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 | Guide for checking your internet route to game server | |
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[IOD]Snips
Super Regular
Speed Sniping
Master
|  | | P: | 09/10/2025 05:36 EST |
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Guide for checking your internet route to game server
by [IOD]Snips
Please do not share your own ip address when asking questions in the forums.
The goal of this guide is to track the ping times of network devices your game data goes through in-between your pc to Drippy's 2fort server. While computer tweaking & choosing Ethernet instead of Wifi can be important, instead here we'll focus on the internet network path your game data takes. Much of your route is upto your ISP, however if certain hops have high pings then your final ping on Drippy's will be incorrect/invalid. During primetime depending on your ISP, due to network congestion or oversubscribing too many people your gaming might suffer and this should help identify this.
EXPLANATION
The route your data takes in-between your Internet connection all the way to Drippy's server are upto your ISP. Every device your data ends up on is called a "hop" while on it's way & these devices are typically switches or routers. Sometimes these network devices can become congested with too many users or are malfunctioning resulting in consistent or occasionally high ping! The term for checking all the hops is called a traceroute where a ping is performed on each hop where the response time is reported.
Packetloss is when a data packet never arrived which is bad. Sometimes these devices will not prioritize a ping request & so these pings will show up as packetloss which is not concerning UNLESS these packetlosses in hops continue through to the destination. Ultimately can check if you're getting packetloss inside TFC while playing by typing into the console: net_graph 3 (to turn off the graph, obviously net_graph 0).
HOP1: This is likely your gateway/router inside your home. Over ethernet this should be 0ms or 1ms. This can be much higher over wifi & if you see packetloss here your wifi sucks.
HOP2: This is likely the first step of your data's journey onto the public internet. If you're behind a double NAT or other odd setups, this can be helpful to see too. Some ISP's have a neighborhood router/switch before the first real hop which might be causing issues.
(Some people might have 3 hops, some might have 30 hops. The amount of hops isn't as important as having consistent ping times at each hop. If a certain hop is giving 9ms but occasionally 60ms or 200ms, your gaming is going to suffer)
FINAL HOP: This is Drippy's 2fort server, located in Piscataway, New Jersey hosted by ReliableSite.net. | |
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[IOD]Snips
Super Regular
Speed Sniping
Master
| | | P: | 09/10/2025 05:37 EST |
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PART 1 - CHECKING LATENCY FROM YOU TO DRIPPY'S
There are several ways to go about doing this, we'll start with the easiest.
METHOD1: Install the program pingplotter, "Download PingPlotter for Desktop" which is a trial that lasts 14 days & converts to a FREE Edition afterwards(https://www.pingplotter.com/products/free/). After you open the pingplotter program in windows, for the target simply enter lunaticrage.com and let it run for a few minutes. Right click on the hop/count/ip/name bar and put a checkmark on Maximum Latency, as this is the most important thing to look at. After this has been running for a bit, you can check to see if certain hops have consistent or very inconsistent maximum latencies. Lunaticrage.com is not directly pingable which will show a 100% packetloss & this is normal as the final device simply doesn't respond to ping requests.
METHOD2: Or you can go this route and won't need to download the pingplotter software.
Opening command prompt in Windows, copy the line below and right click in the command prompt to paste & hit enter:
tracert lunaticrage.com
The number shown on the left is the hop number. The three ms numbers next to that is the amount of time for a round trip to that device, here you would expect three numbers fairly close to eachother. If you saw "9ms 150ms 11ms" then one of those responses are really high! For a fraction of a second your game's data packets would have been very delayed. The ip & sometimes city info are shown on the right for all the hops. | |
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[IOD]Snips
Super Regular
Speed Sniping
Master
| | | P: | 09/10/2025 05:38 EST |
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PART 2 - CHECKING LATENCY FROM DRIPPY'S TO YOU
We'll be using a looking glass for Drippy's hosting server to check the hops & ping times starting from the game servers location all the way back to you. This might be a different route then earlier. This will show if the data packet's latency the server's sending you are consistent or not by rerunning this too. Separately if you Manually ping each hop in this list explained in part3 coming up next will further help identify problem hops for you too.
