Battlefield4 Packet Loss Problems

[Sonovabich]

Anybody know how to solve the problem of Packet loss, i just spent £200 on a new Graphic card for this  game and i am hardly getting any benefit of it at all, some days the game runs ok and some it runs like crap, since Tuesday i have been suffering with sever packet loss problems, this morning the game ran fine now again this afternoon my frame rate is up and down like a fiddlers elbow going from 200 to 6, i ran the performance test in game and it gave me this message "Network connection is having severe issues with Packet Loss, consider turning off other devices using internet connection while playing games" what exactly does it mean turn off other devices using internet connection while playing game?......what devices are we talking about and how do i use my internet connection to turn them off?...i am baffled, please don't tell me to lower my graphic settings as i said i just spent £200 on a new card so that cannot and should not be the answer, i have my setting set the same as in this video TSW  posted a while back but i'm seeing no benefit whatsoever, the odd occasion lately when i have not suffered Packet Loss my game ran great even with settings on Ultra.....help please.    

http://www.xtremeidiots.com/topic/40820-bf4-players-have-a-look-hope-it-helps/

Edited November 21, 2013 by Sonovabich

[DuckyofDeath123]

Packet loss is not the same thing as framerate. Your pc can run the game smoothly ( frame rate) but you are having connection issues ( packet loss)

Grab www.pingplotter.com

Download the standard version

Set it to ping to the ip of a server you are going to play on

Set the max number of samples to include to ALL (unlimited) in the bottom left and then start playing

After 30 minuten, stop playing and look at the graph pingplotter drew. If it shows packet loss and high ping to the first entry, that is your own network which is causing the problem. If it is a hop further down the list, it's something in the internet between you and the server.

 

Grab a sample and post it. Ill check back when I get home and see what we can find. If it is your home network this could be easy to fix.

[Sonovabich]

Ok i put the IP of our Euro server in and it says "invalid trace target, couldn't resolve host name, says make sure you enter a valid IP address", this is what i  put in 185.16.85.139:47520, thing is i probably played less on our server then others i play on, ours is either empty or full, depending on what time of day it is, but i have no idea where to find IP's of other servers i play on.

Edited November 21, 2013 by Sonovabich

[Devildog4355]

Depending on What Internet type you have cable/DSL you could have something wrong on your home router.. Creating missed packets on your network... That plotter Will hopefully tell us the situation... I've had this happen to me before when I played wow and I just replaced the whole modem/router... Informed charter of the problem and they shipped me out a new one for free

[Sonovabich]

Depending on What Internet type you have cable/DSL you could have something wrong on your home router.. Creating missed packets on your network... That plotter Will hopefully tell us the situation... I've had this happen to me before when I played wow and I just replaced the whole modem/router... Informed charter of the problem and they shipped me out a new one for free

Haha yes if the plotter recognises a server i input, but it don't so far.

[OddJob001]

I would honestly ignore this.  At this point the system test is a unknown.  Dont worry about it.  Honestly, if you want to test packet loss to the server, just check it in Windows. 

Until bugs have been resolved, and people know what the test does, DO NOT WORRY.

 

I am going to run some WireShark packet captures on my machine, when i do this test, so I can try and figure out what they heck its actually doing.

[Sonovabich]

Under the box where you are supposed to enter IP there are a few choices, Google, Twitter etc and there was an IP for Nessoft site or something so i entered that and it is now plotting a route and a graph it looks like it has 10 options where the route passes through think my home or hometown is first as it says darl I7..Darlington being my home town  then 3rd and 4th down is Virgin my internet service provider, the 4th is definately saying Packet Loss, but i really have no idea what i am doing haha, how do i post a "sample"?

Edited November 21, 2013 by Sonovabich

[Sonovabich]

I would honestly ignore this.  At this point the system test is a unknown.  Dont worry about it.  Honestly, if you want to test packet loss to the server, just check it in Windows. 

Until bugs have been resolved, and people know what the test does, DO NOT WORRY.

