802.11 AC WiFi network = Extreme lag issues

#1 - Feb. 17, 2015, 12:25 p.m.

Hi Blizzard and users with lag issues.

As many other people i have/had extreme lag issues in Diablo 3.
In the weekend i played with a friend at my place, and he don't have any lag issues at all.
So decided to look deeper in to this, because it is not my ISP, as i can see Blizzard are telling all people.

My issue is that very frequently it lags extremely, from 10 seconds - minutes.
When it lags, i can run around in the map doing nothing, and even chat in the community and so on.
Sometimes it will disconnect at a certain point, and sometimes it will resume the game after seconds or minutes, in both exsamples it is not playable (And glad that i am not playing Hardcore)

So i started to debug the error from the start as this issues is new for me, and didn't have this issues before at Diablo 3, and why this suddenly started.
And why my friend at the same network don't have any issues.

For a couple of weeks ago i changed all my network infrastructure at home to 802.11 AC WiFi network, to get the new 867 Mbit wireless that comes with 802.11 AC network, and everything works perfect!
My friend was using a wireless 802.11 N network card on the 2.4 Ghz network (300 mbit) and i was using my AC wireless network card on the 5 Ghz network (867 mbit)
So there was a difference there, and then i tried to use the 802.11 N netcard, suddenly everything was working perfect...

So i started looking on the Internet, and actually found some threads about people with the same problem in Blizzard games.

And the problem is that when you are using 801.22 AC network on the 5 Ghz, ALL Blizzard games such as Diablo, WOW, Starcraft and Hearthstone will have this extreme lag issue.

The "Solution" Is then to force the Router to only work as a N Wireless Router or to use the 2.4 Ghz network instead of the 5 Ghz. (And then run 300 mbit instead of 867 mbit)
When you do that. all Blizzard games are working without any lags at all.
So now i have tried 3 different AC Wireless netcard on the 5 Ghz AC network (867 mbit) all with extreme lags.
Then i tried all 3 network cards at the 2.4 Ghz N (300 mbit) And all 3 are working perfect, wihtout any lags at all.

Everything else, and all games except Blizzard games, are working perfectly with 801.22 AC Wireless.

So now i am forced to downgrade my Wireless infrastructure from 867 mbit AC to 300 mbit N, to play Blizzard games (I only play Diablo 3 though) And that is extremely unsatisfied!!!

So what are you going to do about that Blizzard?

And for all other people that are facing this lag issues, if you are using AC network try to connect to the 2.4 Ghz network instead.
And please feel free to write a comment if that helps.

I will post this in both the US and EU technical forum, as it may helps people who are facing the same problems and uses a wireless AC network connected to the 5 Ghz network.

Best Regards
Johnny

Omrakos

#8 - May 6, 2015, 2:32 p.m.

Are all of you with this issue using the Asus AC56 wifi adapter? Is it the PCI-E or USB model?

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#16 - May 12, 2015, 10:05 p.m.

ShadedFlash,

I'm waiting to hear back from our QA Department which is trying to reproduce it in-house.

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#18 - May 13, 2015, 1:54 p.m.

Our QA Department was unable to reproduce the issue using the equipment they have available. They were able to test with an ASUS RT-AC68U router and a Linksys USB adapter on a relatively low-end Intel HD graphics system. They tested in both single player and multiplayer. Ping results ranged anywhere from 40-120ms with an average of about 80. They experienced no lag though.

Based on their observations and the varied reports from users in this thread, this doesn't seem to be an issue with the game actually. If it were, no one would be reporting it worked properly for them using a 5GHz connection. It does appear however that the Asus wireless adapters reported to be in use might have some issues. It could also be as Chrisloup above suggests an interference situation.

If any of you experiencing a problem using the Asus adapter were able to test with another brand device, such as a Linksys, the results could prove useful.

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#20 - May 13, 2015, 9:50 p.m.

Could those of you with the Asus adapter having the lag problem let me know which Windows Operating System version you're using?

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#24 - May 14, 2015, 2:03 p.m.

BigBadBear,

He was testing with a 5 GHz connection for a little over an hour without getting any lag symptoms. I believe they're arranging to test today with a different USB adapter. It's not the same Asus one users have reported but it's supposed to use the same chipset. When I hear the results of their testing, I'll pass it on.

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#34 - May 19, 2015, 5:32 p.m.

Our QA Department has reported they "think" they've reproduced the issue but require further testing to verify. While we're waiting, you might check out this related thread from last year in our World of Warcraft forums. Basically it echoes the issue discussed here but a couple of users offer a couple of suggestions that helped some people.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/14278688390

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#58 - June 26, 2015, 2:53 p.m.

I'd like to ask if anyone reading this thread that is having this problem of severe lag only when using 802.11 ac is using an on-board WiFi connection instead of an add-in PCI-E or USB one?

I'm going to try and get a hold of a router to test with at home but all I have to use is what's on my motherboard. Our QA guys just can't narrow it down yet. They do see a bit of lag but they see it with everything they try pretty much when using the 5GHz setting and a USB adapter.

From nearly everything I'm seeing on the issue, it would appear to be related to the wireless adapter being used, not the router or the basic ac tech.

So if you would, let me know if you have lag and use a USB, PCI-E, or on-board adapter for the connection.

