Community: Message List - Lag getting worse with everybody changing their MTU settings?

Re: Lag getting worse with everybody changing their MTU settings?

donotreply@activision.com — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 04:56:16 GMT

maccabi I did the testing on MW3/PSN. The game was fully functional at a minimum MTU of 1308 bytes. This was set in my router and manually on my PS3 to ensure no fragmenting. Anything below 1308 bytes, and the game will get stuck at "Setting up players".

So I am not sure if this is the minimum set by PSN, or by MW3. Will 1308 work on all games or just MW3? I played MW3 using 1308 and it was very very solid., better than 1500 for sure. My ISP requires me to have an MTU of 1500, but the value did not seem to work best for me. Other games may not function right on 1308, if a game is sending more than 1308 bytes in a single data unit, than having 1308 set in router/ps3 will not work 100% with that game.

I wonder if Microsoft put 1364 as a fail safe, as no games will not send more than that.

What would I would like to know is if having 1500 in the router, and 1308 in the PS3 has any difference compared to 1308 in router and 1500 set on PS3?

Anyway it appears MW3 works at a minimum of 1308. This in theory is the value that will provide a better connection than 1500. 1500 will provide better throughput, but throughput is not needed in gaming, latency is. Since a smaller MTU decrease latecny by each hop, thus you will have better quality in hit detection. 1308 is the best value than on MW3/PS3 until I find an issue with it.

So if anyone wants the best possible connection with MW3 then setting an MTU to 1308 bytes will do just that and decrease your latecny. Think of it as a little tweak.

Re: Lag getting worse with everybody changing their MTU settings?

donotreply@activision.com — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 03:10:02 GMT

What I want to know is what packet size PSN uses. What's weird is if I set my MTU in my router to say 1300, and then set it to 1300 on the PS3. I get a packets can not be fragmented error and online gaming won't work but I can still sigh in. Only when I set the value to 1500 on the PS3 is when I can play online.

If I could figure out exactly what packet size MW3 uses than I could tune things accordingly. The only way I could test it would be to keep going down from 1500 to when I can't get into a match. That would tell me what size packet is needed.

Re: Lag getting worse with everybody changing their MTU settings?

donotreply@activision.com — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:47:11 GMT

The reprimand?

If I stay within a set of parameters that xbox obviously made their console to run on, i.e. 1500 to 1364 setting on MTU or any other setting that I go into MY router that is on MY network, then why would I be reprimanded for adding lag or tweaking QoS and MTU?

I'm not doing it on XBOX console or any of their LICENSED accessories etc. that I agreed to in the TOS. Now if XBOX pays for my internet, my router thus my network then I could see where the reprimand would come in.

Where the problem lies is, we all pay a lot of money for subscription, consoles, accessories and games. I expect some lag and even some bugs. But MW3? Wow. A disclaimer here. I suck at this game. Having said that when I come to a one on one encounter I will maybe win on an average 2 out of the 10 encounters. I just wanted a product that would bring me closer to the 50/50 mark in those encounters.

I have learned a lot and it only bolstered my belief that IW, Activision, Sledgehammer and anyone else I'm missing was not as concerned about the consumer and the product as they should have been. They made record profits with this game and everything that goes with it.

As an older adult I realize that this is just a game and while there are two ends of the spectrum of realistic and unrealistic, I do wish they would bring it more towards the middle.

I will continue to play it as everyone else will and we will all continue to *****. The truth is before any effective change (key word effective) the consumer may have to quit buying the product and that is not going to happen.

Quite the conundrum

Re: Lag getting worse with everybody changing their MTU settings?

donotreply@activision.com — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:16:32 GMT

dexter1992 wrote:

Factually incorrect chicken little topics...lol.

Anyway, maccabie do you know why xbox has a set limit of 1364?

For instance I set my router to 1024, and ps3 to automatic and I had really smooth gaming. I will try 1364.

I know PS3 can go as low as 576, tried that and had no issues.

basically so there is a min that devs know not to go below that when designing games or applications for xbl as xbl is design to run from 1364 to 1500. It relates to the min bandwidth requirements for xbl too

Re: Lag getting worse with everybody changing their MTU settings?

donotreply@activision.com — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:03:14 GMT

dexter1992 wrote:

Anyway, what I was getting at is...that having a lower MTU will be better than the opposed ISP standard, because you don't want you connection to bottleneck. With a bigger packet comes bigger problems. Re-transmitting large packets will cause lag.

