In game lag/spikes

[cen]

There are some reports that games are lagging or spiking every few minutes/seconds even tho the ping to server seems normal. If you experience this problem let me know in a post below and explain when/how it happens. I'd like to add some profiling tools into gproxy and try to determine what is the reason for slowdowns.

[LordDoom]

Same here, in almost every game. Little spike's, although my ping is 13ms.

[Oceano]

Good day. Same problem occurred here :
http://dota.eurobattle.net/la/forum/index.php?action=gameinfo;sa=game;gid=5610765

2 of my personal friends (Eniak,Neverevermore) can confirm that. They also had spikes even though ping was fine. After 5 / 8 players voted for rmk due to same problem, I was unfortunately forced to leave before min 5 to force rmk because it was unplayable.

Regards

[div.ide]

I've been facing this myself for a long time, back in the days when I was active.

What happened was basically game freezing briefly (usually 0,5-1s) in fairly regular time intervals (which varied from game to game, sometimes once each 10 minutes, sometimes even once each 10 seconds). It wasn't CPU related spikes as UI was responsive at that time, just the game flow stuttering.

It didn't always happen (many games were stutter-free), but had tendency to get heavier over longer play sessions. I initially thought it's related to poor specs I ran*, but I eventually learned to distinguish software from hardware related spikes.

It could be something related to how GProxy handles threading. It feels like socket gets briefly blocked out. I can't say for sure if it was blocked from CPU time by other thread, chokeponited on connection layer by other data being sent, or otherwise, but at some point I noticed HDD load led always flashing when it happened. Thus, I suggest it is (or was, around 2012) related to disk operations, perhaps something as simple as log file operations? Windows is notorious for having atrocious performance when handling large log files.

But I can't say for sure, I didn't really try to investigate it closer.

*some really cheapass netbook with 1gb RAM partially reserved ar VRAM, Win XP, I've had my FPS dropping below 5 in lategame teamfights

[cen]

When I did some tests like a month ago the whole packet processing section was executing in less than 1ms. I didn't test it through prolonged gaming sessions tho.

There are also no disk IO operations anywhere in gproxy while game is in progress so there is probably no connection there.

I will add some additional logging and release a beta version for interested people to try out.

[div.ide]

I see. You should take my post with grain of salt as
1) I stopped playing on regular basis around february 2013 (anything past that were just random singles or short streaks once in a while), my samples are mostly from 2012
2) I ran REALLY bad rig so there might have simply been interference with other processes in background
3) It is quite likely that HDD activity was just pagefile operations caused by RAM shortage

I really wouldn't expect packet processing itself to be issue, that would probably simply tax CPU more and just didn't feel like that. I think the key information is that it made gameflow stutter without freezing the game itself (no significant fps drops or observable UI unresponsiveness).

I wonder if it's actually corelated with OS - all happened on Win XP for me, I played on Win 7 for a short time, can't clearly recall if problem ever occured there.

Oh, and to clarify just in case: by longer sessions, I meant joining multiple consecutive games, rather than playing really long one.

[LordDoom]

Same here, in almost every game. Little spike's, although my ping is 13ms.

Provide some links

http://dota.eurobattle.net/la/forum/index.php?action=gameinfo;sa=game;gid=5611616

[funnylol]

had the same problem twice.

[skywolf007]

http://dota.eurobattle.net/la/forum/index.php?action=gameinfo;sa=game;gid=5612099

here you go cen.. another fucked game cause of megaspikes..

Spoiler for Hiden:

Ping statistics for 173.194.44.144:
    Packets: Sent = 3536, Received = 3513, Lost = 3 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 35ms, Maximum = 963ms, Average = 36ms

[Saric]

i didnt have any problems...

[cen]

I will prepare a special gproxy binary this week to test for any longer-than-usual packet processing. This must be a network issue and nothing else.

[[Yuma]Psihijatar]

When i play on la (started 5 days ago)i got spikes every 3 sec but on ss i never had it

[Jimmy]

Because you are born To play Safelist League , not to waste time in Pubs

[Bart]

i have mini spikes on ss games time to time....

[bassonja]

I don't have any spikes at all.

Spikes can be experienced by low profile pc, or connection status. Before answering question i think its also important to know what kinda pc you have and your internet provider.
If someone else is using your internet at same time you play dota, or any warcraft 3 game online you will experience spikes.