoping that the people here the last 5% who isn't really believing in placebo would take some time and try and help me figure out this problem.

I don't mind trying things or do tests.

Overall my setup

• Motherboard: Asus rog strix Z370-F gaming
  GPU: MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Aero OC HDMI 3xDP 11GB
  CPU: i9 9900K
  RAM: Gskill 3600mhz 14-14-14-28
  PSU: 1300watt
  Monitor: Asus Rog 240hz (XG258)

The most important question.

1. Do you get any of this weird lag for ANY offline play?
This is a verification question to confirm that this only affects online play

If Yes: There may be other unexpected factors, including human behaviours.
If No: Then it's almost definitely not your electricity or anything obscure related to that. It will be more related to your network.

Note: My suspicion is network related, but no guarantee. Even if your unloaded ping lag is the same at all hours of the day, there's some issues like jitter and increased buffering that goes on. Improving this can be a 2nd Internet connection that's a expensive business-only connection (Regardless of DSL/Cable/FTTH. Yes, even FTTH. Even two separate FTTH connections, one FTTH for your house, and one FTTH Wifi-turned-off, Etherneted just straight to your gaming PC right after the firewall), combined with a gaming VPN to stabilize your jitter all the way to the servers. Some paid competitive players do this nowadays.

TIP: A slightly higher lag but consistent lag can be superior for many games. Perfect near jitterlesss 30ms loaded latency (+/-1ms TCP/UDP jitter in loaded conditions) sometimes creates network lagfeel than very jittery 20ms latency (+/-10ms TCP/UDP jitter). Gamefeel malfunctions (random erratic misses) more with network jitter than with absolute network latency.

*WARNING: Sometimes Internet issues are impossible to solve. But as far as you're willing to spend lots of money (business connection + dedicated connection just only for gaming PC + high performance gaming router + testing multiple gaming VPNs if necessary. And I mean ALL of the above COMBINED, not just one of the above), it is sometimes improveable, especially if you have a budget as a paid professional esports player. We get a few of those nowadays on Blur Busters and it's amazing how far some of them has gone to force just minor improvements on Internet connections, often at 10x+ budget...

Rallaz wrote: ↑

12 May 2020, 15:38

Yes it happends offline somedays in freeplays that the game feels "heavy" but after connection to a match or two its usually gets better as well in freeplay.

Strange. It could be a combination of training effects (Common terms are the "training effect", "muscle memory", etc)

Sudden lag changes creates weird effects. Lag increases versus lag decreases.

A person get used to a specific latency and automatically compensates by aiming slightly early or slightly late, in order to aim correctly (e.g. shooting at moving targets).

Like Archery where you have to shoot your arrow a bit early -- in order to hit a sideways-moving archery target. I call that the "invisible target" that you have to aim ahead of the real target arriving to its real position.

The same problem happens in online / FPS games when latency changes. It's like an invisible target location that changed -- one moment, the invisible correct target to aim at is ahead of the target, the next moment the invisible correct target to aim at is behind the target. Ping jitter will gyrate the location of that "invisible target" making it so frustrating. In fact, you prefer "higher but consistent lag", because at least that invisible target is predictable location (whether it's a lagbehind target or a lagahead target).

Even a sudden decrease in lag can cause scoring misses, because you're trained/used to a latency.

If you play for days offline, you shouldn't feel this effect. But if you alternate between online and offline, you will definitely feel this effect.

If you want to converge online feel to the offline feel, you need as low latency as possible AND low latency jitter.

Yes, gigabit FTTH is overkill for a game that only uses under 10 megabits per second. But latency and latency jitter is superlatively low
on a lightly-loaded gigabit FTTH, so you're paying overkill for an overkill safety margin, even if you only use 1% of the Internet speed.

Loaded latency of most Internet connection suddenly gyrate up and down. You see this when doing www.fast.com and clicking "Show more info". If your unloaded latency and loaded latency is dramatically different, that's very terrible for your game. It can kill your network game if your loaded/unloaded latency is 10x different. Now, fast.com is a terrible analyzer, you need better software... But my point is unloaded latency can be perfect but totally crap during loaded latency creating a hairpulling 100ms of latency jitter (especially as somebody suddenly starts watching Netflix/Disney in the middle of your game, or suddenly downloading a Steam game, or other latency-changing events).

Now a lightly-loaded connection (e.g. only 10Mbps of 1000Mbps) will have very low ping jitter on the important 10Mbps, you're paying for the speed overkill to purchase less network variance. Bandwidth is not everything, latency stability is also important. And because residential connections share each other, when your neighbour on another floor or another separate house suddenly downloads something off Steam, it may slow your connection down. Or someone watching stuff on streaming and suddenly stopping. So you might need to simultaneously use overkill margins (business-it + FTTH-it + dedicate-it to gaming PC only) to brute-force Internet gaming stability. Yes, you're overpaying. But a lot of the paid professionals have been doing it. If you have to score in those leagues, you just have to pony up.

