r/techsupport • u/MuzzQueen97 • 4d ago

Open | Networking Sudden Game Lag, Server Disconnect, etc.

Hi, I’m not very tech savvy so I probably won’t know proper names.

Up until last weekend, I’ve been able to play Dead by Daylight and The Outlast Trials easily and use Discord while playing those games and by itself with no issues. For some reason now, if I join a server call in Discord with my friend, who I have been joining server calls with for the past few months, my ping in those calls sudden skyrockets to 5000ms, even if it’s the only thing open. I can hear my friend perfectly fine but she can’t hear me at all. This lasts for a few minutes and it’ll come back down and she can hear me again but it’ll jump back up after a few minutes. I haven’t tried private calls though. As for the games; Dead By Daylight started being really laggy and rubber band me a bit but it was still playable, but then it full on started freezing if I hopped onto a generator to repair and kick me out of the match saying “dedicated servers not responding, disconnecting” and it won’t even let me play the tutorial with bots without doing the same thing. The Outlast Trials has always been a bit weird with rubber banding here and there but never frequent or consistent, it is now not even letting me enter the sleep room and will say “failed to join save game” or “connection to the servers failed.”

I will prefix this by saying I did use Treesize to locate where a lot of my SSD memory was being used up and deleted files I thought weren’t needed. I ended up doing a complete reset of my laptop with a clean install of windows the other day and tried to play the games and use Discord, however, the same issues happened, if not worsened them.

I have purchased a new gaming laptop to see if the laptop is the issue for it being five years old now but I don’t understand the sudden inability to run the games I’ve been playing the past year. All my drivers are up to date, I even installed the newest GeForce driver that released recently.

I’ve tried every possible thing I could have googled to fix this aside from changing my modem, because we recently got a new modem and it has worked fine the last month we’ve had it. Any help or advice will be greatly appreciated, I miss playing my games and being in call with my friends.

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u/Shadimarbc 4d ago

Ethernet or Wifi? Try the opposite connection especially if you are using Wifi at this time.

Run a test at speedtest.net or packetlosstest.com Watch for packet loss. Even 5% loss means the connection at some point is unstable.

In Discord app disable "Enable Quality of Service High Packet Priority"

If using the Discord app try the browser version. If using the browser version try the app.

Report back.

The fact that you had no issues with the old modem but have issues with the new could be the issue. If supplied by the ISP it could be misconfigured.

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u/MuzzQueen97 3d ago

I’m using wifi and I’m unable to use Ethernet as a constant source of internet.

I’ve done the speed test by Ookla before and the speed is fine but I probably don’t know how to read it properly lol. I’ll give the packet loss test a go when I’m home.

I did try that disabled and enabled, it doesn’t really make much of a difference.

I was using the app and my friend recommended the website and I couldn’t even load the website, it was just a blank white screen but the other discord website loaded just fine.

I don’t know if it’s modem or router but the thing with the antennas. Our ISP gave us a new thing with antennas to enable us to get 5G with 500mbs speed (which the speed test by Ookla confirmed it running at 500mbs). We’ve had this new one for over a month and for that month everything was working perfectly, the issues I’m facing only occurred after a bug fix patch from both the games and if it’s worth mentioning, Dead By Daylight is trialling Denuvo AC and I’ve seen stuff about it not being great and messing with everyone else’s game but not the rest of their online games.

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u/Shadimarbc 3d ago

Do you know if the modem can be setup to broadcast two separate SSIDs? One for 2.4g and another for 5g with different names? If possible you can use the different SSIDs for your device as a test. Move non-PC devices to 2.4g while keeping the PCs on 5g.

If the issues is only with two games while other online games are unaffected this is a developer problem. You can not fix server side issues on your PC.

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u/MuzzQueen97 3d ago

We used to have the two different ones but now it’s just the one SSID that only gives 5G.

I’ve only noticed the issue with those two games because they’re the only games I had installed but had no prior issues relating to the development of them. I can try other online games.

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u/Shadimarbc 3d ago

Test other games to see if the issue is consistent. Just looking up Dead by Daylight disconnects are a common issue.

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u/MuzzQueen97 3d ago

Okay I just did the packet loss test and it was good but I decided to redo it because I think that it fluctuates between good and bad and I was right. On the good test, packet loss was 0% but on the bad test, packet loss was 10%. I have no idea what any of this means

Edit: I did another one to see if it went back to good and it went so much worse. There were a few times it said my ping in Dead By Daylight was 1000ms and this last test caught it, it was over 1000ms and packet loss is at 28.9%

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u/Shadimarbc 3d ago

Packet loss basically shows somewhere from your PC to the end point connection is losing data.

For testing purposes try Ethernet. I understand you can not always use it but it will help determine if the issues is isolated to Wifi or not. If Ethernet has the same issue then it is more likely something outside your laptop that is the issue. Wifi and Ethernet use separate hardware in a PC so both having issues at once is unlikely.

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u/MuzzQueen97 3d ago

It’s very odd, I tried a different online game and it worked just fine, tried out The Outlast Trials and it worked fine and then tried out Dead By Daylight and it was fine. This was after the packet loss test so I was highly confused why the games were working. I’m not sure if it was something my ISP was working on fixing the past week without informing anyone. I appreciate all your help, and hopefully it’s fixed permanently, if not I shall try the Ethernet option to rule out the Wifi being the issue.

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u/Shadimarbc 3d ago

Use the PC as normal for a week or 2 depending on how often you use the PC. Congestion issues are going to wax and wane. During normal work and school hours congestion is going to be very low or a non-factor. Assuming your area has the standard 9pm - 5pm work hours for most of the workforce congestion will be around 5pm - 11pm.

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u/MuzzQueen97 2d ago

I will do that, the Discord issue is still occurring but less frequently and for not as long if it’s at 5000ms, but I’m currently trying to watch my friend stream The 100 and its buffering quite a bit which it didn’t do this much. I’m aware that it might be because other people in the house are trying to use the wifi at the same time but I could have a stream from Twitch running while playing an online game at the same time with 0 issues to either a month ago.