NICs

[Denizen]

I've found that network adapter card settings can greatly influence in game lag.

I have a very slow internet connection, about 13 mbps, but good hardware. Somehow I manage to box 24 characters on a 13 mbps connection with a latency that, at its very best, is 207 ms.

So I do tweak everything and NICs, or network adapter cards, are the current focus. In general anything that buffers or offloads or makes a decision on priorities, is not good because they save gaming information to be handled later or stagger some game information in favor of others... best to have nothing saved or staggered and if your machine and internet can't keep up with the servers have the severs slow down their feed as they are designed to do.

These adapter settings are found by going to the Device Manager of your Control Panel and clicking on Properties under the network adapter you are using. If you use your computer for other things than gaming, and you have two adapters, you can use one for gaming and one for regular activities. Just disable the one you do not have optimized for your current activities.

Anyway rather than re-invent the wheel, I'll refer you to an excellent primer on the subject that is readable by non-geeks that also has extensive links to further reading:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... =727946014

here's a quote:

Interrupt Moderation

RECOMMENDATION:
Turn off if you can afford to; your mileage may vary.

REASON(S) TO TURN OFF:
Acts like a packet buffer for sending interrupts. “Allows the network driver to wait for enough packets of information to be generated before sending them, lowering the necessary number of times the driver has to send an interrupt message, which in turn lowers the CPU latency. However this has a negative effect in situations where it is necessary for data to be sent immediately. Disabling Interrupt Moderation will slightly increase CPU time; however the trade off is better registry in games” (SOURCE: [PSA] REDDIT).
“Disable the Interrupt Moderation setting for network card drivers that require the lowest possible latency” (SOURCE: TechNet). Even Microsoft agrees.

REASON(S) TO LEAVE ON:
Depending on the program and the hardware, you may not have the CPU runtime to spare, as turning Interrupt Moderation off “can use more CPU time and it represents a trade-off” (SOURCE: TechNet). It’s possible that without this setting on, you will lose performance by increasing the already taxed CPU-load.
Other theoretical reasons are that it improves latency at the CPU and the gains on that level exceeds the loss of latency in the network... or the NIC can handle the offloads/buffers enough to justify the CPU latency gains.