Hey there, in the past week I’ve noticed my steam deck having way more issues with rubber-banding while playing online multiplayer games. I tested the same games on a laptop and no issues there. The steam deck is up to date as well. Any other ideas where I can check to see what might be causing this issue?
First, I would go to packetlosstest.com on your deck in desktop mode and see if it shows any issues. They have some game presets you can pick to hopefully test network connections similar to what you’re having issues with.
Once you have a baseline test of how your internet is performing, some basic things to try to improve it are:
- Reboot deck and wifi router.
- Switch between 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz
- Try playing closer to the router and see if the lag goes away.
- Disable the wifi power management setting on the deck
Even if nothing has changed with the Deck and router, it’s possible another device in the house is causing interference, especially on 2.4Ghz networks. If the problem is something else causing interference, it can be really confusing to troubleshoot from the network side of things because the problems will be very intermittent.
frosch@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Just a wild guess: are you using the 5ghz or 2.4ghz Wifi? 5ghz is way faster but very fidgety with larger distance to the router, walls in the way or other routers nearby.
So, maybe you can troubleshoot your way out:
Good luck!
ClassyHatter@sopuli.xyz 4 weeks ago
Another good network troubleshooting step is to simply restart the router by unplugging the power cable for 30 or so seconds. It can fix many network related issues with little to no effort and is good practice for security reasons as well. (Restarting the router will effectively close any malware running in router and as long as the router doesn’t start them again after restart, you’ll be safe until your router is again compromised.)
Have you recently moved the router to new location or moved objects around the router? Check the router’s environment for any metal objects. They can cause significant interference. And then there are dead spots. Regardless where inside a building you place Wi-Fi access point, somewhere within its range there is most likely at least one spot where the signal cancels itself.
If the router’s location or “gaming location” has not changed, the reason most likely is that the channel used by the router has become congested. For both 2.4GHz and 5GHz there are recommended channels one should use, and you should choose the one that is least used around you. There are no tools for iOS devices that can help with that because Apple has locked down the required functionality, so use either computer or Android.
5GHz is better for gaming due to better latency. But if you can’t play close enough to the router, 2.4GHz might provide more stable connection.
sleepingoddish@lemmy.zip 4 weeks ago
Hi, no the router has not been moved recently. With the way this place has been built there aren’t many good places to put the gateway. I got an extender too but that doesn’t seem to help. What program do you recommend for the computer to see how congested these two bands are?
sleepingoddish@lemmy.zip 4 weeks ago
Thanks, I’ll force the steam deck to only use the 2.4ghz band with this wifi and see how that works out. This place put the gateway connection in one corner and I’m on the other side of the house.