20 milliseconds of ping jitter is equal to 5 different 240Hz refresh cycles, you know...for a crappy 75 megabit overloaded Cable Internet connection shared by your neighbours.

Higher refresh rates and higher frame rates amplify visibility of network jitter. 60Hz had refresh cycles that lasted ~16.7ms but today's 240Hz have refresh cycles that last only ~4ms. So you _really_ feel the network lag much more at 240Hz than at 60Hz.

Heck, even 4ms of network jitter = 1 refresh cycle of jitter on that moving target. In some games, it's noticeable enough, e.g. 4000 pixels/second high speed target (airplane flying over you in Fortnite) -- 4ms lag jitter creates a 16-pixel offset in that invisible target (Archery metaphor). (4000pps / 1000p x 4ms = 16p offset).

Almost everybody's Internet connection changes more than 4ms between unloaded and loaded in your favourite network analyzer (or even just merely www.fast.com) -- now you understand why Internet connections are just often crap, a major bottleneck in the refresh rate race to retina refresh rates, in the Vicious Cycle Effect -- where bigger resolutions, bigger FOV, higher resolutions, larger screens, higher refresh rates, better motion clarity, amplify each other -- amplifying those milliseconds to human-visibility or human-feelability of "why am I scoring crap?" effects. It was easier to be a LPB in the 320x200 60Hz Quake days if you were lucky to have the first DSL connections, today, the 1920x1080 240Hz, really amplify visibility of network latency issues.

Anyway, the feel of FTTH is closer to LAN feel than with most other connections (cable/DSL) when you're playing to local servers or playing through a good low-jitter network (including potentially a gaming VPN that bypasses the low quality latency-jittery ISP backbone).

You also might be witnessing multiple simultaneous effects at the same time
(A) Lagfeel changes from offline vs online Internet (training effect)
AND
(B) Lagfeel changes from peak to offpeak Internet (network effect)
AND
- Interactions between the two of the above

You try to frag a fast sideways-moving enemy, you've got that invisible aim target problem (like aiming arrow at a sideways moving Archery target). It's affected by both (A) and (B) above. The mere act of switching between online/offline can suddenly create a "why is my aiming bad?" effect even for sudden lag decreases. But network jitter can also jitter that invisible target around too.

Sometimes you can't feel the milliseconds directly, but you just simply have a "Why am I suddenly missing my frags now?". Exactomundo, exactomundo! That invisible lagbehind/lagahead target is moving all over the place.

That's why well-trained people who mainly play over Internet (instead of LAN) sometimes aim at consistent latency (but higher latency) can often score better than some people who try lower (but jittery) latency -- at least they're resolving the lag training effect through various techniques such as via low-jitter Internet, via framerate capping, or via other techniques that adds latency consistency over absolute lag. There are situations where one can be trained to prefer a 20ms reliably consitent lag, over very volatile 3ms-15ms lag (combined lag, frametime lag, engine lag, netcode lag, display lag, in the entire latency chain, combined)

So you might have a fog of red herrings during a wild goose chase, it may not be a single cause. You sometimes just have to bruteforce your way (lowest lag + lowest lag jitter)

Another big problem is that many other players won't have as good Internet connection, so your game may be bottlenecked by the average Internet connection of the whole online game. That can turn things a bit shitty for the best-Internet players on that particular game. The best thing you can do is do your best, and be aware of (A) and (B)

This may not be your latency problem but it helps to understand the (A) lag training effect and (B) network latency effects, and both (A) and (B) can be happening at the same time (confusingly so).

First of all I'm very greatful for such elaboration on every explanation here. I feel extremely humble and welcoming by your writing in the sentences (sry my english is bad).

By recording a macro I've seen and actually know for a fact that this isn't really any sort of placebo effect at least this has been proven before by people in a certain discord group regarding this problem but no one can actually tell why this occurs, which brought me to the point I'll need to try consult and talk with someone that has a huge amount of knowledge like you here. (which I feel really honored to be discussing with) =]


Here is a test from (www.fast.com) don't know if its telling you any decent information as you said "terrible" measurement thing/analyzing tool

https://imgshare.io/image/ping.N6FvD5 - don't know how to implent a picture so here is the link

but on the fact there is no one else then me using the Ethernet and router or no router doesnt matter. I've 1gb/1gb down/up but as you said it could be that we're sharing within the neighborhood or within the apartment house itself on the Ethernet?

from what I've consulted with the "Lead code designer of the game" it is said that the 1 server runs multiple games in 1 server but there is an "player limit" so a few 1v1 matches, 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 so it should'nt overload during "peek hours".
The servers run at 120fps(physics), but the network process rate is 60 packets per second.

