Online Driver Glitching

[Deleted member 387850]

I'm just fresh out of my first R3E Club Race and unfortunately I had to DNF from the grid as all the cars were glitching. I have been racing in the Assetto Corsa Club Races with no issues whatsoever so I'm assuming my rig is capable, however, I am fairly new to sim racing on the PC having come from consoles so I haven't all that much experience!

My ping to the server was 26ms. I am on a wifi connection (30Mbps+), but it's always been stable and this connection has been sound with AC in the past. My rig is a new custom build with a Ryzen 5 1600, GTX 1060 and 16GB RAM. In single player I get about 70fps on High graphics settings and triple digits for Medium. I did try running on Low for the online race but it made no difference. The only applications I had running in the background were:

TeamSpeak 3
TSNotifier (I killed this in case it was causing issues, but it wasn't)
Logitech Gaming Software
Crew Chief V4

I should also say I'm running Windows 10 (1709 - Fall Creators Update). Throughout single player practice all week I've had no issues and I was able to connect and run on the practice server earlier today. It just seems to be when other drivers are in the session the problems start. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Case_]

In what way were the cars glitching? You might've mentioned it in the race, but I can't seem to remember if you did.

 

[Deleted member 387850]

Perhaps “glitching” is the wrong word, I’m still getting used to the terminology! Basically I was seeing all the cars disappearing and then reappearing a couple of seconds later. I noticed that they also disappeared from the track map when this happened.

It sounds like a classic connection issue, except when I had problems in practice I quit the game and did a quick speed test. Got a steady 26ms ping, 32Mbps down, 3.5Mbps up. Admittedly I usually get 10Mbps up but I’d have thought those speeds were more than adequate?

 

[Case_]

Well, ping and speed are only part of the equation, they don't tell you the whole story. You can still have an unstable connection with OK ping and speed. I wouldn't be surprised if it was some kind of connection issues, perhaps only temporary. Especially since you're on a wifi. And the fact that other sims do work fine might also not mean that much, maybe you're experiencing some slight fluctuations one game is more sensitive to than the other.

Not sure what advice to give you, though, apart from testing it multiple times to see how persistent the issue is, and perhaps trying a wired connection if that's an option for you at all.

 

[Kenny Paton]

Martin's advice is sound, if you can try a wired connection. My pc specs are lower than yours but I have no issues in R3E or for that matter in any other game.
We have several drivers who only seem to have problems with this game, and they have varied specs and connection types.
I don't think it's your settings and suggest you test it again when you can join us on the server during practice even if you aren't actually racing.
Also there are plenty of public servers running so maybe test on them as well.

 

[Deleted member 387850]

That's a fair point about the wifi. The very same reason that makes it difficult for me to use a wired connection is the same reason why the wireless connection may be unstable - I'm in a converted attic space and my router is sitting in the hallway downstairs. The signal and connection appear good, but perhaps R3E is just exposing the limitations of my network.

I'll take the advice to try joining practice for the next race or some public servers to see whether or not it was just a one-off issue. If not then I think I'll finally have to buy a reel of Cat5e and get myself a wired connection in the attic!

 

[Kenny Paton]

I'm old fashioned, I don't even use a wireless keyboard or mouse.

 

[Deleted member 387850]

I'm old fashioned, I don't even use a wireless keyboard or mouse.

Got to agree with you there, it's hard to go wrong with a hard wired cable connecting everything! I try to go wired for everything, but admittedly I was trying to avoid having to run a ridiculously long ethernet cable through the house to the attic. In the long run it will probably save me a lot of grief though!

 

[Kenny Paton]

I have a couple of long cables running from my computer room to the living room but I'm not in such a drastic situation as you.
I suspect that the boss lady would soon raise objections if I was to trail cables all over the house, she even got me a cordless vacuum in case I tripped over the cable

 

[Deleted member 387850]

Hence my reluctance to put a cable in... I'll have to lift the carpet to hide the cable to keep everyone happy! That, and to stop my 2 year old son testing the breaking strain of any visible Cat5e

 

[UMC 22]

I don't want to burst the bubble here, but a wired connection will not necessarily fix this issue anyway. I have a 110mb connection with a ping of around 25-40 most nights. My PC is on a wired connection to a router 4m away. On various occasions I still get the "glitching" where cars (some or all of them) keep appearing and disappearing. It's sporadic and I've never really nailed down the actual cause. Others have reported it too, and it seems to be unique to R3E.

I would say go wired anyway as it's always better than wifi, but don't expect it to magically fix this problem. That said, do not necessarily expect to see this problem happen in your next race with us either, because it's been pretty random and infrequent for me.

 

[Patrick Fournier]

If you have a significant other, make sure they don't watch Netflix while you race

 

[Case_]

BTW, for the record, I also did experience some oddities during yesterday's practice if I remember correctly. The game seemed to ignore my existence - even though I did a few laps, my slot on the timing bar at the top remained empty. That happened to me a few times before when I was experiencing blinking cars or some connection issues.

Thankfully it stopped as the session went to qualification.

Also, one thing I remembered caused this issue in one race for me - although I wasn't aware of it, something started downloading an update in the background while I was playing. Can't remember if it was Windows itself or Steam. And I also remember a certain driver who was blinking a lot in one of the races, only to realize he had some BitTorrent stuff running in the background

 

[natedogg1867]

@suspectmonkey One thing that might be worth looking into is something called a "Powerline Adapter."

For those of us that cant run 100ft of ethernet cable down a flight of stairs and across the house, this is a very viable option. Basically, it is a way to get a hardwired connection, without running wires all through your house.

The gist of it is... There is a tiny little box that goes into an outlet near your router, and there is a short ehternet cable that runs from that plug to the router. There is a 2nd little box that you plug into an outlet in the room with your computer, and run another short ethernet cable from that 2nd box to your pc.

With the modern miracle of 'magic,' your internet connection will be sent over the powerlines of your house from your router to your pc. Hence the term powerline adapter.

I have been using one of these for a couple years now, and the difference from wi-fi is night and day. No more random drops, no more weird ping/latency spikes. Just a fairly stable connection and solid speed, even though my connection isnt the fastest by any means.

The only consideration is if you have an old home (something that was built pre-1950's lets say) or live in an apartment complex. If you dont fall into those 2 categories, check this technology out.

 

[Deleted member 387850]

I don't want to burst the bubble here, but a wired connection will not necessarily fix this issue anyway.

I did worry that might be the case! I'll try the wired route anyway as it's one less thing to worry about, but I'm not so sure it's going to be an instant fix.

If you have a significant other, make sure they don't watch Netflix while you race

I did ask afterwards if anyone in the house was streaming, but apparently not. That said, there are so many devices in the house these days any number of them could have been downloading updates in the background. Might be time to consider getting a router I can throttle the bandwidth on

BTW, for the record, I also did experience some oddities during yesterday's practice if I remember correctly.

I'm really hoping that it was just an off night and there were some funny things going on. I watched some of PresidentSmug's stream and my name seems to be floating up near the front of the grid when it should have been at the back, and then jumps into the pitlane before the lights go out.

@suspectmonkey One thing that might be worth looking into is something called a "Powerline Adapter."

I think I might have a pair of powerline adapters knocking around somewhere but hadn't thought to try them! I'll keep them handy for the next race and if I'm having issues on wifi I'll swap to them to see if it improves things.

Thanks for all the replies and suggestions, hopefully I'll get it sorted soon