Unplayable lag for one player when two playing in same house

@mexpierate said in Unplayable lag for one player when two playing in same house:

I can play Sea of Thieves just fine and so can my girlfriend when playing solo but since last week when we try to play together one of us will get ridiculous amounts of lag making it completely unplayable whilst the other has no problems at all - both running on PC via the same internet connection.

I have no idea where to start and can't find anything even remotely useful as far as suggested fixes - has anyone else experienced similar issues?

If you leave and join different sessions have you saw any improvement? Any time we get lag we just reload and usually we end up in a better session. Just thought I would throw that out there.

My wife and I play the game together without issue. A number of things could be happening. My hypothesis is it is that your router is probably not quite configured properly for this scenario. A lot has to be right to make it work as intended. If one or both of you are playing via Xbox then start by using the Test Multiplayer Connection option and see what the results are. Or connect both directly using an Ethernet cable to your router. If that works then your wireless is the culprit.

Thanks all for your input so far, much appreciated.

Just to clarify a few things - we are both connecting with a wireless connection.

I am seeing download speeds around 25-30Mbps which should be more than sufficient.

It alternates which one of us is having issues, today I couldn't even leave the tavern after logging in whilst she has zero issues, yesterday I was fine and she was jumping all over the place.

We were both playing together absolutely fine until last Thursday and have had 4 different occasions where we have experienced this issue.

Have restarted the router multiple times, restarted PCs, with both of us inviting to game to no effect.

The router is less than 6 months old and performs with zero issues on any other application.

No settings have changed between having no issues and being completely unable to play together.

I have been playing just fine in Galleon groups with other players from all over the world for hours on end on a daily basis, issues only arise when we both join a game together.

I agree that it has the hallmarks of a router issue and I'll see if I can find an RJ45 to test a wired connection, but this isn't a viable long term solution and as the connection seems to be without issues anywhere else I don't really want to shell out on new hardware that shouldn't be needed.

@danqrl said in Unplayable lag for one player when two playing in same house:

@mexpierate those that sail together stay together 😉

We literally have this phrase (albeit "game" rather than "sail") framed and hanging on the wall between our PCs!

@mexpierate So she is getting better connection? Is she closer to your router? Are you in a high traffic area?(apt,condo, dorm etc)

@ve111a said in Unplayable lag for one player when two playing in same house:

@mexpierate So she is getting better connection? Is she closer to your router? Are you in a high traffic area?(apt,condo, dorm etc)

Today she is, yesterday I was - the router is in the same room, completely unobstructed, equidistant to each PC and only about 2m away. It's a detached house with just us living here, fairly dense residential area but I am only picking up one neighbouring wifi network.

@oxynator said in Unplayable lag for one player when two playing in same house:

just set a Quality of Service to both PC, so they will get the BW they need.

Thanks for the suggestion - I have to admit I don't really understand what you mean though - this is a windows setting somewhere?

@mexpierate It's a router setting. QoL and only if your router supports it and most routers that are from an isp do not. So it may not be wifi interference, I work for an ISP and the number one problem is wifi these days it's good in theory but HORRIBLE in practice. I'd see if you can get a ethernet cord to at least see if that helps, If it does I'd recommend getting a power line adapter that will give you a wired connection by borrowing the internal wiring already in the house so you don't have a giant cord all over the floor.

You could try changing the channel that your WiFi is broadcasting on, to one that will not catch interference from your neighbor's WiFi. But I sort of doubt that is going to be the cause of your issue. Some routers are just garbage, fresh out of the box. Personally, when it comes to networking gear, I go for Linksys.

I would do a hard-reset on your router (back to factory defaults), reboot both pc's, and try from there.

Here's a link to what oxynator was recommending: https://www.howtogeek.com/75660/the-beginners-guide-to-qos-on-your-router/

I don't think that's going to help much either, honestly, but just for future reference :)

A 20mbps connection speed is more than enough. If it's not an issue with your router, then it's possible that you don't have a stable connection to your ISP. You could try doing a traceroute, with both PC's connected to the game, and find where your problem is arising. Again, as others have said, I'd start at the router.

Assuming you're both wired (you should be in general) then it sounds like a port problem. Without going into too much detail, port forwarding could make this worse as you typically can only forward a specific port for one device at a time. What you need to do is most likely enable UPnP and that should solve your issues. Most likely not a bandwidth issue, and the only reason you should need a new router really is if there is something wrong with it or it doesn't support UPnP.

@roymachinez said in Unplayable lag for one player when two playing in same house:

Assuming you're both wired (you should be in general) then it sounds like a port problem. Without going into too much detail, port forwarding could make this worse as you typically can only forward a specific port for one device at a time. What you need to do is most likely enable UPnP and that should solve your issues. Most likely not a bandwidth issue, and the only reason you should need a new router really is if there is something wrong with it or it doesn't support UPnP.

I second this, UPNP is a necessary feature for essentially any online game tbh.

@logansdadtoo WiFi is only good for a smartphone really lol. I HATE wifi I spend a good part of my days dealing with it and explaining wifi interference. I can't use that for gaming especially.

I have been having horrible lag/juddering screen for the last few nights also.
Playing on xbox, great fibre broadband, no issue there, tried several servers each night and the issue continues after a while on each. I'm hoping the new patch will fix this. As it happened on 1.03 i think also for me.

Thanks again all, had a dig around at work and found a couple of 3m cat5 cables so fingers crossed that sorts it out.

@oxynator said in Unplayable lag for one player when two playing in same house:

@mexpierate sagte in Unplayable lag for one player when two playing in same house:

Thanks again all, had a dig around at work and found a couple of 3m cat5 cables so fingers crossed that sorts it out.

just Cat5? or S-FTP? i mean, cheep wire is cheep connection :)

It says: E188601-U UL TYPE CM 24AWG/4PRS LL84201 CSA TYPE CMG FT1 UTP ETL VERIFIEDTO EIA/TIA 568B CAT.5E

Whatever the hell all that means, just get home - connect it, speeds look good on both machines, load up SoT..... Maintenance, sigh.