game laggy

[jonnyperoni]

well when i play my game its really laggy and hard to control. its not my ping cuz i usually have around 24 ping. its also really sluggish when i play. wut could the problem be?

[[BTF]Sigma]

Can you post your system specs?

How is your internet connection configured (behind a router/firewall) and are you sharing your network with anyone?

What quake2 client are you using?

[jonnyperoni]

AMD Athlon 64 processor, 3400+, 1.81 GHz, 896 MB Ram. i have cable so i ping about 24. i unblocked r1q2 from the firewall or somethin. not sharing connection...

[[BTF]Sigma]

Next time you connect can you type  netgraph "1" in the console to display your connection as a green graph at the bottom of the screen. Once that is up and running take a screen shot f12 and post that pic in here.

What you will be looking for are red spikes in the green graph. With a ping of 24 you should be seeing a thin green line at the bottom of the screen. If this line is consistently the same then it's not your connection (afaik).

I ran into a problem a while back while gaming with a wireless KB/mouse combo that caused all sorts of anomalies. If you have that kind of setup I recommend ensuring that your receiver for the wireless devices is not in a straight line with the devices. The signals will interrupt each other and only allow input from the closest device to be acknowledged.

Lets see what you get and I'll try to get back to you.

[ToxicMonkey^MZC]

I suggest a quick check for spyware.
In XP:

Start > RUN > cmd  <-- to get the DOS prompt up
netstat  <--- shows all open connections to the internet from your machine

If there are more than 5 or 6 open connections open chances are you got spyware which will affect your online gaming experience.  You can have a low ping but still be losing packets which results in jerky/laggy performance.  Red spikes in your netgraph is another indicator of packet loss (as Sigma has said).

In Vista:

Start > Start Search > command  <-- the top search result should be 'Command Prompt'
netstat  <--- same rules as above

n.b. there may be a quicker or easier way to find the DOS prompt in Vista, let me know if you find it

A lot of open connections could also indicate peer to peer filesharing going on so not necessarily spyware.  Obviously switch off any torrent clients or anything which uses the internet before you run this test (and before you run Q2).

If you are using a wireless router you could be suffering interference from other RF sources (baby monitors, energy saving lightbulbs, Christmas tree lights!) try a direct connection to your modem.

There's a setting in Quake 2 'cl_async' - depending if this is set to 1 or 0 this can cause a weird lag effect also.  Make sure your rate is at least 8000 and cl_maxfps is more than 20 (60 is a good setting for dm, 120 good for crate jumping).  Also make sure r_maxfps is more than 30 (mine is like 2000).

I'd recommend r1q2 for a client and 'default OpenGL' if your video card supports it.

Good luck.

[[BTF]Sigma]

Thanks toxic. I didn't know about that 'netstat' command.

[4u2superdave]

Check the "rate" setting in your Q2 Config file, if it gets lowered to say 100 that will cause the problems you are describing. If memory serves me correct the rate should be at least 10,000 on a system like yours, maybe higher.