Controller input lag over wifi

[swifty338]

I am experiencing a tremendous amount of input lag using the stadia controller over wifi.

I have nest wifi in dmz plus mode with att fiber.  The funny thing is that when I use the wifi with my isp provided gateway, I do not experience the input lag.

My network is as follows:

att gateway > nest wifi > unmanaged switch > three cable runs to various hardwired devices to include two additional google wifi nodes with a wired backhaul.  

When my controller is wired to a laptop or phone, there is no input lag.  It seems to solely exist on my nest wifi.

I have scoured various forums and have seen similar cases but no real solution other than to use my isps gateway.  Which I should say is far from ideal considering I am using a lot of google hardware hear that should work well.  

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[codesplice]

@swifty338 I'm not familiar with "dmz plus" mode. Is that on the Nest Wifi or your ISP gateway? Does your ISP gateway broadcast on the same SSID as the Nest Wifis? Do both the ISP gateway and Nest Wifis occupy the same IP space?

It sounds like there are a lot of pieces to your network setup so it might take a little bit to untangle it and figure out what's going on so please bear with me.

[Quinic]

I don't think there's a lot to his network. Less to his than there is mine, actually. 

The ISP gateway has the DMZ mode. This is basically a setting that tells the Gateway to leave the packets alone that are heading to the Nest WiFi.

The Nest WiFi doesn't have such a setting (as a matter of fact, it has very little settings).

The Nest WiFi also only has two2 RJ45 ports on it. One for the internet connection, which he has plugged in. And the other he has plugged into a switch, which only has three devices on it. I'm going to guess one is the CCU, one is a video game console (I'm going with PS4), and the last is the backhaul for the Nest Point he has (he mentioned he has a mesh setup, as he mentioned he has two other points for his WiFi).

He most likely has the AT&T provided WiFi turned off, so no SSID is being broadcast. The Nest WiFi problem has some clever SSID being broadcast, like, "I choose you Charizard", and it's the only device broadcasting it. 

Am I close?

[swifty338]

It is a setting on the Att Pace gateway.  My gateway is not used for wifi at this time.  It is turned off.  I only use nest wifi for wifi.  

DMZ plus is a mode which is supposed to essential allow one device connected to the gateway to be exposed to the internet with no firewall.  I gave the nest wifi this feature considering the nest wifi can shield my network from intrusion itself.  

I recently had some success resetting the firewall settings manually on my gateway.  That eliminates the lag for a time.  But it eventually returns and I have to reset the firewall settings again.

[codesplice]

@swifty338 Do the gateway and Nest Wifi share the same IP space? Or are they on different subnets?

Does the gateway offer a "bridge" mode so that all the NAT/DHCP can be handled directly by the Nest Wifi? 

[swifty338]

I'm not really sure.  How would I find out?

[Quinic]

I know the answer to this one. The gateway does not provide a bridge mode. The best it has to offers is the DMZ setting. If you leave the DMZ off, you get into a double NAT problem with the Nest WiFi (anything put in the DMZ zone is also not affected by the DHCP server of the gateway). Although, it's not really that big of a problem if you don't turn it on (although, if you have an XBox connected to it, it will complain).

By default, the AT&T gateway uses the 192.168.1.1 range. The Nest WiFi defaults to 192.168.86.20 - .250

[codesplice]

@Quinic Thanks for the added details there! It's good to know that the gateway's DMZ feature also disables DHCP for devices in that zone.

[Quinic]

Does this video show what is happening to you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfEU2a3TcqQ

The common factor I've noticed is that it's AT&T. Pace 5268AC modem/router seems to be a common factor in this problem. The only fix that seems to keep coming up is to use the AT&T provided WiFi for the joysticks. I have not tried this yet... but maybe I will. I too wish that this wasn't the case.

I have been wanting to swap the Pace for an Arris NVG599 or BGW-210 to see if those perform better (they have a better bridge mode, apparently).

One thing that I have noticed that will work for a couple days is to do a factory reset on the 5268AC. Although, that does get old.

[swifty338]

Yes.  That is exactly the type of thing that happens to me.  I have found that if you just reset the firewall settings the lag goes away.  I don't have to reset the whole gateway. 

I have seen similar info about the other gateways having a better passthrough mode. 

[Quinic]

I'll have to try just resetting the firewall then.

Although, sometimes it takes a LONG time for the settings page to load.

[Quinic]

One thing that I have found is that Google is of no help for this issue... and neither is most of the community.

They keep trying to fix the lag at the TV... turn on game mode, hard wire the CCU, turn off local dimming... grr. The problem does seem to be in within the Pace 5268AC. I was thinking about trying a Static IP to see if that fixes it. You can actually do a real bridge mode that way (from my understanding).

[Quinic]

Sorry to spam this thread... but also check out this thread: https://community.stadia.com/t5/The-Stadia-Controller/Stadia-Controller-Latency-Buffering-over-Wi-Fi...

Espeically the last post by RyudenPhoenix.

This is the thread started by the guy that posted that video.

[Quinic]

Fixed it. Had to bug AT&T over and over, and have them send modem after modem... but eventually, I got them to replace the Pace 5268AC modem with an Arris BGW210.

After that, the issue went away. I did put the Arriss in it's version of bridge mode to avoid a double NAT, but Stadia worked fine without having to do that.

So... TLDR... get rid of the Pace.