1.) Go to https://bgp.he.net/AS23470#_traceroute and click the "Piscataway New Jersey, US" server in the list. This should be the datacenter's location.
2.) Under "Select Target" enter your IP address & press "Perform Query!" and it will display the hops and their return trip times.
If you're unsure what your IP address is, check on a site such as https://whatismyipaddress.com
(do not share your ip address number with others for privacy/security reasons) | |
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[IOD]Snips
Super Regular
Speed Sniping
Master
| | | P: | 09/10/2025 05:39 EST |
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PART 3 - FURTHER INVESTIGATING SPECIFIC HOPS:
It's common to have a handful of hops around your area that your ISP sends your data through. It can be helpful to ping one of your hops and let it run for a while, to see what the difference between the minimum and maximum latencies are. So in Windows open your Command Prompt & type in something similar to this command. Be sure to REPLACE x.x.x.x with the hop ip address you wish to check.
ping x.x.x.x -n 500
So pretend one of my hops was 4.4.4.4, if I wanted I could replace the x's with 4's with the command above & my computer would send 1 ping per second 500 times & tell me what the minimum, maximum and average are afterwards. This can be very helpful to identify a problematic ISP piece of equipment you could report to your internet provider. If your max latency hops are all 20ms at night and sometimes 90ms during the day, it's likely network congestion from your ISP. If it's consistently high for local servers at all times, it's probably faulty hardware. | |
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[IOD]Snips
Super Regular
Speed Sniping
Master
| | | P: | 09/10/2025 05:40 EST |
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FINAL THOUGHTS:
Using part1 & part2 can be helpful to check the latencies of the network devices your game traffic is passing through on it's way to and from Drippy's 2fort server. The hop routes might change for you over time depending on your ISP. I'm still learning more about networking, but it appears large latencies across different hops result in poor lag in-game & possibly rubberbanding or laggy hitboxes and yet your in-game latency will show a higher number. Use the steps as written to check the devices from your home to the game server & can check the NJ looking glass to check the route from the game server back to you too. Late or missing packets being sent or received will likely have different types of lag/rubberbanding present in-game.
Unrelated but wanted to mention since we're talking about latencies. There are different methods for getting Internet into your home, but generally in order from best>worst is FIBER>CABLE>DSL>WIRELESS when it comes to network congestion & routing.
Consider pinging your home's router/gateway if you are on wifi (often is 192.168.0.1 or 10.0.0.1, should be your first hop!). Gamers claiming "my wifi's good enough" might be surprised if there are some wild maximum values you might be getting from your gaming pc to your home router. When your wifi channels switch due to interference or neighbors wifi traffic, your own gaming pc's wifi might be changing wifi channels resulting in delayed or lost packets often. Your home network is under your control & ISP's generally don't care about your internet quality beyond the point of once it reaches your router/gateway.
As far as getting internet from your home gateway/router to your gaming PC: Ethernet is always best, MOCA over coax is second best, Powerline is third best (depending on the quality of your home's electrical wiring) and the most popular which is wifi is the worst when it comes to consistent ping & packetloss amounts. If you plan on gaming in the same room for years to come, consider having a professional install an ethernet cable from your router/gateway to your gaming pc. Using a switch on that single line can give you many ethernet ports, similar to how a surge protector can give you many power outlets if a room only had one power outlet. | |
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Ballsack
Super Regular
Killer Scout
| | | P: | 09/10/2025 06:49 EST |
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Good info and pretty well explained, especially for a novice like myself. I’ve found that my connection is really terrible recently, so thank you for this. | |
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Errorist
Super Regular
Dizzy Capper
| | P: | 09/10/2025 14:22 EST |
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TFC on wifi is pain. Everything feels off and inconsistent, and this game is all about timing. Wired is the only way if you want smooth movement/hit detection.
