Windows 8 PC Gaming Lag Spikes

[KiHu]

^{Didn't work, although mine was set to a, and not 10.}

a is hex for 10.

[WinMunkee]

All this lovely advice has seemed to slowly kill whatever internet connection I had to begin with and has now wiped out my downstream. Time to clean install again.

[sathenzar]

And no more comments at all have appeared lol. I hope you work out whatever it is, best of luck.

[WinMunkee]

I'll keep updating with things I've tried. I really think it's something involving the network setup in Windows. It's the only PC that has issues in my house. That Leattrix crap totally made it worse. I don't recommend that disastrous program to anyone.

My next step is to reinstall Windows 8, and try it again.

[NeoTrunks]

Alright, so before going to the Nvidia beta driver, since I played NWN too much, I stuck it out. However, today, while using Goto Meeting, I noticed that the video and audio would stutter, or just stop periodically, just like TF2.

So, I went on Speedtest.net and did a few tests. Like every other test that I ran, the speed would be fast, and then all of sudden drop to 0, on both downloads and uploads. I ran a test on my iMac that is right next to my laptop and on the same network, and it was fast without missing a beat.

So, then I started looking at my wifi driver. I'm using a Broadcom 802.11n driver, published by Microsoft for Windows 8. Now, I know I didn't have these problems when on Windows 7. So I loaded up my Win 7 x64 driver (which looks to be the latest driver published by Broadcom, themselves), and these problems went away for me.

So, that was it for me. Try checking your network adaptor drivers, because the ones that were loaded with the install didn't work out for me.

[spaceelf]

I'll keep updating with things I've tried. I really think it's something involving the network setup in Windows. It's the only PC that has issues in my house. That Leattrix crap totally made it worse. I don't recommend that disastrous program to anyone.

My next step is to reinstall Windows 8, and try it again.

I will note that I believe Win8 disables Chimney Offload by default, your nforce NIC might be tuned to use it

I have to assume they had good reason for that but it might affect some people negatively.

admin command prompt

netsh int tcp

show global

set global chimney=enabled if it's disabled

Worth trying, at least. Easily disabled if it doesn't help.

[WinMunkee]

Well I reinstalled Windows 7 and my connection issues seem to persist. I'm buying a new router later today, it may not be the issue, however I've needed a new one for a while and this seems to be a great excuse to give to the wife.

I'm starting to think it's my cable provider, as BF3 only downloaded at ~700 Kbps and it's usually ~2 Mbps. I wonder if they throttled me for using too much bandwidth.

I will check the chimney as well.

NeoTrunks,

My issue is, my M3N78PRO board uses a GeForce 8300 integrated card as it's Southbridge. Trying to find newer nForce drivers that support it is slim to none, however I think I'm using the newest driver from NVidia. I'll check again later.

[spaceelf]

Man the 802.11AC routers are out...I want one o.o

but it'd be so pointless for me right now

[WinMunkee]

Just bought a netgear wndr3700. It seems to have alleviated the issue.

[YanksOnTop]

So it was the router?

[spaceelf]

Just bought a netgear wndr3700. It seems to have alleviated the issue.

You persist in buying Netgear?

I'd ask why people keep doing that but whatever works.

[Shane Nokes]

Netgear makes some decent routers. Higher quality than D-Link from my personal experience. I still mostly stick with Cisco/Linksys stuff, but have also owned Netgear routers without issues.

[spaceelf]

I used to buy DLink exclusively and never had a problem, but they seem to be getting weird the last few years. On ASUS now.

At any rate, there aren't a lot of router makers I'm fond of so I guess I should just shut my yap.

[spawn2031]

So I have been reading through this thread cuz I've got the same issue but nothing presented here has seemed to fix my issue. I've done the chimney thing, all of my drivers are up to date, I've tried the beta drivers for my video card and I have also swapped out routers as well. I about to revert back to windows 7 which sux cuz I actually like 8. Have you guys found a solution to this yet or are we just waiting for the typical new OS blues to go away?

[Shane Nokes]

The user in this thread discovered it was a router issue, and even after reverting it didn't fix it...might that not be the case for you?

[Noir Angel]

Apparently the issue with DPC latency hasn't been fixed either. Disable the high precision timer in your bios and whilst it will drop your framerate by a couple of FPS it should also reduce microstuttering in games.

[spaceelf]

I know my connection got better when I upped my wifi off the default drivers to the newest OEM ones at http://station-drivers.com/page/drivers.htm

(I should warn you that that site is popup happy, but it's a minor annoyance for almost always being able to get what you need.)

[Shane Nokes]

Apparently the issue with DPC latency hasn't been fixed either. Disable the high precision timer in your bios and whilst it will drop your framerate by a couple of FPS it should also reduce microstuttering in games.

