Looking for help with TCP optimizer

tobiaslk · Post by **tobiaslk** » Thu Mar 31, 2016 4:47 pm

Hello how should I configure the optimizer for improved gaming experience in cs:go and league of legends? I'm thinking getting the network as responsive as possible. I have tried disabling nagle's algorithm but found it not improving my experience in these games.

Any answears are very appreciated.

Post by **Philip** » Thu Mar 31, 2016 5:57 pm

If possible, use wired instead of wireless network for gaming.
Check out the Gaming Tweaks article here - http://www.speedguide.net/articles/gaming-tweaks-5812 Many of the tweaks can be applied using the TCP Optimizer.
Also, you may want to look at the two links at the end for LAN and NIC optimizations.

I hope this helps.

tobiaslk · Post by **tobiaslk** » Thu Mar 31, 2016 7:24 pm

Philip wrote:If possible, use wired instead of wireless network for gaming.
Check out the Gaming Tweaks article here - http://www.speedguide.net/articles/gaming-tweaks-5812 Many of the tweaks can be applied using the TCP Optimizer.
Also, you may want to look at the two links at the end for LAN and NIC optimizations.

I hope this helps.

Thanks for the quick reply. I am kind of lost in this tool. I dont really know what to change (I see the recommended settings when i hoover with my mouse). However I don't really know what would affect my game so much

I'm looking to make the system as responsive as possible, I have also disabled interrupt moderation in network apter and disabled netwodark throttling and set system responsiveness to 0. In the TCP optimizer I have disabled windows scaling heuristics and set congestion contol provider to ctcp. I have also disabled DCA (dono if this is correct) I ahve also enabled NetDMA and enabled receive side scaling, also i have disabled ECN capability and in the tcp 1323 box i have checked the windows scaling box. Would any of these changes make sense? And if so would there be others that would help me aswell?

best,
tobias

Post by **Philip** » Fri Apr 01, 2016 9:29 am

I would turn off NetDMA, and in general, for gaming you should turn off any type of "TCP Offloads" in the Network Card settings.

tobiaslk · Post by **tobiaslk** » Fri Apr 01, 2016 9:33 am

Philip wrote:I would turn off NetDMA, and in general, for gaming you should turn off any type of "TCP Offloads" in the Network Card settings.

Thanks, I have started reading the TCP Optimizer 4 Documentation article and i'm slowly learning stuff aswell. Thanks for the reply man and I just wanna say that all this work you have put into this site is amazing, thanks for doing this for all of us

Post by **Philip** » Fri Apr 01, 2016 9:46 am

Np, thanks for the nice words, we try

tobiaslk · Post by **tobiaslk** » Fri Apr 01, 2016 4:01 pm

A last thing, I have disabled NetDMA (TCPA). However when I click apply changes and look at the default settings for TCPA there is nothing there. Does that mean I cant use NetDMA (TCPA) in my system in the first place?

Thanks in advance,

Tobias

Post by **Philip** » Fri Apr 01, 2016 4:36 pm

Some of the settings that are not read at program start will show up as blank in newer OSes. This is intentional, as those settings may be network adapter specific, for example (you can have multiple network adapters with different settings), etc.

Still, you can apply them using the program.

tobiaslk · Post by **tobiaslk** » Mon Apr 04, 2016 4:43 am

Hey again

I'm back with a new question, I have these options in my network adapter: ARP Offload, Large send offload v2 (IPv4) and (IPv6), NS Offload, TCP Checksum Offload (IPv4) and (IPv6), UDP Checksum Offload (IPv4) and (IPv6). Which one of these offloads do you recommend disabling for gaming?

Best regards,
Tobias

Post by **Philip** » Tue Apr 05, 2016 7:07 pm

You should disable most TCP/UDP offloads for gaming (except maybe Checksum offloads, if you have a good dedicated/quality/brand name network adapter). Other offloads usually wait before sending/receiving packets aggregating fragments at the network adapter, adding processing time and causing slight delay which is bad for gaming.

tobiaslk · Post by **tobiaslk** » Sat Apr 09, 2016 8:29 pm

Hey again

I'm wondering also if changing the UDP packet size could potentially help responsiveness in gaming. Saw this tweak in the advanced tweaking article. I'm thinking that making the packets smaller could potentially help, dono if this is correct tho.