So I would advice to go as low as you can without drastically affecting your throughput.

its a slippery slope... large packets are how we all manage to play online games together... if packet loss becomes a problem, then yeah lowering it a bit will certainly help..

but go too far and the game could become completely unplayable... they set network minimums for a reason, and design games around those limitations..

think of it this way... you have a mountain of bricks that you need to move...

carrying a ton of them at once will obviously get the job done quicker, if you can manage to not drop any (what a great analogy huh!? lol)

or you could carry only 2-3 at a time... nice and easy on you and you wont drop any... but it'll take forever!!

the key is finding the optimal balance... go too far either way and the results will be about the same..

Re: Lag getting worse with everybody changing their MTU settings?

donotreply@activision.com — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:45:40 GMT

gallp13 wrote:

For the record, this gamer is confident matters are and will be addressed as history shows this is the case and commercial reality assures this will be so.

Perhaps you are forgetting of a game called Modern Warfare 2. In particular IW acknowledged that the infinite noob tubes due to one man army was a problem. They even said they were testing different fixes for it.

Regardless of the reason MW2 stopped being supported it clearly demonstrates how their history does not show a stellar track record of fixing problems with their product.

Re: Lag getting worse with everybody changing their MTU settings?

donotreply@activision.com — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:20:02 GMT

Anyway, what I was getting at is...that having a lower MTU will be better than the opposed ISP standard, because you don't want you connection to bottleneck. With a bigger packet comes bigger problems. Re-transmitting large packets will cause lag.

So I would advice to go as low as you can without drastically affecting your throughput.

Re: Lag getting worse with everybody changing their MTU settings?

donotreply@activision.com — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:58:36 GMT

1364 seems to be preety stable for me. I don't know, when you start getting into the specifics of packets things are almost guessing.

Re: Lag getting worse with everybody changing their MTU settings?

donotreply@activision.com — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:51:48 GMT

Factually incorrect chicken little topics...lol.

Anyway, maccabie do you know why xbox has a set limit of 1364?

For instance I set my router to 1024, and ps3 to automatic and I had really smooth gaming. I will try 1364.

I know PS3 can go as low as 576, tried that and had no issues.

Re: Lag getting worse with everybody changing their MTU settings?

donotreply@activision.com — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:23:32 GMT

papawoodee wrote:

Ferguson00, how about the shady part being that the "lag comp" is even a part of the game to begin with. It sounds like to me if you have a better internet connection in a game that is played on the internet, that should relate to some kind of advantage if not put you on equal ground with anyone else. Why is it that there is a need to keep every shlub out there who has a junk internet connection even on the same level with me who pays extra to have a decent connection and dedicates more of that connection to the support of my gameplay. I think that it is because in order to apease the masses who have junk internet because their parents feel that the dish network works just fine for them and little johnny.Game developers don't want to miss out on all of those millions of dollars lost if those people gave up on the game because they were always getting owned. So game developers try to find a way to "even" the playing ground and guess what they messed it up big time.

wasnt arguing the system is flawed.. just that the method guys like me have been trying are not at the expense of others..

to the other guy asking about the 1400 MTU i posted awhile back... it seemed to work GREAT! then once the .13 hotfix went out it all went to hell..

i havent even touched this game in weeks.... might try again today, see if TU7 did anything

Re: Lag getting worse with everybody changing their MTU settings?

donotreply@activision.com — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 12:38:38 GMT

easiest way to faff with your MTU and have a handy reference guide all about it is looking no further than the elagaphant thread

http://www.callofduty.com/thread/1849?start=0&tstart=0#mtu

and yes that was a blatant plug but the thread was put up to stop these sorts of factually incorrect chicken little topics to start with

Re: Lag getting worse with everybody changing their MTU settings?

donotreply@activision.com — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 12:23:01 GMT

Ah good ole dsl.reports, handy site indeed.