Some players look so choppy here it's like they are teleporting. | |
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mmarino51589
Super Regular
Soldier Flag
Defense
| | | P: | 09/10/2025 14:36 EST |
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ur wireless sux
GET GUD WIRELESS
i play on wifi and people are envious of my fluid movement and leet skills | |
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Judge Holden
Super Regular
Scout Crowbar
Master
| | P: | 09/16/2025 06:40 EST |
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 | mmarino51589 wrote:
ur wireless sux
GET GUD WIRELESS
i play on wifi and people are envious of my fluid movement and leet skills | |
who is your wireless provider? | |
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[IOD]Snips
Super Regular
Speed Sniping
Master
| | | P: | 09/16/2025 08:19 EST |
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Wifi is inconsistent. People that claim "good enough" are probably getting jitter and/or dropped packets either frequently, sometimes or rarely.
Imagine you're a passenger in a limo with tinted windows & only one time (when asked if there's lag) you look outside while on the freeway at 10am and there's low traffic, so you claim public roads are always "good enough" at all times. However, when not looking during rush hour traffic (other wifi networks coming online, higher wifi interferences from home/neighbor appliances turning on/off) there are traffic jams (packet collisions) and cars being rerouted (wifi channels renegotiating). This leads to noticeable lag spikes or barely un-noticeable inconsistent jitter while on wifi. Of course lacking the frame of reference from a perfect connection to ethernet, you won't complain unless disconnected or a massive lag spike occurs. Ultimately above, they're incorrectly assuming public roads always have a consistent speed, just like people assume wifi always has a consistent ping & bandwidth.
Ethernet is like your own private underground tunnel where you can drive at full speed at all times. 0ms to the router with never a missed packet can't be beat. BEST PART IS 100% CONSISTENCY AND NO JITTER. Ethernet cable is extremely cheap too, only the installation cost and figuring out who to call to install it is what turns people off.
If you're renting in a temporary location then you skip ethernet. BUT if you own your own home & plan on staying for years, just hire someone to install an outdoor ethernet cable to wrap around your house into your gaming machine. Also you can hook that upto a network switch & get a wifi access point too if you wanted so that inside that room you'd have a stronger wifi source for other surrounding rooms too.
Really nice having my TV attached to my Nvidia Shield Pro connected by ethernet at 1000Mbps. Full 4k shows without buffering while streaming over ethernet, massively reduces wifi usage in use while watching 4k shows. | |
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[IOD]Snips
Super Regular
Speed Sniping
Master
| | | P: | 09/16/2025 08:27 EST |
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| mmarino51589 wrote:
ur wireless sux
GET GUD WIRELESS
i play on wifi and people are envious of my fluid movement and leet skills | |
I mean you could run iperf3 between your wifi gaming computer to a wired computer on your local network. Force 500Kbps to 1Mbps of UDP traffic as the test.
Run long tests throughout the day. Sudden waves of jitter and/or packetloss with 100-200 packets per second over wifi similar to gaming traffic & it will become obvious if there are issues.
The interference sources could be your own home appliances, your neighbors or even things further away like radar/planes or electrical/radio based sources. Most often it's excessive wifi use forcing channels to be switched or something like that. The other thing that sucks is that it's not full duplex, in that wifi can't send and receive data at the same time. I believe it just switches from the mode and back extremely quickly. | |
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[IOD]Snips
Super Regular
Speed Sniping
Master
| | | P: | 09/20/2025 13:36 EST |
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Pingplotter Pro only - UDP MODE TESTING (during the 14day trial only - disabled afterwards during free version)
While using Pingplotter at the top click on the EDIT pulldown menu and choose OPTIONS. On the left side under DEFAULT SETTINGS choose the ENGINE. Now finally at the top for PACKET TYPE click this and change this to UDP PACKETS.
Now when testing hops this will be using udp data instead which act differently then icmp or tcp traffic. Most gaming traffic including TFC & Counterstrike use UDP because they're the fastest way to do realtime communications. Unlike TCP, no requests or resending of data occurs.
Testing with UDP might be more accurate as this is using traffic which more closely resembles gaming traffic. | |
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