Need help configuring Intel 82574L NIC for better performance

Hardcore · Post by **Hardcore** » Wed Feb 15, 2017 8:13 am

On my all other PCs for last ~8 years I always played on external PCI network cards, they always worked better than integrated ones, even considering integrated worked 'just fine'.

But now I bought motherboard without PCI slots, so I had to buy new PCI-e network card. So I bought Intel 82574L CT Gigabit Desktop Network Adapter(PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_10D3&SUBSYS_A01F8086&REV_00) to play video games. Integrated NIC on this new motherboard works just fine, but you can always do better than default or integrated.

Here's screens of technologies available to me in NIC's control panel:
http://i.imgur.com/qmfuiTc.png
http://i.imgur.com/n4w9t8y.png

I don't use any kinds of VPNs, routers, modems, etc. Cable goes directly into network commutator of ISP(I believe it's Cisco unless they changed it). If model will make a difference on settings, tell me and I'll get the exact model of the network commutator of ISP. My ISP using DHCP to configure network. I get dedicated dynamic(it's different every time I reconnect) white IP address, so I can setup a server on my PC.

Values of properties:

Adaptive Inter-Frame Spacing: Disabled
Flow Control: Rx & Tx Enabled
Gigabit Master Slave Mode: Auto Detect
Interrupt Moderation: Enabled
Interrupt Moderation Rate: Adaptive(other possible values: off, minimal, low, medium, high, extreme)
IPv4 Checksum Offload: Rx & Tx Enabled
Jumbo Packet: Disabled
Large Send Offload V2(IPv4): Enabled
Large Send Offload V2(IPv6): Enabled
Locally Administered Address: Not Present
Log Link State Event: Enabled
Maximum Number of RSS Queues: 2 Queues
Packet Priority & VLAN: Packet Priority & VLAN Enabled
Receiver Buffers: 256(minimum value is 80, max - 2048)
Receive Side Scaling: Enabled
Speed & Duplex: Auto Negotiation(works in 100 MB Full Duplex mode)
TCP Checksum Offload (IPv4): Rx & Tx Enabled
TCP Checksum Offload (IPv6): Rx & Tx Enabled
Transmit Buffers: 512(minimum value is 80, max - 2048)
UDP Checksum Offload (IPv4): Rx & Tx Enabled
UDP Checksum Offload (IPv6): Rx & Tx Enabled
Wait for Link: Auto Detect

And there are more properties in TCP Optimizer(and who knows how many more you can tweak in registry manually):
http://i.imgur.com/PyzTZCx.png
http://i.imgur.com/kEwc4ss.png

Screenshoted values above are defaults for all of the properties.

I tried to read descriptions about these technologies but unfortunately I am unable to set proper values for all of these properties. I don't know how to test those values and when I tweak all of them, sometimes it works faster than default, sometimes slower. I measure it by how fast I get confirmation of a kill in video games such as CS:GO or Insurgency. I also tried to read different guides on the internet and different people suggest to turn off or turn on the exact same properties of NIC, they also explain and both explanations make sense, so I am completely lost what values should I set for these properties.

It would be nice if there was some program to monitor packets and then by seeing how many packets there are, what are sizes of these packets, etc., one could determine proper settings for these properties.

Could someone help me to set proper values for these properties, guys? If you need any other info, don't hesitate to ask, I'll provide as many info as I can. If you know some articles and programs which can help me to determine proper values, please post them here.

Thanks in advance, gurus!

Post by **Philip** » Thu Feb 16, 2017 10:20 am

Check out this article, specifically for optimizing Network Adapters, with each setting explained: http://www.speedguide.net/articles/netw ... ation-3449

For Gaming, you may also want to look over the gaming tweaks, specifically the last "Advanced Concepts" section, it deals with general ideas about TCP Offloads, etc. that can also be found in the NIC settings: http://www.speedguide.net/articles/gaming-tweaks-5812

I hope this helps.

As far as testing each of those, it may be hard to do, and unnecessary.

Here's what I would change, just a quick look through them, there is more info in the linked articles:

