How can I figure my latency problem out?

sherahd · June 2018

I have been having this problem for a while now. Almost a week. I tried a port forwarding suggestion in another post, it did nothing for me. I thought it was this game only, but it's other games as well. It just seems worse with ESO. My friend said it sounds like maybe somewhere between me and where the games are accessed something needs fixed, or upgraded. I have no idea how to go about getting this problem fixed. It started up like on Monday, and has come and gone ever since. The latency goes from 100-126 which is my normal, to 500ish, then to 999+... It does it over and over. I see people stop moving, nothing I press happens, then everyone fast forwards as the latency drops. It does it over, and over. The game has been unplayable. Downloading, streaming, and anything else I do on the web is fine. If I try to game especially in TESO it makes the game unplayable. What bothers me the most is there is no telling when it will start up, or for how long it will do it. It does it at random times day or night.

Can anyone help me figure this out?

yurimodin · June 2018

sherahd wrote: »

Ok, update. I have noticed something as I have continued to try to play. I somewhat noticed this, and kind of shrugged it off at first, but now I know it is not a coincidence. So, I have logged in and had the latency acting up right away, and noticed if I just stayed there and never zoned it would stay terrible... If I switch maps, like zone into a delve as soon as I am loaded in there sometimes the lag goes away, and is fine. As soon as I leave the delve and go back to the map sometimes the latency returns, and sometimes it does not. I first noticed this as sometimes I get randomly kicked to the login screen and I logged back in the latency would be gone.

I thought, maybe it was a coincidence. It has happened here and there. I have also noticed sometimes if it's not acting up and I stay in the same zone say if I am farming, or questing... It's fine and stays that way for hours. If I call to a way shrine in another zone it could start the erratic latency up as soon as I get there. Or, it could stay. I was just testing this by shard farming in Deshaan. I was in the actual overland map, and if I went into a delve the latency could act weird in there, or not... Same as when I came back out, it would be fine, or acting erratic. Why would this be? It seems like as I switch zones, log and reconnect... There's a crap shoot if the latency is going to act ghetto? Does this help narrow anything down?

Well this makes me think that its not a networking issue.....sounds like a vram/shader cache/paging file/memory leak kind of issue. Next time you get the latency try the "Reload UI" button(UI gets reloaded when you go zone to zone like you said) and see if that fixes it. Do you only have 8GB of ram?

Dyride · June 2018

I'm not a network or gaming expert, but I think people are going to need more details. A lot could depend on the specific path that info is going from ZOS servers to your computer.

What is your location? What is your internet provider and type/speed of service?
What type of router do you use? Does it have a firewall?

Have you talked to your internet providers customer service? You may need to call them multiple times to get them to push you up to someone who has more technical know how.

Some of these tips may be useful:
https://speedguide.net/articles/gaming-tweaks-5812

Also processing all of the network communication is very CPU intensive. I recommend running in Fullscreen and doing some graphical tweaks to lower the CPU load.

Dyride · June 2018

Also if you had the game from before Summerset, I would recommend going to /Documents/Elder Scrolls Online/live and backing the Usersettings.txt file into another folder then deleting it from the /live folder.

Your game will generate a new Usersettings.txt when you start your client. This doesn't effect keybinds or Addon settings but will require you to agree to EULA agreements and adjust the graphics settings.

sherahd · June 2018

http://www.speedtest.net/result/7407381162.png is my speed and ISP, when it picks a nearby server. The following is Fort Stockton, Texas... http://www.speedtest.net/result/7407390698.png (not as good). I have no problems with anything else, only online games. When the games are bad and I can't play them... I can log off and nothing else is affected. While I am in Discord and having the problems I don't cutout to the people I am talking to, nor do they to me... like if I was lagging flat out. I am getting erratic latency in-game, and IDK what to do about it. I am in NM near the El Paso, Texas border. This started as far as I can recall Monday last week. It has not gotten any better, if anything it seems to be worse. It seems to be somewhere between me and the games I play there is a bottleneck. Or, maybe something needs repaired/upgraded? I have no idea how to go about this. I tried a trace route to the IP address I found on this website to test connection. If I ping 198.20.198.110 it just says timed out over, and over again. That is the US IP address given on the website to do a traceroute to. Does that help any? I just don't see how to go about figuring out the problem, or how t fix it. Thanks for responses so far.

sherahd · June 2018

I ended up sending in a ticket with one of those game reports they asked that I ran and sent it in. Maybe they can help me figure stuff out.

d3adkid · June 2018

This used to happen to me when windows started updating all of a sudden. Now I have scheduled them to run at a fixed time.

