I’d wager there are few things more infuriating than losing a competitive online game due to lag and high jitter. Now, I play a lot of Counter-Strike 2, and this has happened to me multiple times. Something had to change, and it wasn’t going to be my ISP because routing and overall latency were not the issue: it was the random ping spikes and packet loss.
The default network settings on your PC are usually ideal. However, if you want the best possible gaming performance, you should change a few things. I did go a bit overboard with the changes I made, but not all of them made much difference (some were detrimental). The tweaks that resulted in measurable improvement in my gaming network performance were the simplest to execute.
Disable Interrupt Moderation first
It may increase CPU usage, though
Data is transferred to and fro from the internet in the form of packets. When your network interface card (NIC) receives data, it alerts your CPU and asks it to process it: this is called an interrupt. The thing is, there are thousands of packets being sent and received each second by your computer when using the web. Because of this, an interrupt for each packet puts a disproportionate load on the CPU. To reduce this CPU overhead, your network adapter has a feature called Interrupt Moderation which groups packets before notifying the CPU to process them. This is a good middle ground for efficiency. However, it’s not so good for fast-paced multiplayer games that send and receive small amounts of data at a rapid rate. Batching packets increases latency and jitter.
Here’s how you disable interrupt moderation:
- Press Windows Key + R, type devmgmt.msc in the Run text box, and press Enter to launch Device Manager.
- Right-click on your network adapter, and click Properties.
- Click on Advanced, find the Interrupt Moderation setting, and set it to Disabled.
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Disabling this setting does have a drawback: it will increase the CPU usage on your PC, but it’s negligible on most modern systems. The higher CPU usage can negatively impact performance if you play CPU-intensive games like Counter-Strike 2. If you notice a drop in FPS and sluggish performance, revert the changes you made.
Change Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) settings
With less power comes higher ping
Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) is one of Windows’ power-saving features. It puts your network card in a low-power state when traffic is low. While this does save power, it can cause minor delays and lag when resuming activity. For the best possible gaming performance, it’s best to disable EEE (it doesn’t save all that much power, so the trade-off isn’t worth it anyway).
To change EEE settings, open Device Manager, and right-click on your Ethernet adapter. Choose Properties -> Advanced -> Energy Efficient Ethernet, and set it to Disabled. Additionally, if you see the Power Management tab in the Properties window of your network adapter, uncheck the Allow Windows to turn off this device to save power option.
Unlike Interrupt Moderation, disabling this setting has no performance drawbacks whatsoever. In my case, disabling EEE improved stability (lower jitter), and reduced latency when playing Counter-Strike 2.
Disable Large Send Offload (LSO)
Say goodbye to stuttering and jitter
Like Interrupt Moderation, Large Send Offload (LSO) is another feature that reduces CPU overhead. Usually, Windows hands over small TCP packets (around 1500 bytes) to the NIC when sending data over the network: it processes and sends each packet individually. With LSO enabled, Windows hands over a bigger chunk of data to the adapter, and the adapter itself splits it into smaller packets. This saves CPU overhead, but can result in slightly higher jitter, and inconsistent ping.
In my case, disabling LSO slightly reduced jitter, stuttering, and I saw a slight improvement in hit registration as well. To disable LSO, go to Device Manager, right-click on your Ethernet network adapter, and click on the Advanced tab. Set the Large Send Offload V2 (IPv4), and Large Send Offload V2 (IPv6) options to Disabled.
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The gains of disabling LSO are limited to gaming, so you should disable it only if you care more about gaming performance, than general network browsing and file downloads.
The basics are important
You can’t tweak your way out of bad routing, subpar hardware, and geographic regions
Changing the settings above only makes sense if you have the basics in place. They aren’t a silver bullet for bad ISPs, a slow speed plan, or high latency because of server distance. For optimum network performance while gaming, invest in an ethernet cable instead of using Wi-Fi, ask your ISP for a public IP address if they’ve put you behind a CGNAT, and connect to game servers closest to your geographic location. It’s also best to change one setting at a time and see what makes a difference, and what doesn’t.
