Weird and Frustrating Multiplayer Gameplay in BF3, BF4 and BF1

ronferri · 23 May 2018 at 10:36

Hello,

I am facing a new problem with battlefield series that unfortunately is preventing me from playing anymore. Before I describe it, please do not compare it to the existing complaints about net code and server lag, I am confident my problem is unique and different. I didn’t have it before but now I do, and I have been researching for a solution but no one seems to share the exact same issues as mine.

BEFORE:
Regions: Dubai, Germany
Hardware: HP Laptop (i7, AMD 6770HD, win7)
Connection: 2Mbps-6Mbps ADSL
Ping: 120ms to 220ms
Games: BF3, top scorer, very fun and smooth multiplayer

NOW:
Regions: North America
Hardware: MSI GT62 Laptop (i7-6700HQ, GTX1070, 32GB RAM, Win10)
Connection: 150Mbps up/down on Fiber
Ping: 90ms to 110ms
Games: BF3, BF4, BF1, extremely frustrating multiplayer

List of problems I started facing NOW and never faced BEFORE:

A-In BF3 and BF4, the enemy's gunfire animation is a millisecond event, but as soon as it shows, i am instantly dead. But in fact, he has been shooting at me for a longer time and was leading his aim while i am on the run. It is like everybody is many milliseconds ahead of me in what they are experiencing. But on my end, only the end result is delivered to me and I don't get to experience the gunfights like I used to on my older setup.

B-More especially in BF3 and BF4: The enemy’s body and bullets appear to me at the same time. That is, as soon as an enemy comes out of his hiding place to shoot, the bullets immediately hit me: there is absolutely no sense of a gun fight happening

C-Enemies are way more relaxed when I shoot at them, and they don’t experience this inconvenience, simply because they have enough time to react, shoot back, hide, and most likely kill me.

Before, I was a top scorer in BF3 but now I keep on dying and it is very frustrating.

In short, everybody seems to be ahead of me by many milliseconds in all battlefield games. This was never the case when I used to play BF3 few years ago even at much higher pings (different countries, different laptop, different connection).

Could this be a network problem or a video rendering problem?

Turning Vsync on and off did not affect this set of problems.

Daftbrown · 23 May 2018 at 11:24

Get good.

(Sorry - couldn't resist - I can't help but have at least bumped your thread

)

MikeTheNative · 23 May 2018 at 12:27

Guns in BF1 kill reasonably quickly so 9 times out of 10 who ever shoots first will win. Have you took a break from the games for a while? It does sound like your just a bit crap at the moment.

ronferri · 23 May 2018 at 13:36

In BF3 and BF4, I don't see the enemy's gunfire animation, but as soon as it shows, i am instantly dead. But in fact, he has been shooting at me for a longer time and was leading his aim while i am on the run. It is like everybody is many milliseconds ahead of me in what they are experiencing. But on my end, only the end result is delivered to me and I don't get to experience the gunfights like I used to on my older setup.

GinG · 23 May 2018 at 15:19

Your ping times are quite high, not sure in real terms how it would affect the timing.

For example im at around 30 ping and you are at 90 - 110 ping, in theory I react 3-4 times quicker...

Rroff · 23 May 2018 at 15:38

I have a similar issue with all Frostbite engine games - though not at extreme as your problem - I don't normally see enemy moving around faster than normal (though I didn't spend much time playing BF3 so maybe I just didn't notice it) - that sounds like you are getting game updates in sporadic bursts.

Despite trying nearly a dozen different systems and internet connections, etc. I never did get to the bottom of it - there is a long thread on the BF4 forums I made about it with a ton of useful resources posted by people - the only thing I could conclude in the end was that it was some really odd back end account specific bug but I never got around to trying another account on any of my machines to test that - though someone else played BF4 for awhile on one of my old systems (with some slight upgrades) with their account and never had the same issue.

https://forums.battlefield.com/en-us/discussion/83031/has-anyone-ever-solved-this-netcode

In my case it definitely 100% wasn't down to the internet connection and any effects of latency or packet loss, etc.

EDIT: In the end I stopped playing all Frostbite engine games as fortunately I found that The Division scratches my itch for squad play, loadouts, levelling, etc. though I do miss the multiplayer side and vehicles, etc. in the mix (TD PVP is meh) but not enough to go back to the frustration that was BF4.

EDIT2: One thing worth doing is getting a DPC Latency monitoring tool and making sure you aren't getting any weird behaviour there - it definitely can cause symptoms like you are describing.

d_brennen · 23 May 2018 at 15:53

Missing packets maybe? Do you see your character hitching while running etc?

Weazle · 23 May 2018 at 15:57

What kind of monitor are you using? You might be experiencing input latency from the video card to the monitor.

Sp00n · 23 May 2018 at 15:57

Set up a monitor on https://www.thinkbroadband.com/ to see the state of your connection and rule it out.

Seems like packet loss to me, had similar experience in bf4 back when i had major issues with my VM connection, lots of rubber banding, people teleporting all around in front of me etc...

ronferri · 23 May 2018 at 16:04

Rroff said:
I have a similar issue with all Frostbite engine games - though not at extreme as your problem - I don't normally see enemy moving around faster than normal (though I didn't spend much time playing BF3 so maybe I just didn't notice it) - that sounds like you are getting game updates in sporadic bursts.