Re: Lag getting worse with everybody changing their MTU settings?

donotreply@activision.com — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 12:16:37 GMT

Simple, just because you pay for a higher internet does not entitle you to have a better game than anyone else. And all fps games online have lag comp and always have. Just it was never known much about or spoken about before.

The problem is not just in the lag comp and how it works but in how host selection does not always chose the best host for the match, when then causes lag comp to kick in to try and equalize the match as best as it can; but sometimes it can not because of various factors that it does not have control over.

Re: Lag getting worse with everybody changing their MTU settings?

donotreply@activision.com — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 11:36:56 GMT

It was 1472 in cmd windows, = 28 for packet headers comes to 1500. But as my ISP's backbone was showing sent MTU of 1500(What I had set in my router) and an upload MTU of 1470. So I then changed my MTU sent to 1470 so it matched my upload MTU of 1470. That's optimal.

I did some further reaserch regarding MTU. And what I found was interesting. By default, if you lower MTU, you will decrease latency. The value recommended was 1024. Basically the smaller the packet, the faster it gets through the network. The downside to this is that your throughput will be reduced. But testing it, I didn't notice a difference in my throughput but latency was improved. So if you want to remove some ms in latency lower the MTU. I would strongly recommend setting the value in the router, and PS3 manually.

Re: Lag getting worse with everybody changing their MTU settings?

donotreply@activision.com — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 09:06:27 GMT

was it 1472 by chance?

Re: Lag getting worse with everybody changing their MTU settings?

donotreply@activision.com — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 06:58:58 GMT

If you guys want your optimal MTU value there is a tool available.

Go to http://www.dslreports.com/tweaks

And run the test. After, click results and enter your ISP/Setup information. It will give you a bunch of numbers.

You want to look at these two:

Max packet sent (MTU):

Max packet recd (MTU:

Optimally these values need to be the same, or you will take a hit with your upload. For me, using windows cmd to find my MTU value it would tell me to set the MTU to 1500. However, tweak test reveiled that my recd(upload) mtu was 1470. This means the backbone of my ISP's network was not optimal. Even tho I could sent 1500, it didn't matter. I set the value to 1470 in my router, and PS3. It has to be both.

Re: Lag getting worse with everybody changing their MTU settings?

donotreply@activision.com — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 10:54:37 GMT

For the first time since i started playing this game, the same two people were on top for about 3 games in a row. funny thing is theyre voices were cutting in and out because they were lagging and the kept going from 4 bars to 1 bar. one kid kept saying "my damn little brother is downloading pinapple express". hmmm "little brother", "pinapple express" smells fishy.

They were doing the midget p0rn mod i know it.

Spread the word of the midget porn mod.

Re: Lag getting worse with everybody changing their MTU settings?

donotreply@activision.com — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 08:36:20 GMT

The fact that I don't sabotage my internet connection to play better, and my internet connection is good to begin with really says something about people's understanding of lag compensation.

Re: Lag getting worse with everybody changing their MTU settings?

donotreply@activision.com — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 08:30:07 GMT

"downloading torrents" to saturate your connection?

this is no different than someone with a better than consumer grade router setting a bandwidth cap on a local IP or MAC address / device.

if i choose to use 10/20/30/80 or 90 percent of my bandwidth for streaming video, hosting a midget p0rn site or folding@home, it's nobodies business but mine.

if they have an issue with people and their available bandwidth, let them make that a minimum requirement or segregate folks in to lobbies by their latency. either works and in the meantime i'll continue to enjoy my MUCH better than previously-lag-comped-to-crap mw3 experience

Lag getting worse with everybody changing their MTU settings?

donotreply@activision.com — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 09:09:25 GMT

(maximum transmission unit.)

Has anybody else noticed this? or encountered it?

Ever since people started changing their mtu or QoS or whatever in their router settings to add a delay to their connections. the lag seems to have gotten worse.

One person in the room with a delayed connection gets all the kills and everybody else is lagging and backing out.

I have not done this because my router doesnt allow me to, so i really notice it. Im not going to spend another 70 on a router just so i can play this game,

All the "good" players on youtube do this and so do thousand of others. Ive played with people who played a game without it and a game with it in the next. and when its delayed you cant barely shoot them. they barely come around the corner, but in the killcam they are completely behined you. like the worst/best lag ever.

UPDATE-please read the 4th post.