I should be able to post my results Monday if I get the router tomorrow as planned.

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#60 - June 29, 2015, 2:28 p.m.

After playing World of Warcraft and Diablo III for many hours over the weekend utilizing an 802.11 ac connection, I never encountered a single issue with either game.

This is with a Netgear Nighthawk X6 AC3200 (R8000) connected wirelessly to my motherboard's on-board WiFi connection using Windows 8.1. Computer was located about 15 feet from the router with no walls or obstructions between them. Used default settings for router as removed from the box aside from changing the network name, admin name and password, and security key. Have it set up currently as a Wireless Access Point on my network.

Only had a single reply to my request above about which type adapters were in use but as the poster's problem only manifested itself 2 days ago, it doesn't appear to be the same issue most of you were experiencing.

I'll try to get a hold of an ASUS USB-AC56 Dual-Band Wireless - AC1300 USB 3.0 WiFi Adapter tonight or tomorrow and continue testing.

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#62 - July 1, 2015, 2:12 p.m.

I picked up an ASUS USB-AC56 Dual-Band Wireless - AC1300 USB 3.0 WiFi Adapter last night but only had about an hour to play with it. Basically, and these are my personal observations, and not official as they took place at my home, not in our Compatibility Lab.

I installed the latest drivers from Asus prior to plugging the device in as that was recommended by many of the reviewers. The device was recognized and installed without a hitch afterwards. I immediately noticed a significant slowdown in my overall network performance on my desktop compared to my on-board 802.11 ac WiFi adapter and of course my regular on-board Intel nic.

I went ahead and fired up Diablo III and went to do a trial to get a rift key. I noticed a bit of lag just doing this as it took a couple seconds before it recognized I submitted a trial key. Once doing the trial, it seemed ok with no problems. I just did a quick one as I wasn't interested in making it any harder than necessary for a quick test. I then went into the normal rift and again, didn't have any issues to speak of completing it. However, when I exited it and went to auto-identify the couple of legendaries that dropped, it took about a minute for it to complete compared to the usual 5 seconds or so.

I then went to Kadala to gamble on a couple items. I would right click to buy a helm and it would just make the sound as if I had made the purchase, but nothing went into my inventory. I repeated this several more times and nothing ever was sent to my inventory. I left her and started back towards my stash when all of a sudden my inventory screen popped up and all the "purchases" I had made appeared. To me, this is severe lag but I'm not sure if it's the same lag people are referring to in this thread.

The above testing was done with my router in Wireless Access Point mode. I reset it back to the default factory config this morning before coming into work and ran another quick test. I still had the same slowness with local network tasks and Diablo III "felt" slower, but none of the lag I saw last night was there, but I only had a few minutes to test.

I'll look at it some more tonight and see if I can dig up any way to alter the adapter settings as so far, the only problems I have seen with 802.11 ac and Diablo III stem from using the USB adapter.

To be continued.....

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#65 - July 1, 2015, 4:51 p.m.

Reinvented,

Factory default settings right now, just changed admin password and security key. Latest firmware from Netgear was applied when first adding router to my system. Router is maybe 15-16 feet from my desktop computer with no obstructions between them.

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#67 - July 1, 2015, 5:17 p.m.

Reinvented,

I haven't had a chance to do any troubleshooting yet having just gotten the USB adapter last night. As I've said, the problems seem to point to it as the game plays fine when I use my integrated 802.11 ac WiFi adapter built-in to my motherboard.

From what I've been able to dig up, the Asus USB AC56 is using a Realtek chipset while my integrated is using Broadcom

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-reviews/32271-ac1200-usb-wireless-adapter-roundup

3T3R 802.11ac on the motherboard. trying to find out more info. I know it's Broadcom but not sure which one. I believe it's BCM43XAC though.

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#69 - July 2, 2015, 1:53 p.m.

No major progress to report however, I did find an older post in our World of Warcraft Tech forum about the same issue and tried what another user (Talrenya) suggested.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/14278688390#15

I disabled the settings for the adaptor:

BeamCap
LdpcCap
StbcCap
VHT 2.4G

and changed the RTS/CTS value in my router for the network I connect to from the default 2437 down to 1440 as suggested by another user (Cycloniz).

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/14278688390#16

I only had a few minutes to test it this morning but upon my first login with these changes, I saw no lag. My in-game latency was about 27 MS opposed to the "normal" 250 or so with big spikes up to around 1500. Will test some more this evening.

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#72 - July 3, 2015, 1:46 p.m.

Update:

Working fine again last night and this morning. No lag symptoms so far since making the changes I described earlier. I didn't get to play a lot though so this is still preliminary and not a final conclusion on my part.

This weekend, Ill be able to play-test it a lot more.

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#76 - July 7, 2015, 10:36 p.m.

Had a chance to play Diablo III again this morning. I played 7 greater rifts solo straight through without stopping and experienced zero latency and no performance hits whatsoever. I've not changed any router or adapter settings beyond what I referenced earlier. I actually relocated the router farther away from my desktop PC so it's now got a couple of walls between them and still no issues came up.

So, as far my experience goes, I had severe latency issues using the USB Realtek-based 802.11 ac adapter but as soon as I made the changes I outlined all of the problems went away and have not returned.

Omrakos