Cheers,
Tobias

Post by **Philip** » Sun Apr 10, 2016 10:37 am

Theoretically, smaller packets travel faster, however the overhead is bigger (percentage of actual payload is reduced vs. headers, etc.). You can experiment with it, but in most cases the difference is not noticeable.

tobiaslk · Post by **tobiaslk** » Sun Apr 10, 2016 11:39 pm

Hey again

I couldnt find the registry location, maybe because I use windows 7 atm. Hmm would there be any other way to change this value?

Post by **Philip** » Mon Apr 11, 2016 10:36 am

You should be able to do it with the TCP Optimizer... Or in command prompt:

1. Get to elevated command prompt (admin)
2. type: netsh int ipv4 show subinterface (to get a list of available network adapters)
3. type: netsh int ipv4 set subinterface "Local Area Connection" mtu=1430 store=persistent (for example... if you want the MTU to be 1430 for the network adapter named "Local Area Connection")
4. After hitting ENTER and rebooting, it should remain the same, you can test with the first command above.

tobiaslk · Post by **tobiaslk** » Mon Apr 11, 2016 3:15 pm

Thanks for the answear man

i'm a bit of a noob atm with all this, hopefully ill be better at this soon

tobiaslk · Post by **tobiaslk** » Tue Apr 26, 2016 5:28 pm

Hey again.

I have been browsing the internet for more tweaks and found some people talking about changing receive buffers tweak in network adapter properties, they say that lowering this from it's default value will help responsiveness in gaming, however that it will increase cpu usage.
Will most likely try it but could this be a good tweak?

Best,
Tobias

Post by **Philip** » Tue Apr 26, 2016 7:46 pm

Try and let us know

I haven't noticed any difference either way personally, but, in theory it makes some sense. Any type of buffering would reduce CPU usage and responsiveness, that's why we recommend disabling most types of "offloads" in the network adapter for gaming.

tobiaslk · Post by **tobiaslk** » Wed Apr 27, 2016 12:20 pm

Hey, i have tried it now for a period and it seems like the tradeoff is too much for me. On one hand I feel llike I might get some responsiveness from lowering it but I cant really cope with my cpu beeing slower, that beeing said I have a fx 4350 amd and perhaps someone with a better cpu would find the increased cpu usage not as impactful, so did I notice a difference? Perhaps, i'm actually not quite sure because of the slower cpu. So I also tried lowering my mtu and found that for me it didnt affect anything in a very good way, I will probably end up using the default value of 1500.

Cheers,
tobias

tobiaslk · Post by **tobiaslk** » Sun May 01, 2016 7:59 am

Hey

I'm trying to keep this thread alive because it is important to me. I have recently tried disableing netDMA and it seems like I play alot worse in cs:go with it being off. How can this be? I have experimented with it alot and when it is off I just dont play as good as in I dont hit alot of headshots or shots at all for that matter. However in Leagueoflegends I notice that my abilities go off faster when it is disbled. This is kinda strange to me. And I want to ask too if disabeling chimney offload in cmd is recommended?

Cheers

Post by **Philip** » Mon May 02, 2016 8:39 am

NetDMA is designed to reduce CPU load by giving direct memory access (DMA) to the network adapter. It must be supported by the BIOS, CPU (Intell I/O Acceleration Technology - I/OAT). It is fine to enable it, however, according to Microsoft it is not supported in Windows 8/8.1/10. See: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/librar ... S.85).aspx

Chimney Offload (and any other type of TCP Offload, other than checksum offloads) should generally be disabled for gaming. Chimney offload can't be used together with NetDMA either, you have to choose one or the other.

tobiaslk · Post by **tobiaslk** » Mon May 02, 2016 8:55 am

So would you recommend disabling both netDMA and Chimney offload? Or is chimney offload good to have when netDMA is disabled? Would there be any disadvantage having both disabled at the same time or is it ok to have them disabled simultaneously.
Anyhow I could experiment with it and see what I like.