 

I am going to run some WireShark packet captures on my machine, when i do this test, so I can try and figure out what they heck its actually doing.

Where in Windows do i check this stuff.?

[OddJob001]

your best bet is to do the following:

 

When you join a new server, leave a cmd window open (win-r then type cmd or type cmd in start menu search) with the command: ping "server ip" -t (obviously without the " "'s) when you are done playing hit ctrl-c.  Then in the windows cmd, right click on the top left icon in the windows, go to edit > and click mark.  you can now copy it and paste it here.

Edited November 21, 2013 by OddJob001

[Sonovabich]

I got this after about 30 minutes 

Trace Count 150

Displayed Samples 135 to 144 does that mean anything i ain't  got a clue?

Why is it when i play in the morning it is sometimes ok but as the day goes on it gets worse to impossible?

[OddJob001]

This is what it should look like:

 

[DuckyofDeath123]

Using the Windows Ping command is not going to pinpoint where the problem is arising. Since that's what I'm trying to do, I would suggest we leave the ping command to sit in a corner in loneliness for now.

 

 

This is what pingplotter will look like for you.

Starting bottom left above the Resume button is "samples to include". Set this to "ALL".

Above that is the Trace Interval. Make it 1 second.

Above that, number of times to trace. Unlimited is what we want.

In the top of Ping Plotter, click the View menu, then Customize View. You get a pop=up window which lets you select things to see. Make sure you have checkmarks on:

Err

PL%

IP

DNSName

Avg

Max

Cur

Graph

Then hit OK to close the pop-up window.

 

Now, enter the IP of the EU HC server (or whatever server you like to play on). To find the IP, simply open your Favorites in Battlelog, click the server, and click "View full server page" on the right. Now, on the server info screen, look at the bottom for the settings pane. The bottom entry oon the right coluymn is "server address". XI EU HC is 91.198.152.34:25503 - but you only want the IP, not the port, so you must throw away the colon and the number behind that, leaving you with:

91.198.152.34

Put that into the "Address to trace" field, top left of the Ping Plotter window.

 

Now, click Trace in the bottom left corner. You should now see the graph being built.

If it looks like the one I posted above, with lots of red, Err and PL% even for the first entry in the table, your home network is at fault and we can look into what might be causing it.

Or it might look the this one below:

 

In this plot, the first two entries (both are in my home) are faultless and clean, with no errors or PL% ((Packet Loss %... your problem). If this is what your plot looks like most of the way down and it only begins to go red and show PL% halfway through, then your end is clean and it's going to be virtually impossible to make any hard guesses on who can fix what where when.

The 'fix' then is we call your internet provider and use words like "please", "fix this for me" and "or I will sacrifice your goldfish to a god of my choosing". There's no chance you will get lucky with them though, and goldfish tastes horrible so that's no upside either.

[OddJob001]

That is just a fancy gui for a simple tracert in windows cmd.  He doesn't understand a standard ping, which is fine, that is the first thing I wanted him to check.  My guess is he pings a server IP the entire time he is playing, and we see no packet loss.  If there was, well then we can get into tracert's and packet captures.

 

Bottom line.  I wouldn't trust this stupid "Performance Test" built by a broken EA any day.

Edited November 22, 2013 by OddJob001

[Sonovabich]

Hope you don't want me to post a picture of it using screenshot or anything, for some reason i cannot make screenshots as i have no paint program or no snipping tool, none that i can find anyway, certainly not in my "Accessories"  or anywhere else i have looked lol, i have no idea what goes on with my PC  sometimes, i think it has a life of it's own, doing a test now but apart from a slight packet loss occurring very briefly it is looking good but as i said it usually does run ok in the morning it's as the day goes on it gets worse, DuckyofDeath it is looking as if it is not my home network that is at fault but elsewhere, this is what i saw last night too.

