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TwinkleStar
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

Wifi interference lag/unstability

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Is it possible to use extra data to stabilize my stadia play session? So that when there is wifi interference, my game doesn't hitch, lag, glitch, freeze, skip, interferes, interrupts, destabilizes.

I don't mind if the game is 120p resolution, I want to be able to stabilize my input/output stream latency.

Is it possible to request two identical wifi data stream reception, so that I always got garuanteed reception stability?

Or can I prioritize stability / latency-stability, over resolution, from my stadia game stream session in anyway possible?

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Best Response
JohnZoidberg
Gold Stadia Guide
Gold Stadia Guide

Hello @TwinkleStar 

Most of the issues you describe are caused by different forms of congestion – basically, one or more links are being asked to carry more data than they have capacity. Wireless interference is another form of congestion. Increasing the traffic load under these conditions exacerbates the problem. Instead, the Stadia "Streamer" component attempts to track the effective available bottleneck link capacity and preemptively reduces the bitrate (by shifting to a lower resolution or just using a lower quality level at the same resolution) when it detects a reduction. In general, this works pretty well, but if the link capacity is changing quickly, the Streamer may not always be able to react in time. This is a classic engineering tradeoff between maximizing quality and minimizing the probability of visible glitches. The Streamer is tuned to perform optimally under "typical" conditions. All of that said, I'm sure it's possible to improve the performance of the Streamer component, and I'm sure Google monitors how often the Streamer runs into trouble that ends up being visible to the user. 

Why not Zoidberg?

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4 Kudos
JohnZoidberg
Gold Stadia Guide
Gold Stadia Guide

It can be really frustrating to debug an issue like this. But, the fact that your speed tests at the time were consistent suggests it might be an issue deeper inside your ISP's network. On the other hand, you also said things got worse when other people's devices got closer to you, which suggests it's a local WiFi-specific problem. That could be any number of things, so let me just suggest a couple things to look at. First, do you have any wireless audio devices? In particular, non-Bluetooth systems like wireless surround sound systems, a sound bar with a wireless subwoofer, or wireless gaming headset. These can all use 5GHz WiFi in a way that interferes with nearby devices. When other people's devices come into the area, it just squeezes the system even harder.

Second, are you playing on an Apple device? A mac of some kind (macbook, macbook pro, iMac, mac mini, etc.) or an iPhone or iPad? Apple does some fancy stuff between their devices that uses the WiFi hardware in ways that don't impact buffered streams (like YouTube), but can definitely impact interactive streams like Stadia. Location Services is the big one, but there are also some device-to-device protocols (things like the shared clipboard between devices, etc.) that come into play as well. This may only happen when multiple devices are "awake" and near each other.

Why not Zoidberg?

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3 Kudos
JohnZoidberg
Gold Stadia Guide
Gold Stadia Guide

Hello @TwinkleStar 

It sounds like your WiFi network is more complicated than average. I'm really not a fan of WiFi extenders. They can work well enough for browsing and (buffered) streaming in some cases, but Stadia really needs a reliable network, and I worry that an extender isn't actually improving reliability in this case. I also noticed you mentioned using a Bluetooth gamepad. If your WiFi connection is also running at 2.4GHz, it will be competing with that Bluetooth connection, which won't be helping either. I would break things down to the simplest possible setup you can – even if it's only temporarily for testing. For example, if you can move your PC close enough to the WiFi router to get a direct 5GHz connection, see if that resolves the issue. If it does, you know the extender is what is causing problems. If it doesn't solve it, try connecting the PC to the router via Ethernet, which will remove WiFi from the equation entirely. If that solves the problem, you know you have more significant WiFi issues. If it doesn't solve it, you either have a more significant router issue, or a modem/internet connection issue that will need to be investigated. Based on the behavior you are describing, though, I suspect you'll find it's the WiFi, and most likely the extender.

Why not Zoidberg?

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8 Replies
JohnZoidberg
Gold Stadia Guide
Gold Stadia Guide

Hello @TwinkleStar 

Most of the issues you describe are caused by different forms of congestion – basically, one or more links are being asked to carry more data than they have capacity. Wireless interference is another form of congestion. Increasing the traffic load under these conditions exacerbates the problem. Instead, the Stadia "Streamer" component attempts to track the effective available bottleneck link capacity and preemptively reduces the bitrate (by shifting to a lower resolution or just using a lower quality level at the same resolution) when it detects a reduction. In general, this works pretty well, but if the link capacity is changing quickly, the Streamer may not always be able to react in time. This is a classic engineering tradeoff between maximizing quality and minimizing the probability of visible glitches. The Streamer is tuned to perform optimally under "typical" conditions. All of that said, I'm sure it's possible to improve the performance of the Streamer component, and I'm sure Google monitors how often the Streamer runs into trouble that ends up being visible to the user. 

Why not Zoidberg?
4 Kudos
TwinkleStar
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

Wow, thanks. This is a beautiful big picture view.

I guess a personal physical gaming console is always the best option for stability.

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JohnZoidberg
Gold Stadia Guide
Gold Stadia Guide

Heh. Well, I think I'd say a local console certainly has advantages – and disadvantages. Life is all about compromises.

Why not Zoidberg?
1 Kudo
TwinkleStar
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

Some extra detail here.

The strange thing is, I tried 720p at that moment, and I got the same "congestion" problems. And also the speed test showed ultra stable 14ms 150mbps.D 26mbps.U.

One phone was watching youtube. Another internet. Nothing was standing in between wifi and my computer, except a wall.

