Warframe is killing my internet connection

[lavium]

So, after days of troubleshooting with my ISP I realized that Warframe is killing my internet.

 

I'm playing on a PC, installed Warframe through steam. Drivers are fully updated. What happens? When warframe is open the entire internet connection for the house drops to nearly nothing, or even dies completely. Not just for me, but for everyone connected to the router. It happens whether or not the firewall on the router is enabled. It does not happen with any other game or program.

 

Here are some speedtest.net screenshots of "With warframe open" and "Without warframe open" taken 1 minute apart. I tried this multiple times. It happens when the warframe launcher is open, the login screen is open, or I'm in the game itself.

 

Here is with the warframe launcher, client (at the login screen), or in game:

 

 

And here is when warframe is closed. I tested this multiple times.

 

 

 

Any suggestions?

[kgabor]

Warframe is the kind of game where you're hosting the game sessions p2p, so it's just logical it puts more pressure on your connection. (i'm not an expert nerd though :D, so i might be wrong)

If you merely have the game opened at the login screen, that's another thing though.

At that time, the client shouldn't have any updates queued or sessions running.

[lavium]

38 minutes ago, kgabor said:

Warframe is the kind of game where you're hosting the game sessions p2p, so it's just logical it puts more pressure on your connection. (i'm not an expert nerd though 😄, so i might be wrong)

If you merely have the game opened at the login screen, that's another thing though.

At that time, the client shouldn't have any updates queued or sessions running.

 

Yea, it doesn't seem to matter if I'm in a game map, in the orbiter alone, at the login screen, or merely have the launcher open (not downloading). Just having any part of the warframe application open is enough to completely throttle my household internet.

I forgot to add that my ISP has already replaced the router in an attempt to find the solution (before I realized it was Warframe), with no effect. 

[Morthal]

I'd expect the latency to be affected, more than the download speeds. The packet size for P2P is not going to reach the 75mbps in bandwidth, that your test is showing. Could be your ISP throttling the service, when it connects to Warframe. COX cable does this every day at 4:50pm regardless of running applications, thanks to our loss of net neutrality laws.

[Hobie-wan]

The real test would be doing a speed test from a different PC while you have Warframe open. If it's making a big impact, it's probably more likely it's just chocking your particular PC, not the whole connection. Obviously it will affect it as there's data being sent and received, that's why speed test sites tell you to make sure nothing else is going on.

[Mechsage]

one thing you can do is connect the computer to an Ethernet port and see if it still causes the speed drop otherwise doing a speed test from a different computer would be a good place to start as there are A Lot of things that can effect wifi connections beyond just the modem or router. Also did the ISP replace the router or just the modem as some ISP's don't supply you with both and not all modems are routers in other words do you have an external router or is it an all-in-one device?

Edited December 1, 2018 by Mechsage

[lavium]

 

9 hours ago, Mechsage said:

one thing you can do is connect the computer to an Ethernet port and see if it still causes the speed drop otherwise doing a speed test from a different computer would be a good place to start as there are A Lot of things that can effect wifi connections beyond just the modem or router. Also did the ISP replace the router or just the modem as some ISP's don't supply you with both and not all modems are routers in other words do you have an external router or is it an all-in-one device?

It's an all-in-one router. With Warframe via Wifi on my laptop, the speedtest on my desktop has the same issues.

I tried Warframe on the same laptop with a wired connection (not Wifi) and the problems disappeared completely. Overall speeds stayed what they were supposed to be. So you're right that the problem is Wifi-related.

What is weird to me is that Warframe via Wifi kills internet for every other connected device (wired AND wifi). In other words, I set up a ping to google.com on my desktop and it responds with <20ms pings constantly. I launch Warframe via wifi from my laptop and within minutes the desktop pings are dropping about 5-20% of all packets. My wife's laptop has the same issue. Why would it do this for Wifi connections and not wired connections? This happens firewall on/off, ports forwarded or not.

[lavium]

On 2018-11-29 at 6:06 PM, Morthal said:

I'd expect the latency to be affected, more than the download speeds. The packet size for P2P is not going to reach the 75mbps in bandwidth, that your test is showing. Could be your ISP throttling the service, when it connects to Warframe. COX cable does this every day at 4:50pm regardless of running applications, thanks to our loss of net neutrality laws.

I suppose it's possible that the ISP throttles the entire internet connection for the house. I'm in Europe so we still have net neutrality, thank god. I just don't understand why it would work wired but not wifi. It's not like my wifi speeds are terrible.

[Mechsage]

16 hours ago, lavium said:

I suppose it's possible that the ISP throttles the entire internet connection for the house. I'm in Europe so we still have net neutrality, thank god. I just don't understand why it would work wired but not wifi. It's not like my wifi speeds are terrible.

Its not Throttling if you get good speeds when hardwired into the modem, based on what you've said it sounds like its the modems wifi network that's at fault I would recommend you check your wifi network settings in the modem and make sure the right ports are opened or better yet buy a better modem instead of what your ISP gives you

[--RV--Dopekoke]

On 2018-11-29 at 10:06 AM, Morthal said:

I'd expect the latency to be affected, more than the download speeds. The packet size for P2P is not going to reach the 75mbps in bandwidth, that your test is showing. Could be your ISP throttling the service, when it connects to Warframe. COX cable does this every day at 4:50pm regardless of running applications, thanks to our loss of net neutrality laws.

Yeah I hate COX but its the only company in my apartment area while the other is CenturyLink and I dislike CenturyLink more.

[lavium]

4 hours ago, Mechsage said:

Its not Throttling if you get good speeds when hardwired into the modem, based on what you've said it sounds like its the modems wifi network that's at fault I would recommend you check your wifi network settings in the modem and make sure the right ports are opened or better yet buy a better modem instead of what your ISP gives you

Given that they did replace the router/modem once already, I'm reluctant to try a third device. Any suggestions on settings to check?

[Daemonjax]

It's most likely to be an issue with your router -- it can't handle the peer2peer traffic.

To test it, try downloading a legal torrent using a client like qbittorrent -- something with a lot of peers and seeds... I dunno, like a ubuntu linux os installation cd/dvd.  If that's the problem, you should see something very similar happen. 

If you suspect your ISP is severely throttling p2p traffic, I would just ask them and I think they have to tell you -- if you suspect they're lying, the only way to test is to encrypt your traffic over vpn -- I think you can get a free trial account for expressvpn to test that.  BUT traffic shaping should not affect other internet packets on the same pc or other computers on the same network.  That's why I think it's the router -- that router make/model is probably just a cheap piece of crap because this is exactly what happens on crap routers that aren't necessarily actually defective in any way.

Edited December 2, 2018 by Daemonjax
stuff

[Mechsage]

the ISP "should" be able to tell you if they throttle p2p "yes" provided the Rep knows enough about the service and where to look to get the answer that is...

Your better off checking the settings in the router itself either changing the wifi channels or seeing if there is any setting that may be causing the issue such as your Ports and what not your ISP tech support should know enough to guide you through the basics but you may need to google some more advanced trouble shooting steps.

[lavium]

Thanks for your help so far guys.

Tried the same thing at an internet cafe. I get 300 Mbps wireless up and down with no warframe. Launch warframe and I'm at 0.15. They tell me it's a different ISP. I can download linux distros at around 7-10+ Mbps on wifi at home via torrents with no change in speedtests. They don't throttle torrents.

The only thing I haven't tried is another laptop (since I don't have one) over wifi. I'd have to find someone willing to install the launcher on their laptop, which is not particularly practical. I can try changing the Wifi channels, I suppose.