Not true. It's not an issue at all.

That tool you're using...it isn't accurate. Yes I know which tool you're using. The author of the tool has clearly stated this his tool if flawed and needs to be updated.

[fluppets]

Alright, so before going to the Nvidia beta driver, since I played NWN too much, I stuck it out. However, today, while using Goto Meeting, I noticed that the video and audio would stutter, or just stop periodically, just like TF2.

So, I went on Speedtest.net and did a few tests. Like every other test that I ran, the speed would be fast, and then all of sudden drop to 0, on both downloads and uploads. I ran a test on my iMac that is right next to my laptop and on the same network, and it was fast without missing a beat.

So, then I started looking at my wifi driver. I'm using a Broadcom 802.11n driver, published by Microsoft for Windows 8. Now, I know I didn't have these problems when on Windows 7. So I loaded up my Win 7 x64 driver (which looks to be the latest driver published by Broadcom, themselves), and these problems went away for me.

So, that was it for me. Try checking your network adaptor drivers, because the ones that were loaded with the install didn't work out for me.

Hi,

I had the same problem as you I believe. Although I'm a noob I worked out my problem was with the network drivers.

while effortlesly looking for a w7 driver and trying to install it, I noticed I didn't have these problems playing games when I used my integrated GPU instead of my Nvidia driver... so this kinda baffled me, however none of the nvidia driver versions work for me (266.58 -too old-, 285,62 -crashes-, 295.73, 306.97, 310.70 -lagspikes-) I have Optimus with an integrated intel and nvidia geforce GT 425M

So im looking back to my network drivers; maybe there's something wrong between the nvidia & network drivers?

but I just can't seem to: a) find the right drivers b) uninstall the current drivers c) install the downloaded driver... im not a total nab, I have no problems with installing/uninstalling nvidia or other drivers. these are my drivers under the network adapter tab:

Qualcomm Atheros AR8131 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (NDIS 6.30)

Realtek RTL8191SE Wireless LAN 802.11n PCI-E NIC

So Ill try finding a w7 driver for this Realtek driver?

[+DKAngel Subscriber²]

lol u mentioned diablo 3, thats just epic bad for lag no matter what os u use

[Azies]

Everyone suggested very aggressivly, that it was the video card, whilst ignoring the OP's statements that it was not the graphics card, but a network issue, while everyone balked at his opinion, glad to see he was right and the issues got resolved.

[spaceelf]

Hi,

I had the same problem as you I believe. Although I'm a noob I worked out my problem was with the network drivers.

while effortlesly looking for a w7 driver and trying to install it, I noticed I didn't have these problems playing games when I used my integrated GPU instead of my Nvidia driver... so this kinda baffled me, however none of the nvidia driver versions work for me (266.58 -too old-, 285,62 -crashes-, 295.73, 306.97, 310.70 -lagspikes-) I have Optimus with an integrated intel and nvidia geforce GT 425M

So im looking back to my network drivers; maybe there's something wrong between the nvidia & network drivers?

but I just can't seem to: a) find the right drivers b) uninstall the current drivers c) install the downloaded driver... im not a total nab, I have no problems with installing/uninstalling nvidia or other drivers. these are my drivers under the network adapter tab:

Qualcomm Atheros AR8131 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (NDIS 6.30)

Realtek RTL8191SE Wireless LAN 802.11n PCI-E NIC

So Ill try finding a w7 driver for this Realtek driver?

http://station-drivers.com/page/atheros.htm www.realtek.com.tw

[fluppets]

thx for the quick reply, So I tried installing the realtek drivers for w7 but it wouldn't let me, it said it wsnt supporting this OS.

The atheros driver seems to be the same version for w7 as w8, but I went ahead and uninstalled the current and installed the w7 driver.

Just tested and it didn't work.

any ideas what's causing this problem? bc everything points to a network issue, but dedicating my integrated graphics card (instead of nvidia) to the games I play fixes the issue...

I'd really like to actually use the nvidia graphics card I have...

[spaceelf]

Hmm, well I couldn't say then. I have noticed Realtek is slacking a bit in their win8 support, but didn't think it'd be a problem.

You still might try cFosSpeed (it has a thirty day trial) and see if it helps. For whatever reason I had lag as well, so I'm still using it after I switched from 3g to DSL.

http://www.cfos.de/en/cfosspeed/cfosspeed.htm

[1WayJonny]

I have noticed this on my Windows 8 water cooling machine, it started with online and then single player games and the video just freezes for 2 seconds at some times. I did upgrade the Nvidia card driver just before xmas and Windows 8 did not do this before.

For me it is not a network issue it was video lag and in all these years I have never seen this before and I thought some went wrong with my video card. I have not fixed this yet as it is sporadic but I think its the new video drivers.