Kainarel · June 2018

There's definitely something wrong with latency these past few days. It's jumping into red so often, and it never happened to me before. Even though my norm switched from 80-90 to 110-130 after Sommerset, it almost never went into red. And now it happens every day multiple times all over the maps.
Given I'm playing with no add-ons installed at all, it's even more frustrating that there's nothing my side that can cause any lag. The game should get fixed already.

sherahd · June 2018

Well, I know it's not just me, and I have seen posts like mine here and there. I also don't see them getting anywhere. I seen one guy say one day it just fixed itself. Well, it's going to be two weeks for me very soon. I just went to the connectivity problem area. If I ping the suggested US server address 198.20.198.110 it just times out. If I run a trace route to that IP it goes up to 15 hops, then it just times out all the way to 30. So, it seems somewhere between me and a lot of the games I play there is some sort of connection problem. I have no idea how to fix this. I will be forced to cancel my ESO+, because I'm not the type to waste money no matter how much it is. If I have to I'll just cancel it, and keep checking in every few days until it fixes itself, since I don't think I'm going to get any help. My ticket was never answered, it's still waiting to be seen, and the few answers I've gotten from other people weren't any help. In people's defense I don't think they know how to help me. I'm getting to the point where I am over the frustration, and just kind of over it.

yurimodin · June 2018

former Cisco Certified Network Associate here.........first thing is first, you are gonna have a hard time with only 2Mb upload speed. I usually have around a 100-120 ping and I have 50/15 business fiber at my house.

If you really want to see where the problem is you need to run a MTR report to see your connection quality between you and the server http://winmtr.net/

most of the s*** residential IPS's have resorted to a boatload of extra hops internally to route you around to the cheapest connections they have upstream. Our old ISP(cable company) had 20 more hops to the server that what I have on fiber now. 20 MORE....they usially hid it with masking/tunneling techniques but every so often we could see ALL the hops with MTR reports and traceroutes. The sad thing is its only going to get worse...RIP net neutrality

one last thing.....DO NOT USE WIFI if at all possible, it is absolute garbage for gaming.

sherahd · June 2018

Ok, update. I have noticed something as I have continued to try to play. I somewhat noticed this, and kind of shrugged it off at first, but now I know it is not a coincidence. So, I have logged in and had the latency acting up right away, and noticed if I just stayed there and never zoned it would stay terrible... If I switch maps, like zone into a delve as soon as I am loaded in there sometimes the lag goes away, and is fine. As soon as I leave the delve and go back to the map sometimes the latency returns, and sometimes it does not. I first noticed this as sometimes I get randomly kicked to the login screen and I logged back in the latency would be gone.

I thought, maybe it was a coincidence. It has happened here and there. I have also noticed sometimes if it's not acting up and I stay in the same zone say if I am farming, or questing... It's fine and stays that way for hours. If I call to a way shrine in another zone it could start the erratic latency up as soon as I get there. Or, it could stay. I was just testing this by shard farming in Deshaan. I was in the actual overland map, and if I went into a delve the latency could act weird in there, or not... Same as when I came back out, it would be fine, or acting erratic. Why would this be? It seems like as I switch zones, log and reconnect... There's a crap shoot if the latency is going to act ghetto? Does this help narrow anything down?

sherahd · June 2018

I have 16 gigs of ram. My video card is a geforce 970 GTX OC, and I have a quad core I forget which model, but I know it 4.0 gigs with a boost of 4.4. It has devil's canyon in the name. I don't know why my hardware would make the latency spike randomly up and down. Also,, I am not the only person with erratic latency. If you check the forums lots of people are having them, but not enough for ZOS to worry about.

Kainarel · June 2018

Fps is still having those sudden low drops, latency can turn red while you're merely fishing.
This is ridiculous.

sherahd · June 2018

I just noticed it's saying I accepted that guy's last post as an answer. I didn't, and now I can't remove the fact that it's an accepted answer. >.> It also moved it up toward the top... >.<

Manchas87 · June 2018

Guys please don't put on the same bag FPS and MS,
those are 2 really separated things.

This thread is about MS / PING / LATENCY.
I suggest you call your ISP (lot of times XD) and make them check and re check again everything.
Also, I can recommend you to ask for a router change.

On the other hand, you can just wait and wait and keep waiting until maybe you have your problem solved.

I hope you can solve it!

sherahd · July 2018

Yeah, I was only listing my hardware after that guy said he didn't think it was networking anymore. Then asked me if I had only 8 gigs of ram. I was only listing my hardware, because it seemed like I had to point out how I don't see why my hardware would cause latency. I don't have an FPS problem, just an erratic latency spike problem. Not to mention I have not changed any hardware, or anything weird else. It literally started up one day and hasn't gone away. I have even traded the modem I had for a newer one, and the problem has not gone away. Sometimes it can be bad right as I log in, and if I switch zones it will fix. Earlier today it was fine until I went into a dungeon. I asked everyone to wait a sec so I could log out and back in. When I got back in it fixed. I know for a fact it would have stayed jumping up and down until I zones or re-logged, because I have tested it multiple times while just questing. Something that I could still manage with the lag like that, and then I'd go into a delve after a while of it messing up and BAM fixed. This makes no sense to me. Started up one day and acts even weirder by sometimes fixing when I switch zones...

The Elder Scrolls Online

How can I figure my latency problem out?

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