The Solution to my HIGH ping

[joule]

As many of you already know, I have been having extreme difficulties with my HIGH ping. I've tried almost everything in the book to find a solution to this. From those, no luck has arrived.
Then until yesterday, when I was playing HL2: DM, I went into a server and asked "How can I get my ping lowered?". Someone soon replied with an answer of:

Ctrl+Alt+Del
Processes
Right Click on Steam.exe (or HL2.exe)
Set Priority to Low

After done doing that I went back in to game. At that moment, my ping ceased to rise above 100! I am delighted by this.

So, if you have a cable internet connection and are having problems with your ping, try this.
I'd like to thank MightyMuffin for this.

 

[JackelPDW]

This seems to defy logic.

 

[Argonaut]

no its not - its a perfect way for DSL users to do this. its logical - the windows xp built in VPN client (which is what most dsl providers use) is set to priority "below normal" by default - the vpn client is part of the windows kernel, so no chance of changing that.

what happens when you play hl2? hl2 has its priority set up to "normal" so it gets more cpu cycles than the vpn client - means, hl2 is sending packets and packets, while the vpn client isnt able to actually send them, cuase it gets too less cpu time.

this happens with big programs using much bandwidth, such as hl2 (caused by the serverside physics) and for example bfv too.

setting the priority of hl2 to "below normal" or "low" (although "below normal" should suffice) actually gives the vpn client more time to send the pakets through the net, which lowers your ping.

see, its logical. i had the same problem - it solved my problems too!

should be a sticky for those dsl users, which have those problems too.

 

[ShinRa]

does it work for those with broadband/cable?

 

[Argonaut]

if youre connecting via a VPN client, then yes. but im not sure if this can be the case on cable - my first guess would be no.

just look up your installed connections - if it say "virtual private network", you use the VPN

 

[JimPanzee]

*hugs Joule*
thanks a lot!!

 

[OJS]

nice, i'll give it a go although my ping isn't that bad i suppose

 

[JimPanzee]

I can't believe how much this helped! I just played it for an hour on a 20 slot server, and I didn't get one millisecond of lag! my ping was between 10-60 all the time! Now that I can finally play this game, I love it
thanks again, joule!

 

[nightwolf41]

hey,
I can see how this can help and already has but i'm getting pings of around 100-300 and on good runs 80-100 and one stage when I was getting them at 380 i did what you said but it didn't work.
I'm not sure what's going on but maybe you can help?

 

[v1p3r]

Are there any params to attach priority changes to a shortcut?

 

[Simpss]

Still have high ping

I did what you said but it still made no difference, I don't know what my problem is...

I know its not my internet connection, I just upgraded it, yet my ping is exactly the same, always hovering around 350 and its impossible to get a game. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[$kelet0r]

This is brilliant news
Does it apply when I connect into a LAN internet connection

 

[StardogChampion]

Hmm, does this make Steam take up less memory? So I could do that while using Hammer aswell to lighten the load.

 

[netrex]

That is the sollution I found on the Steam forums a couple of months ago for input-lag when I play. No I don't slide etc. anymore. Doesn't help my ping at all though.

 

[SupaKoopa]

would this work for other games as well?

 

[wolvesrdogs]

I have a question im seeing if it works for me tellme what to press.
This is message after i right click on steam.exe in crtl alt del and select low.
WARNING: Chnaging the proirity class of this process may cuase undesired results including system instability. Are you sure you want to change the priority class?
Yes-No
Please help.
Thanks :thumbs:
:cheers:

 

[Dario D.]

That message always comes up. Hit YES.

But never change a process to "Realtime" or "High" or whatever. Once I tried it and my computer locked up, cuz the CPU was 100% used up by the process.

Infact, for others reading, don't get all happy and start adjust the priority of all your programs. Things may start going FUBAR as programs suddenly have too much or not enough CPU.

 

[wolvesrdogs]

That message always comes up. Hit YES.

But never change a process to "Realtime" or "High" or whatever. Once I tried it and my computer locked up, cuz the CPU was 100% used up by the process.

Infact, for others reading, don't get all happy and start adjust the priority of all your programs. Things may start going FUBAR as programs suddenly have too much or not enough CPU.

Thanks so what your saying is dont just start changing proirities unless you are absolutly sure abote them?
Thanks for the info.
:cheers:

 

[netrex]

would this work for other games as well?

Testing it is probably the best way of finding out =)

 

[Dario D.]

Thanks so what your saying is dont just start changing proirities unless you are absolutly sure abote them?
Thanks for the info.
:cheers:

Yeah, exactly :cheers:

 

[Killing2Live]

That message always comes up. Hit YES.

But never change a process to "Realtime" or "High" or whatever. Once I tried it and my computer locked up, cuz the CPU was 100% used up by the process.

Infact, for others reading, don't get all happy and start adjust the priority of all your programs. Things may start going FUBAR as programs suddenly have too much or not enough CPU.

Amen to that, I learned the hard way

 

[Hazar]

Does this affect your fps at all?

and what happens if you arn't using VPN, does it still help?

 

[FlipLeFrog]

some ppl uses network-optimized HL2-Settings. Those settings don´t get u a better FPS, but better packet-size and therefore better transmission. (i.e. less lagg on high detailed locations) There are alot of them in the net and the most are optimized (if u would call it like that..) for LAN-connections and will speed-down the internet-connection. U have to play around with those settings, since they depend on ur system.
There is a chance to optimize them for inet-connection aswell by try-and-error the lowered settings
here is a snippet of what i found (LAN-optimized!)..

rate 20000
cl_updaterate 100
cl_cmdrate 100
cl_resend 2
cl_cmdbackup 60

 

[satgale]

Ok i did the lower priority thing for steam.exe and hl2.exe and set them both to low...no change at all. Any other suggestiosn for a high ping on a DSL????

 

[Seagull]

Not sure what to do on your part, but because this is one heck of a revival:

 

[netrex]

Not sure what to do on your part, but because this is one heck of a revival:

Heh. What are you on about? He just wants to figure out his problem.

 

[Seagull]

Sorry, I was really looking for a spot to use it.

 

[Adabiviak]

The only place I have seen the process priority constructively used was on one of our main servers with quad Xeons. The TaskManager shows 8 CPUs, and the I.T. boys would assign specific processes that they needed the server to focus on high priority on different processors.

 

[Shamrock]

Does this work for Wireless connections?