best,
tobias

Post by **Philip** » Mon May 02, 2016 4:35 pm

I would keep Chimney offload disabled for gaming. NetDMA can have some positive effect in some situations, but it needs support from OS/BIOS/CPU/NIC to work, enabling it (and it actually working) is not always possible.

tobiaslk · Post by **tobiaslk** » Mon May 09, 2016 6:00 am

I guess i'll just leave this here, I tried disabling windows scaling heuristics and was very pleasantly surprised. The game seems so much more resposive and it feels like now I can actually see my enemies before they killed me in cs go, for example it feels like I can see enemies earlier when they run from a corner out into my crosshair, so I have more time to react and kill them faster. Hmm didnt think this setting would affect my gameplay in this way. Also I guess I want some input on the DCA option. I have tried DCA before and I feel like it was okay to enable in cs go and still do good in-game. What are your thoughts on DCA for gaming?
Cheers,
Tobias

Post by **Philip** » Mon May 09, 2016 7:36 am

DCA is similar to NetDMA, it is fine to enable, but requires support from the NIC/chipset and CPU. (I would not enable any type of DCA coalescing if present in the NIC properties though).

tobiaslk · Post by **tobiaslk** » Thu May 12, 2016 3:48 pm

Hey again,

Would changing the autotuninglevel in cmd introduce some advantage, for example if I "disable" it as opposed to the "normal" setting.

best,
Tobias

Post by **Philip** » Thu May 12, 2016 4:14 pm

It might, I don't like the auto-tuning algorithm. Keep in mind that disabling autotuning limits the TCP Receive Window to 65535 bytes... This is not adequate for faster speeds, you may struggle to get to your advertised maximum speed. It will reduce your maximum throughput, especially with higher-latency transfers. See the Bandwidth-delay product, if you plugin 65535 for the TCP Receive Window, and there is let's say 200ms latency to your destination, you will limit your throughput to ~2.65 Mbps.

tobiaslk · Post by **tobiaslk** » Tue May 17, 2016 11:38 am

I guess I'll just leave this here aswell: I tried the Set DNS and Hosts Priority tweak in this article http://www.speedguide.net/articles/wind ... weaks-2574 and found that it seem to give better performnce in cs go (only tested it in cs go), seems interesting that this tweak makes such a difference

anyways I guess it makes sense since all the smaller irrelevant tasks that took internet resources now take a little less.

Thanks again for all the info

m-v-b · Post by **m-v-b** » Sun May 22, 2016 6:39 am

As i am looking to optimize my cs go as well i leave this here as i feel this improved my hitreg a lot. Go to network adapter settings and change these settings as described

Advanced Inter-Frame Spacing: Enabled
Enable PME: Enabled
Energy Efficient Ethernet: Off
Flow Control: Disabled
Gigabit Master Slave Mode: Auto Detect
Interrupt Moderation: Disabled
Interrupt Moderation Rate: Off
IPv4 Checksum Offload: Disabled
Jumbo Packet: Disabled
Large Send Offload V2 (IPv4): Disabled
Large Send Offload V2 (IPv6): Disabled
Legacy Switch Compatibility Mode: Disabled
Locally Administered Address: Don't Change
Log Link State Event: Don't Change
Maximum Number of RSS Queues: 2 Queues
Packet Priority & VLAN: Disabled
Protocol ARP Offload: Disabled
Protocol NS Offload: Disabled
Receive Buffers: Don't Change
Receive Side Scaling: Disabled
Reduce Speed On Power Down: Don't Change
Speed & Duplex: Don't Change
System Idle Power Saver: Disabled
TCP Checksum Offload (IPv4): Disabled
TCP Checksum Offload (IPv6): Disabled
Transmit Buffers: Don't Change
UDP Checksum Offload (IPv4): Disabled
UDP Checksum Offload (IPv6): Disabled