The rest was using another wifi emitter than me. Maybe there was congestion, I am not absolutely aware what other people are doing on their phone. But it really seemed like there was plenty of capacity left from the test. And the game session lagged the most when they came close to me. So their wifi was interfering with mine it seemed, when they came close.

This feels like it's more of a wifi signal interference, than actual capacity problem. Again, I tested during the lags, and the speed was all good. But what was stranger is, that everything was ultra stable. Which stadia did not reflect that speedtest results stability. Same for 1080p and 720p. There was speed, but no stability. 

And it seemed allot more like a congestion problem that you described. But then again, at the exact moment of the issue, speedtest.net shows ultra stable smooth consistent, 150 mbps. and 14ms. Now the latency stability was not tested. Maybe it has got something to do with that. 

And ultimately, I am way not an expert. lol

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JohnZoidberg
Gold Stadia Guide
Gold Stadia Guide

It can be really frustrating to debug an issue like this. But, the fact that your speed tests at the time were consistent suggests it might be an issue deeper inside your ISP's network. On the other hand, you also said things got worse when other people's devices got closer to you, which suggests it's a local WiFi-specific problem. That could be any number of things, so let me just suggest a couple things to look at. First, do you have any wireless audio devices? In particular, non-Bluetooth systems like wireless surround sound systems, a sound bar with a wireless subwoofer, or wireless gaming headset. These can all use 5GHz WiFi in a way that interferes with nearby devices. When other people's devices come into the area, it just squeezes the system even harder.

Second, are you playing on an Apple device? A mac of some kind (macbook, macbook pro, iMac, mac mini, etc.) or an iPhone or iPad? Apple does some fancy stuff between their devices that uses the WiFi hardware in ways that don't impact buffered streams (like YouTube), but can definitely impact interactive streams like Stadia. Location Services is the big one, but there are also some device-to-device protocols (things like the shared clipboard between devices, etc.) that come into play as well. This may only happen when multiple devices are "awake" and near each other.

Why not Zoidberg?
3 Kudos
TwinkleStar
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

Hmmm, this is indeed a unique issue. They came to my left watching youtube on a phone, and stadia completely bugged out. Today exact same issue... Maybe it's something about my wifi booster. I got a wifi booster.

No wireless devices active, except bluetooth xbox one gamepad controller connect to the pc. 

The wifi is a wifi booster, to the right. In between a wall. To my left, there can be people who come with a phone using another wifi transmitter, which is a bit further away to my back, to watch youtube. Whenever they come there with a phone, the stadia gameplay becomes completely laggy and even bugged. The sound goes out of sync with the video, after the lag happens, which is another issue that has been part of stadia since the beginning.

As I speak they are to my left, they are not even connected to my wifi. A different wifi. Yet when they come to my left, of my computer and a wall, my stadia session bugs. And as they are there now, I test my connection and I noticed, the connection capacity is a stable 120 mbps. But the latency is unstable. Went from 21 ms, and the more I test, the more I use data, the more the latency stabilizes down to 17 ms and 14 ms eventually. It seems like you say, there is a capacity calculation issue. 

They are using expensive new samsung mobile phones, so it may be that their phone is designed to request more capacity or request priority capacity. They are watching youtube movie on their phone. One person to my left. And one is connected via ethernet using a tiny bit of ps4 online gameplay, no download. The youtube watcher to my left uses most wifi obviously. Appart from me. And I got my own wifi receiver. Which is a booster. No idea how it works.

They plugged it to the wall via a power cable, and that's all there is to it. I'm not sure if it is an electricity net wifi extender that. Or how it works, as I used that one in the past aswell. I remember it had similar issue when people came close, not even using it, yet lagging stadia a bit, but not as bad as this one. I'm thinking of the signal distortion effect, the location might be the reason for the distortion, because it obviously has effect, as they move around with their phone, the stability of my play session shifts dramatically.

I wonder if 5g has less of this issue? I haven't tested it yet, but Steve Pearlman promoted cloud gaming by telling in 2012 that 5g would have zero wireless data transmittion interference. Infact, he claimed that it would have extra stability and speed the more people used it, in any given area/location. My 5g wifi hotspot from my phone, is 100% more stable for sure, but I haven't tried testing it with other 5g users nearby. And how it would affect the gameplay.

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Babaganuche7
Founder
Founder

Is it possible that your wifi channel is the same as the other connections around you? That causes almost all of my issues with stadia performance, it can't really be helped in my case as i'm in an apartment where every wifi channel is crowded.

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JohnZoidberg
Gold Stadia Guide
Gold Stadia Guide

Hello @TwinkleStar 

It sounds like your WiFi network is more complicated than average. I'm really not a fan of WiFi extenders. They can work well enough for browsing and (buffered) streaming in some cases, but Stadia really needs a reliable network, and I worry that an extender isn't actually improving reliability in this case. I also noticed you mentioned using a Bluetooth gamepad. If your WiFi connection is also running at 2.4GHz, it will be competing with that Bluetooth connection, which won't be helping either. I would break things down to the simplest possible setup you can – even if it's only temporarily for testing. For example, if you can move your PC close enough to the WiFi router to get a direct 5GHz connection, see if that resolves the issue. If it does, you know the extender is what is causing problems. If it doesn't solve it, try connecting the PC to the router via Ethernet, which will remove WiFi from the equation entirely. If that solves the problem, you know you have more significant WiFi issues. If it doesn't solve it, you either have a more significant router issue, or a modem/internet connection issue that will need to be investigated. Based on the behavior you are describing, though, I suspect you'll find it's the WiFi, and most likely the extender.

Why not Zoidberg?
0 Kudos