My game can be capped at 120fps, 240fps, 250fps. I've tried 100hz, 120hz and 240hz. The only time the macro is doing everything correct is when the actual "game allows it do it", and the time matches when the macro can perform it correctly.

That's pretty impressive stable. Only 1ms difference between loaded/unloaded! Even most FTTH aren't that stable.

Mind you, fast.com is not the best analyzer to use -- it can help analyze local first-hop and neighborhood latency issues (one needs a network analyzer that emulates the game traffic that needs to be analyzed, or use Wireshark on the game traffic to try and monitor its latency).

By "macro" I assume you mean "cap" or "limit" (translation issue?).

For network lag fixes, try lower-lying apples such as subscribing to a gaming VPN that's closest to your ISP. That can improve lag jitter on other network paths that is separate of being between you and Netflix's appliance (at your ISP), since loaded latency of game servers are usually massively higher than loaded latency of Netflix servers.

You can technically repeat fast.com throughout the day to verify that your local node latency isn't varying much offpeak/onpeak, but it won't help diagnose the network path to the game servers.

Try these low lying apples:

-- Test throughout the day to see if your jitter changes.
Ideally you should wireshark similar traffic but the loaded/unloaded latency of fast.com can at least help diagnose TCP latency jitter at your neighborhood node level to ISP (not backbone level) since your Netflix server is usually parked as an appliance at your ISP. If fast.com loaded latency never changes, a second FTTH connection has less bang-for-buck because you don't have local-ISP-level contention issues. It's a poor analyzer, but it isn't useless for network-analyzer-inexperienced people (unloaded-vs-loaded latency).

-- Test a gaming VPN first before you try a second FTTH, I don't think it will help if your lag jitter is that low
Disadvantage: Cost outlay, but much cheaper than a second connection.

-- Try temporarily turning off everything else (disable WiFi and all other Ethernet ports) testing your PC only. This will help determine if your other local traffic are interfering.
Disadvantage: This annoys your other family members, but is cheaper than a 2nd FTTH.

-- Try accomodating the lag training effects, play consistently only offline (with no online games in between).
Disadvantage: Staying offline away from online games for a couple days, just to diagnose. If your lagfeel changes throughout the day reliably, some other factor may be at play. If your lagfeel doesn't change anymore (unlike switching between online vs offline constantly) -- then at least you've confirmed a lag-training effect. You need to play only offline for two days, in order to let the lag training effects stabilize.

Rallaz wrote: ↑

12 May 2020, 10:12

Hello I'm a former professional Rocket League player who is suffering from something called "heavy car bug" within our community and are usually assumed as the player itself just has gotten worse at the game and suffering from "heavy brain lag" (meme). Enough of that.

What I am experiencing is extremely fast and good gameplay at night time (Thursday to Sunday afternoon) around 02 am to 06 am. CET. (europe).
At this specific time I'm able to pull off every single mechanical movement within the game itself and not struggling at all what so ever).

At day time half of the mechanics in the game isn't really possible at all, and if something goes true with that is it that in day time there is often "less skilled people" as well.

...

Are u sure that it isn't related to some server side validation of your actions?
I know of some game that will wait for the server to confirm some movement and in case of latency it can make everything very sluggish.

Maybe there is some common problem on steam with games? It is weird that recently I see so many people complain about such issues.
https://www.reddit.com/r/GlobalOffensiv ... d_serious/
Some say its network, some say its electricity, some say its software. Myself I have tried many things, found some electricity issues (router connected to same line as all lightbulbs in my house), but you never will be sure if you don't have comparison playing in other locations.
The thing with second steam account is weird one. It is very easy to check if it is true, you can use same configs and repeat tests over and over again in different time of day. Too bad Rocket League is not free to play like CSGO.

I have this exact problem mate...Every game i play feels slow and sluggish but i dont drop frames... my mouse feels inconsistent during the day and 2am onwards its smooth... same with a controller... i think its power issues in your house or coming from the provider

I brought a UPS a while back and realised during the day the input voltage coming from the mains fluctuates more in the day and at night it settles at a higher voltage

Fluctuating voltage or frequency is the basis for complaint to your electricity provider. Especially fluctuating frequency can really mess your electronic devices so check your contract and contact them but firstly I would record some evidences.

Regarding CS:GO I have pretty significant improvement after disabling multicore rendering but this requires pretty powerful PC to reach decent FPS and reduce latiencies.