I had to reinstall windows 7 because the beta ran out. Got a new version, the latest one (7600 16385) and installed it. Now I'm not sure whether my problems started directly after this but it seems to be the only thing I've changed in the last few weeks.

Basically in-game I have these small lag spikes where literally everyone on the screen stops. They're coincident with the spikes you can see below in the net graphs. It makes NS unplayable and I've also found it's the same whatever rates I use and also in CS. So the problem must be external to NS.

I also reinstalled steam and half-life and I still have the problem, so it can't be either of those. I reinstalled windows again (I only have this new version 7600) and still have the problem. So basically it's either this windows install or something to do with my connection and router.

Has anyone ever seen anything like this before? If so, how did you fix it?

Try dropping any antivirus you've got for a moment. At least Antivir had some issues with NS at some point.

Don't have an antivirus, don't have a virus, don't have antispyware, don't have spyware, don't have a firewall.

Check your programs if something is using any computer power while you play, wouldnt be odd for windows to do some sort of "updates". You get similar spikes if you leave browser online and the website is constantly refreshing.

dude, if you really care about this problem, and it only happened after a fresh windows install, just do a clean format again. (xp, win7) whatever.

No I don't have anything out of the ordinary running in the background and I've tried running NS with nothing but steam running.

I appreciate the responses, but these are things that you can assume I've already tried because I'm not a spastic.

Does anyone know what the net_graph is ACTUALLY showing? Anyone here who could give me some kind of educated guess as to the cause?

I mean the spike in extrapolation isn't always coincident with an fps drop so it just seems unlikely that it would be the windows install.

Fraggie I don't have time to download another windows version and I don't have xp lying around.

Well i dont rly know a lot about that stuff but i can tell u this:

I get netgraphs like that when i got a bunch of dlds running in the back and my bandwith is going to be not enough. i never get fpsdrops even when the graph is freaky like that ... so maybe it is a 100% connection porblem .. ask ur ISP if they have changed something! maybe check ur Routerconfig .. new firmwareup is always a useful thing .. restart the router once in a while! if it doesnt help yell at ur ISP !

I think it has to be the connection! ..

Scenario: Did ur ISP ncrease bandwith for all ppl? .. if so they might have done that without increasing the technical infrastructure and now u have a Jampacked DataTunnel? cause ppl are of course using the bandwith they "get"!

The top graph represents your ping meaning your ping increases periodically, or more like SPORASTICALLY. Since NS isn't getting response from the server, it starts to guess what's the situation (extrapolation), as you can see from the graph spiking to yellow/red below. However this doesn't really tell the root of the problem. You can always developer 1 and check if there's anything interesting in console.

First make sure you dont get anything in localhost mode (map ns_veil). If you don't get anything in localhost mode, it means you have a network problem, not a rendering problem.

You should get HLSW and use Traceroute tool (CTRL + T) in it to check what the netgraph looks like, to see where the problem is. You could try pinging to something like google and see if you get a stable netgraph. If you get a ping problem already to your router (which is usually the first item on the traceroute list), it means you have a network problem which maybe caused by your NIC, router or ISP (or even broken cable). You could update your router's firmware.

What kind of network setup do you have (router, connection etc.) and what kind of computer specs? What are your temperatures?

But seriously, there're a hundred things that could go wrong. I once had a network problem that was solved by disabling Spread Spectrum from BIOS. Apparently the PCI clock speed was slowed down when there was not enough traffic (to save power) and it caused weird problems. There're othre options aswell such as twiddling with NIC settings, sometimes the network works better in 10MBPs Half-Duplex Mode, you can set this in My Computer -> Manage -> Device Manager -> NIC -> Properties.

Also, do you get similar problems in other games? If yes, does it only happen in multiplayer mode?

I'd recommend installing the newest network card drivers. Maybe updating chipset drivers would be cool too.

Uh jiriki reminded me of smthing. I once had a I net prob which i solved by uninstalling the QoS Packet Sheduler in ur Network connection properties.

I had the same prob but i never figured it out how to fix it

Nice one jerky, will try some of that shit later

solution:
1. Open Network and Sharing Center
2. Switch the network type to Public network
3. Change adapter settings
4. Properties
5. Uninstall everything except Internet Protocol Version 4 & 6

Thanks Multi but that didn't work, neither did half duplex, my temps are fine and so is the hardware, it was a perfectly netgraph on listen and my console whines about missing 1080 bitmaps every now and then but I don't think it's anything.