In addition to that i set some settings from the speedguit.net like host priorities. And i would highly recommend to disable every .exe that is not absolutly necessary to windows. Also terminate amd/nvidia exe etc.
Use dpclatency checker. If it shows lots of red something is wrong

tobiaslk · Post by **tobiaslk** » Wed May 25, 2016 2:19 pm

Yeah i'll look into these settings aswell

, however I have tried playing cs:go with autotuninglevel set to normal and to disabled, there is actually a huge difference for me in this. Setting it from "normal" to "disabled" made my gameplay alot better, tried for a long time and I can confirm that for me it feels alot better with it being "disabled".

tobiaslk · Post by **tobiaslk** » Sun Jun 05, 2016 6:31 am

I guess I want to be sure that im not just imaginating things here. Does it actually make any sense for my online gaming experience to be improved by making the "Set DNS and Hosts Priority" tweak?
Since i'm trying to help my brother with his pc aswell I want to make sure that this tweak isnt just some tweak that makes me think it makes any positive change but that it actually does or can make improvement in online gaming. I however when trying this tweak noticed a huge difference, tho again I have been wrong before and sometimes it can be placebo for me when I havnt made enough test with it.

Best,
Tobias

Post by **Philip** » Sun Jun 05, 2016 10:19 am

The "Host resolution priority" tweaks gives priority to resolving domains to IPs (compared to other services on the PC). It may have some effect if your game looks up domains, chatting, etc. but it shouldn't make a difference while moving around in-game. It could if the network adapter needs those DNS services, the PC will give them higher priority and this is important when under load. Either way it is a good tweak for improving your network performance in general when the PC is under load.

tobiaslk · Post by **tobiaslk** » Tue Jun 07, 2016 7:14 am

Hey again.

Im on a research frenzy again and I'm looking at this tweak "TcpMaxDataRetransmissions" in your windows 7,vista,2008 registry tweaks article, and was wondering if it's possible to tweak this registry parameter for improved network and online gaming performance? I'm thinking the less retransmissions the lower strain on my network, could this be relevant? So I would put the value of this dword to the lowest, it seems the lowest number is 3.

Best,
Tobias

Post by **Philip** » Tue Jun 07, 2016 10:53 am

TcpMaxDataRetransmissons takes effect when the other end stops responding to your packets... TCP retransmits the packet, waits for acknowledgement, doubles the time, tries to retransmit again, doubles the time and retransmits a third time, then considers the connection dead. You can change the number of times it tries to retransmit, but it will not fix underlying problems with the connection. It does not fix retransmissions, merely it changes the way your system reacts when the other end does not respond.

tobiaslk · Post by **tobiaslk** » Tue Jun 07, 2016 12:30 pm

So I was thinking about these "Host resolution priority" tweaks again and I'm wondering if there are any downsides to applying these tweaks. I'm seeing my brothers computer gives him a hard time at the moment and if the tweak may do something bad to his computer that outweights the good things it does for gaming I might not tweak his computer with this. I guess I'm a bit paranoid, you already told me it was a nice tweak overall and I guess i'm complicating things. If there's indeed no downside of this tweak just leave my comment as it is and sorry for the excessive typing, I currently don't own a computer so I have no way of trying these tweaks further at this moment. Thanks for reading.

Best,
Tobias

Post by **Philip** » Wed Jun 08, 2016 11:51 am

No downside

tobiaslk · Post by **tobiaslk** » Tue Sep 06, 2016 1:00 pm

Hello again

If I set my autotuninglevel to disabled should I disable heuristics aswell because of it's ability to basically override my setting?
And feedback on the "host priority tweak" from my tests is that it actually improves my gaming experience by alot, especially in counter-strike.

Post by **Philip** » Tue Sep 06, 2016 9:32 pm

You should be able to turn off heuristics using the TCP Optimizer, the Powershell cmdlets are listed in the tweaking article as well: http://www.speedguide.net/articles/wind ... weaks-5077

Generally yes, disabling autotuning should also disable heuristics.

tobiaslk · Post by **tobiaslk** » Sun Jan 01, 2017 3:41 am

Hey again.

Could disabling heuristics increase the load on my cpu? Have tried disabling this on my amd rig with mixed results and so I tried it on my weak i3 and experienced only negatives in cs:go, mouse felt slower and such.

Post by **Philip** » Sun Jan 01, 2017 1:07 pm

No, disabling heuristics only prevents Windows from overriding your settings.