Despite trying nearly a dozen different systems and internet connections, etc. I never did get to the bottom of it - there is a long thread on the BF4 forums I made about it with a ton of useful resources posted by people - the only thing I could conclude in the end was that it was some really odd back end account specific bug but I never got around to trying another account on any of my machines to test that - though someone else played BF4 for awhile on one of my old systems (with some slight upgrades) with their account and never had the same issue.

https://forums.battlefield.com/en-us/discussion/83031/has-anyone-ever-solved-this-netcode

In my case it definitely 100% wasn't down to the internet connection and any effects of latency or packet loss, etc.

EDIT: In the end I stopped playing all Frostbite engine games as fortunately I found that The Division scratches my itch for squad play, loadouts, levelling, etc. though I do miss the multiplayer side and vehicles, etc. in the mix (TD PVP is meh) but not enough to go back to the frustration that was BF4.

EDIT2: One thing worth doing is getting a DPC Latency monitoring tool and making sure you aren't getting any weird behaviour there - it definitely can cause symptoms like you are describing.

Many thanks for your valuable input. I will try your suggestions one by one. By changing the account did you mean the origin account which I used to buy all my BF games? There's no way I can change that unless i try the demo on a newly created account? Do I have to delete any Origin cache files?

ronferri · 23 May 2018 at 16:05

d_brennen said:
Missing packets maybe? Do you see your character hitching while running etc?

No my character moves smoothly and normally around the map. No rubber banding or stuttering.

Rroff · 23 May 2018 at 16:07

ronferri said:
By changing the account did you mean the origin account which I used to buy all my BF games? There's no way I can change that unless i try the demo on a newly created account? Do I have to delete any Origin cache files?

I never got around to testing that as it meant messing about disabling my normal account in some way - I found another game eventually that scratched my itch for the kind of gameplay in BF4 so was able to move on.

ronferri · 23 May 2018 at 16:07

Weazle said:
What kind of monitor are you using? You might be experiencing input latency from the video card to the monitor.

It is the monitor of my gaming laptop, the MSI GT62VR with Nvidia GTX1070. Don't really know the full item name of my monitor as per manufacturer.

ronferri · 23 May 2018 at 16:09

Rroff said:
I never got around to testing that as it meant messing about disabling my normal account in some way - I found another game eventually that scratched my itch for the kind of gameplay in BF4 so was able to move on.

Thanks. You mentioned someone else playing on your older system with their own Origin account and did not face similar problems as you so I was wondering if it was just a matter of signing out and signing in with a new account, or did they format your PC before using it. Also were they on the same internet connection?

ronferri · 23 May 2018 at 16:11

Sp00n said:
Set up a monitor on https://www.thinkbroadband.com/ to see the state of your connection and rule it out.

Seems like packet loss to me, had similar experience in bf4 back when i had major issues with my VM connection, lots of rubber banding, people teleporting all around in front of me etc...

Thank you, I will try it out and report back.

Rroff · 23 May 2018 at 16:14

ronferri said:
Thanks. You mentioned someone else playing on your older system with their own Origin account and did not face similar problems as you so I was wondering if it was just a matter of signing out and signing in with a new account, or did they format your PC before using it. Also were they on the same internet connection?

Complete format I gave it to them without an OS - also changed RAM (doubled capacity) and some different HDD/SSDs - but CPU, motherboard, etc. were the same and playing on the same internet connection.

ronferri · 23 May 2018 at 16:17

Rroff said:
Complete format I gave it to them without an OS - also changed RAM (doubled capacity) and some different HDD/SSDs - but CPU, motherboard, etc. were the same and playing on the same internet connection.

Did they install the same windows as the one you faced the problems on? I was fine on Windows 7, and then the problems showed up when i moved to Windows 10 (plus moving to a different country, plus upgrading to a new system)

Rroff · 23 May 2018 at 16:18

ronferri said:
Did they install the same windows as the one you faced the problems on? I was fine on Windows 7, and then the problems showed up when i moved to Windows 10 (plus moving to a different country, plus upgrading to a new system)

I'm not 100% what OS they ran on it. I've only ever used Windows 7 on any of my gaming systems myself.

ronferri · 23 May 2018 at 16:57

Sp00n said:
Set up a monitor on https://www.thinkbroadband.com/ to see the state of your connection and rule it out.

Seems like packet loss to me, had similar experience in bf4 back when i had major issues with my VM connection, lots of rubber banding, people teleporting all around in front of me etc...

Is this only for users in the UK? It generates an empty graph for me and I did not fill in a postal code because I am in North America and the one i tried is invalid.

Sp00n · 23 May 2018 at 20:04

ronferri said:
Is this only for users in the UK? It generates an empty graph for me and I did not fill in a postal code because I am in North America and the one i tried is invalid.

Not sure actually, does your graph look like the red one in this? Does your external Ip respond to a ping?

Maybe it doesn't work with non UK IPs, don't know of another site that you could try.

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/faq/broadband-quality-monitor