Edited November 22, 2013 by Sonovabich

[DuckyofDeath123]

I'm not here to argue with you; I'm trying to help SOB. pingplotter will tell me what I need in five easy clicks any non-tech person can understand and do. 

 

good timing  

 

SOB,

 

If it gets worse during the day, let pingplotter run while the connection is bad. If it doesn't show any lost packets to the first entry (your home router/modem) then it is indeed a problem in the internet.

 

You can take a picture of any window by clicking it so it's active, and hitting Alt+PrtScr. Then start Paint, and hit CTRL+V (or click edit - Paste) and there's your picture. Save it somewhere you can find it, then in this forum click the Add Picture button and select "Upload" in the pop-up window; then simply find the picture and use it, and it will get uploaded and resized automagically.

 

Edited November 22, 2013 by DuckyofDeath123

[Sonovabich]

Lol i can't find my paint program anywhere m8, no snipping tool either, things go missing on my PC and hide themselves away, i really have no idea what goes on with it sometimes.

I appreciate all the feedback i am getting here thanks to all for the help.

[DuckyofDeath123]

Lol i can't find my paint program anywhere m8, no snipping tool either, things go missing on my PC and hide themselves away, i really have no idea what goes on with it sometimes.

I appreciate all the feedback i am getting here thanks to all for the help.

find paint by hitting the Start button and typing "paint" ;-) works for any program.

 

but you can also hit File - Save Image in pingplotter i just remembered :$

[Sonovabich]

This is one i'm doing at the moment, i will get one later if i start to suffer severe packet loss in the afternoon like has been happening all week.

[Sonovabich]

How about this one, this is a British server too.

[DuckyofDeath123]

OK, good data! 

so, you're losing packets to your very first hop. Since that's an external IP, I suspct your PC may be directly hooked up to your cable or DSL modem? That would mean you don't use your PC in a network at home?

[Sonovabich]

This is XI Euro server at the moment, this looks ok but the server is empty whereas the last one was full dunno if that makes a diffence?

[Sonovabich]

Yes my PC  is hooked up to my Cable, not sure what you mean about using my PC  in a network at home?

[Sonovabich]

This is XI  Euro server at the moment there is more data on this one to look at.

[Sonovabich]

This is one i'm getting in Cod5 at the moment XI DM server but it is not affecting my game at all, it is only BF4  where my game is affected....strange.

[DuckyofDeath123]

You're already losing packets between your PC and your cable modem. There's also a big hike in lost packets halfway over the web, presumably at the end where yor provider connects to their peers. From the high level of those, it looks like the bulk of your lag is caused by something other than your PC, which is bad news. You can'tbe sure of that till you figure out why you're having problems commuincating to your own cable modem though.

 

The first thing to try is pin point why you're having trouble before you ever get to your cable modem. You can certainly try swapping the network cable between your pc and the modem out. If the cable is bad, the problem will go away.

Also, you can try lowering the speed of your connection to your modem, which if helpful could indicate a limited number of problems.. and if you don't have a network with other PCs, televisions and things in it, it might be an acceptable fix.

 

To try this:

right click the network icon in the system tray, and click as circled above.

 

Hit change Adapter Settings in the new window. In the next window, right-click your network connection to your modem and hit Properties. In the NEXT pop-up window, hit Configure.

 

Yet another pop-up window. Hit the Advanced tab, scroll down the porperty list, hit Speed & Duplex, and select 100 mbit full duplex. Hit Ok and kepe hitting Ok utons till you're out of all these windows I made you open.

 

With the cable swapped and/or the speed lowered, try again and see if the packet loss to your cable modem has dropped. If it has not, grab a laptop or bring a friend over who has a laptop and have them hook up to your cable modem, and try their PC with pingplotter. If they have the same packetloss to your modem, the modem is at fault. If it is, call your provider and explain to them you may need a new modem.

 

Either way, it may be worth calling them up since the big spike in loss halfway down to the server you've pinged indicates a problem in their network, more than yours... whether or not they will be able to do anything, or will be willing to, is vry much an unknown.