Adaptive Inter-Frame Spacing: Disabled
Flow Control: Rx & Tx: Enabled <-- disable - can reduce timeouts and improve throghput, some buggy drivers/implementations too
Gigabit Master Slave Mode: Auto Detect
Interrupt Moderation: Enabled <-- disable for a bit lower latency
Interrupt Moderation Rate: Adaptive(other possible values: off, minimal, low, medium, high, extreme) <-- off
IPv4 Checksum Offload: Rx & Tx Enabled
Jumbo Packet: Disabled <-- you can enable this to impvove local LAN throughput with Gigabit switches, not necessary though
Large Send Offload V2(IPv4): Enabled <-- disable
Large Send Offload V2(IPv6): Enabled <-- disable
Locally Administered Address: Not Present
Log Link State Event: Enabled <-- disable - you don't need to log it ?
Maximum Number of RSS Queues: 2 Queues
Packet Priority & VLAN: Packet Priority & VLAN Enabled <-- may be used by WMM/QoS..
Receiver Buffers: 256(minimum value is 80, max - 2048)
Receive Side Scaling: Enabled
Speed & Duplex: Auto Negotiation(works in 100 MB Full Duplex mode) why doesn't it work in Gigabit mode ? Maybe the switch/router doesn't have Gigabit ports, just an observation
TCP Checksum Offload (IPv4): Rx & Tx Enabled
TCP Checksum Offload (IPv6): Rx & Tx Enabled
Transmit Buffers: 512(minimum value is 80, max - 2048) <-- this can be reduced to 256 to reduce buffering for gaming, not that important
UDP Checksum Offload (IPv4): Rx & Tx Enabled
UDP Checksum Offload (IPv6): Rx & Tx Enabled
Wait for Link: Auto Detect

Hardcore · Post by **Hardcore** » Thu Feb 16, 2017 10:55 am

Philip wrote:Check out this article, specifically for optimizing Network Adapters, with each setting explained: http://www.speedguide.net/articles/netw ... ation-3449

For Gaming, you may also want to look over the gaming tweaks, specifically the last "Advanced Concepts" section, it deals with general ideas about TCP Offloads, etc. that can also be found in the NIC settings: http://www.speedguide.net/articles/gaming-tweaks-5812

I hope this helps.

Yes, thanks. I've read these two and when I apply all of them, hitreg in games become worse: visually I have to wait longer to see ragdoll of a player after headshotting him once and it also just makes hitreg worse, so I miss more of my shots. I don't know how to prove it, though.

Philip wrote:As far as testing each of those, it may be hard to do, and unnecessary.

I was thinking about this kind of test:
[video]https://youtu.be/MPTwGSrjsgo?t=48s[/video]

To see where hitboxes move relatively to a player model when you change different settings.
And also latency tests, to see how fast you get ragdoll after headshotting a player.
But it would be nice to have some kind of software to also see everything in numbers, so it's not just about you seeing, it's also about numbers which you can count on. But I don't even know what parameters I want to track(not ping, that's for sure).

Philip wrote:Here's what I would change, just a quick look through them, there is more info in the linked articles:

Adaptive Inter-Frame Spacing: Disabled
Flow Control: Rx & Tx: Enabled <-- disable - can reduce timeouts and improve throghput, some buggy drivers/implementations too
Gigabit Master Slave Mode: Auto Detect
Interrupt Moderation: Enabled <-- disable for a bit lower latency
Interrupt Moderation Rate: Adaptive(other possible values: off, minimal, low, medium, high, extreme) <-- off
IPv4 Checksum Offload: Rx & Tx Enabled
Jumbo Packet: Disabled <-- you can enable this to impvove local LAN throughput with Gigabit switches, not necessary though
Large Send Offload V2(IPv4): Enabled <-- disable
Large Send Offload V2(IPv6): Enabled <-- disable
Locally Administered Address: Not Present
Log Link State Event: Enabled <-- disable - you don't need to log it ?
Maximum Number of RSS Queues: 2 Queues
Packet Priority & VLAN: Packet Priority & VLAN Enabled <-- may be used by WMM/QoS..
Receiver Buffers: 256(minimum value is 80, max - 2048)
Receive Side Scaling: Enabled
Speed & Duplex: Auto Negotiation(works in 100 MB Full Duplex mode) why doesn't it work in Gigabit mode ? Maybe the switch/router doesn't have Gigabit ports, just an observation
TCP Checksum Offload (IPv4): Rx & Tx Enabled
TCP Checksum Offload (IPv6): Rx & Tx Enabled
Transmit Buffers: 512(minimum value is 80, max - 2048) <-- this can be reduced to 256 to reduce buffering for gaming, not that important
UDP Checksum Offload (IPv4): Rx & Tx Enabled
UDP Checksum Offload (IPv6): Rx & Tx Enabled
Wait for Link: Auto Detect

Yes, thanks a bunch for these, I'll try to change these settings one by one to see how they affect my hitreg. Most of the time I see people suggest to turn off Interrupt Moderation(I understand it doesn't matter what you set in Interrupt Moderation Rate if Interrupt Moderation is set to off?). So I turned Interrupt Moderation off and it did decrease latency, indeed. I can tell the difference even by just seeing with my eyes that I get ragdoll faster after pressing LMB and headshotting a player compared to default.

I guess that's 2 things that really matter when you play video games(in terms of hitreg): how fast you get feedback about hitting someone after you pressed LMB and how close actual hitboxes of other player are to a model which you actually see on your screen.