The same happens on any half-life game, not certain about half-life 2 because I don't particularly understand the netgraph but I played l4d2 a couple of days ago and it seemed fine... as fine as l4d2 ever does... Also I don't think I have the problem in bfbc2.

HLSW tracert doesn't seem to work for some reason so I used the command prompt and apparently I'm pinging 99ms to my router. This seems like fail but I still have <99ms ping everywhere so I don't quite understand that. Perhaps it is the problem - I've tried restarting it but to no avail. I'll try firmwaring it later.

i had the same http://i40.tinypic.com/34i68lw.jpg

Fonts_fix_1680: http://ul.to/58o1a1

try to disable all services which are not necessary to run ns

http://i42.tinypic.com/25usgvs.png

Thanks for the font fix Multi. <3

this is the internet, for people like saba i will remove this.

seek professional help, frg. seriously, that's just disgusting.

well, i guess i belong to that dying breed of people whose minds haven't been corrupted by 4chan, turned into despicable little creeps without any sense of decency like you and who think pictures of starving children are funny. god, you make me sick.

try this http://uploaded.to/file/bqwmsf

Stopped all services not pertaining to the smooth running of NS and at first it flattened my net_graph but the spikes are, if anything, far worse.

Also at the moment I can't even keep a stable 125fps :S

What are your temperatures? Use CoreTemp.

You could install some kind of a network monitoring program like Comodo Firewall or NET Limiter to check if you have something else connecting to internet.

Also, you don't even need IP v6, just v4 is enough (you'll notice when we have IPv6 when game servers are not called 123.123.123.123 but 2001:0db8:85a3:08d3:1319:8a2e:0370:7334 or something like that. :P

Also, do you have a router? If you do, have you updated its firmware? I used to have a router that caused me to have all kinds of lagspikes.

About traceroute: You can skip the ping to your router if it doesn't look like normal. Different hosts can respond slowly if they don't like ping requests, but that doesn't mean you have a connection problem. Just check if you can get a decent graph to anywhere in the internet.

Sublime, have you established if this is a rendering (FPS) problem or network problem? Just try out NS in single-player mode (map ns_veil) and see if its all smooth. sv_cheats 1 and fly around with lerk (avoid hand grenades).

OK especially for you jerky my temps are as follows:

Motherboard 45
CPU 26
CPU #1 31
CPU #2 35
GPU 63 (this is normal, has been running hot forever)
Disk #1 37
Disk #2 38
Disk #3 44

Before I started trying out these 'fixes' I had stable fps all the way up to almost 300 (was checking for max fire rates etc).

At the moment I seem to have developed a problem and I'm getting drops but am confident it's nothing a new windows install won't fix since I've butchered this one. I have a different version of win 7 and I'm going to try that...

I do have a router and it has a history of causing me grief because it's a piece of shit rebranded Thomson BT homehub. It's fairly new though and the firmware is updated. Using HLSW I can't traceroute for some reason but if I watch the graph to NS servers its perfectly stable.

_This problem appears to be at it's very worst when other players are on the screen_

have u try the registry tweak?
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\SystemProfile
NetworkThrottlingIndex dword:ffffffff

Yes Multi, didn't work :(

I'm starting to think it might have something to do with something in the nl hackpack.
Haven't had time to test it but next friday after I've met all my deadlines I'll slowly introduce each component and see what happens...

Hammy do you use this?

The same happens on any half-life game

I'm starting to think it might have something to do with something in the nl hackpack.

That makes no sense. There's nothing in the 9L.ns pack that would affect anything outside of NS.

Cleaned your registry? Scanned for Malware? Spyware? The only time I had problems like you was some weird Malware crap running in the background.

OK Fana I wasn't clear there; it's markedly worse in NS compared to CS but when I use vanilla NS compared to hacked NS I find the problem is nowhere near as bad :S

Dux, you mad? I've reformatted 3 times. And I already said I have no malware. I checked. Repeatedly.

Okay, I'd still be very surprised if there was a connection. There's nothing in it that should affect networking in any way. Apart from the configs of course.

Yea could be unrelated, I don't have any time to really fix this problem at the moment. Only tried it like once so statistically could easily mean nothing.

Yeah, please let me know if you find something though. Would be pretty embarrassing if it was the 9L.ns pack causing the problems.