Choppy servers?

[Rip. 16]

Hello, I would like to start playing on Lotus servers more often but there's usually a strange lag on these servers. It doesn't seem to matter if I connect to a Lotus server close to me or further away as most of them have this choppy lag. Other player's movement and projectile's are jittery especially when they crouch jump which teleports them up and down which makes it impossible to aim at them. A quick test that I do is to strafe around a corner while keeping my cross-hair on that corner. I can see that the movement isn't smooth and stutters or "chops". If I stand still and look around with only my mouse everything is smooth. At times this problem is gone and I think those are times when the server has recently been rebooted.

 

This also happens when I connect to Skial servers. However it doesn't happen on a single Valve official server from 30 ping servers near me to 100 ping servers on the other side of the country. This also doesn't happen on any other community servers other than Skial and Lotus. I have monitored the network graph and found no choke, packet loss or any large ping spikes.

 

Could it be a specific plugin? Something in my FPS config? Maybe the servers need to be looked at?

Edited November 30, 2014 by Rip.

[Minia 1,211]

I'm fine on the servers and I've received no complaints about this, I have a feeling this is something more on your side. Any specific servers where this is happening, give us some IPs please.

[Nano 7,892]

if you can get a demo of the lag happening that might help as well.  It's just hard to figure it out without more data since this isn't happening to other players.

[Rip. 16]

It doesn't show up on a demo as far as I can tell. I suspected it was on my end but couldn't reproduce the lag on any other servers besides some Lotus and Skial servers so I think that rules out anything on my end connection/PC wise.

As of the time of this post Lotus Harvest West Coast (216.158.69.34:27035) is choppy for me. However Lotus Harvest West Coast #2 (216.158.69.37:27015) is perfectly smooth. I get the same ping to both.

EDIT, did some more testing on other Lotus servers:

harvest west coast #2 (216.158.69.37:27015) = smooth
badwater texas (208.115.218.38:27015) = smooth
doomsday texas (208.115.218.36:27035) = smooth
dustbowl #2 texas (69.162.126.141:27015) = smooth
dustbowl #2 west coast (216.158.69.37:27025) = smooth
dustbowl chicago (67.212.160.114:27025) = smooth
goldrush texas (69.162.126.139:27015) = smooth
harvest #2 texas (69.162.126.142:27035) = smooth
harvest texas (69.162.126.141:27035) = smooth
hightower west coast (216.158.69.35:27015) = smooth
mountain lab west coast (216.158.69.34:27015) = smooth
payload stocks west coast (216.158.69.37:27045) = smooth
turbine west coast (216.158.69.37:27055) = smooth
2fort chicago (65.60.32.30:27015) = smooth
2fort new jersey (66.55.148.155:27035) = smooth


badwater west coast (216.158.69.34:27025) = choppy
doomsday chicago (67.212.160.118:27025) = choppy
harvest west coast (216.158.69.34:27035) = choppy
turbine #2 west coast (216.158.69.34:27055) = choppy
2fort chicago insta spawn (65.60.32.26:27015) = choppy

I said most of them but apparently it's mainly the ones that I often connect to. =/

 

 

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I retested some of the servers that I play on now that some time has passed and some of them have swapped since earlier....

 

dustbowl #2 west coast (216.158.69.37:27025) = WAS smooth earlier but is now choppy.

turbine west coast (216.158.69.37:27055) = WAS smooth earlier but is now choppy.

 

 

badwater west coast (216.158.69.34:27025) = WAS choppy earlier but is now smooth.

harvest west coast (216.158.69.34:27035) = WAS choppy earlier but is now smooth.

 

 

There's some weirdness going on here. I retested  a handful of Valve servers again and they were all smooth as usual.

Edited December 1, 2014 by Rip.

[luop90 4,400]

net_graph 1 (type that in the console)

Is lerp flashing yellow? I'm trying to understand how you're getting "choppy" without a high ping.

[Nano 7,892]

Thanks for the info, this is really helpful.

Can you do the net graph as well? Doesn't have to be on all of the,just a choppy one.

[Rip. 16]

Lerp isn't flashing or changing colors from white except for badwater texas which was dropping lots of frames in net_graph 4. Others were mentioning it too.

I'll run some tracerts at different times of the day to see if my routing is changing on me. This is probably part of Comcast's amazing service and not a fault with the Lotus servers.

Edited December 1, 2014 by Rip.

[Mana 3,867]

Yeah tracert would help.

 

You mentioned some servers in the same exact physical location with different performance. Maybe somehow you are being routed differently on another IP even though it goes to the same place.

[Rip. 16]

Here's a tracert comparison from two servers in the same location. Harvest west coast (216.158.69.34:27035) is choppy as of the time of this post. Harvest west coast #2 (216.158.69.37:27015) is smooth when tested at the same time.

 

First the choppy server followed by the smooth server.

 

Tracing route to 216-158-69-34.static.webnx.com [216.158.69.34]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  unknown
  2     9 ms     9 ms     9 ms 
  3     9 ms     9 ms     8 ms  xe-1-3-2-0-sur01.chico.ca.ccal.comcast.net [68.85.104.181]
  4    12 ms    12 ms    12 ms  ae-5-0-ar01.sacramento.ca.ccal.comcast.net [68.85.196.165]
  5    18 ms    17 ms    18 ms  he-0-15-0-0-cr01.sanjose.ca.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.94.229]
  6    22 ms    26 ms    22 ms  he-2-11-0-0-cr01.losangeles.ca.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.89.214]
  7   130 ms    22 ms    22 ms  he-0-0-0-0-pe02.600wseventh.ca.ibone.comcast.net[68.86.83.18]
  8    24 ms    23 ms    23 ms  as4436-1-c.600wseventh.ca.ibone.comcast.net [173.167.57.138]
  9    22 ms    22 ms    22 ms  ae10-60g.cr1.lax2.us.as4436.gtt.net [69.31.125.242]
 10    27 ms    25 ms    23 ms  ae2-50g.ar2.lax2.us.as4436.gtt.net [69.31.127.89]
 11    31 ms    40 ms    35 ms  as11798.xe-2-0-7.ar2.lax2.us.as4436.gtt.net [69.31.127.214]
 12    23 ms    22 ms    23 ms  69-27-173-58.acedc.net [69.27.173.58]
 13    23 ms    28 ms    25 ms  100-42-223-138.static.webnx.com [100.42.223.138]

 14    22 ms    22 ms    22 ms  100-42-223-178.static.webnx.com [100.42.223.178]

 15    22 ms    22 ms    22 ms  216-158-69-34.static.webnx.com [216.158.69.34]

Trace complete.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tracing route to 216-158-69-37.static.webnx.com [216.158.69.37]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  unknown
  2    28 ms    23 ms    18 ms 
  3    17 ms     9 ms     8 ms  xe-1-3-2-0-sur01.chico.ca.ccal.comcast.net [68.85.104.181]
  4    13 ms    12 ms    12 ms  ae-5-0-ar01.sacramento.ca.ccal.comcast.net [68.85.196.165]
  5    17 ms    17 ms    18 ms  he-3-4-0-0-cr01.sanjose.ca.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.90.17]
  6    25 ms    26 ms    25 ms  he-2-12-0-0-cr01.losangeles.ca.ibone.comcast.net[68.86.89.218]
  7    22 ms    22 ms    22 ms  he-0-1-0-0-pe02.600wseventh.ca.ibone.comcast.net[68.86.83.26]
  8    23 ms    27 ms    23 ms  as4436-1-c.600wseventh.ca.ibone.comcast.net [173.167.57.138]
  9    22 ms    25 ms    22 ms  ae10-60g.cr1.lax2.us.as4436.gtt.net [69.31.125.242]
 10    23 ms    27 ms    23 ms  ae2-50g.ar2.lax2.us.as4436.gtt.net [69.31.127.89]
 11    22 ms    22 ms    21 ms  as11798.xe-2-0-7.ar2.lax2.us.as4436.gtt.net [69.31.127.214]
 12    22 ms    22 ms    22 ms  69-27-173-58.acedc.net [69.27.173.58]
 13    24 ms    23 ms    23 ms  100-42-223-142.static.webnx.com [100.42.223.142]

 14    22 ms    22 ms    22 ms  100-42-223-194.static.webnx.com [100.42.223.194]

 15    22 ms    22 ms    22 ms  216-158-69-37.static.webnx.com [216.158.69.37]

Trace complete.

 

[Rip. 16]

After todays TF2 update that restarted all of the servers I made sure to test a bunch of Lotus servers including all of them that were ever choppy in my previous tests. Well, not a single one is choppy right now so it appears that the restarts fixed the problem.

 

I mentioned that Valve servers and other community servers don't ever have this lag but they also have maps that end instead of running 24/7. I mentioned that Skial also has this weird lag and that server that I tested was also 24/7 without map changes. Not having map changes might just be what's causing it.

[Rip. 16]

Just to be clear (even though it seems like I'm talking to myself here), when I mentioned that the problem had been fixed, it was only temporary because the servers were recently restarted. The choppy problem returned and will most likely continue to occur unless something changes.

Edited December 7, 2014 by Rip.

[Mana 3,867]

The servers do restart automatically. I'll recheck to see how often they do that. Maybe I can shorten the time.

[luop90 4,400]

Same problem with Turbine #2 west coast (216.158.69.34:27055). Choppy, but lerp, ping, and fps were all the same. Voice coms would cut in and out, switching weapons would cause a jitter between the two. Everyone was experiencing it.

 

Here's the tracert-

(I did another one a minute later, here's it too)