Lag Spikes Lag Spikes Lag Spikes...

I keep getting lag spikes on steam games, but TF2 is the one I play the most and really, it often gets me killed, especially if I play as a medic or a spy.
I've tried different internet connections (8mbit at my home and 1 mbit at my other "home").
I don't know if it's my WLAN device but its not the modem or the internet signal strength or quality.
And my computer has an AMD Athlon 62 X2 6000+, 4 gigs of ram and a Geforce 9800 GT.
Help! This really destroys my gameplay experience, some times I even turned the game off thanks to the lag spikes

If you're on wireless you'd better get used to it. It's just cause the packets get lost along the way, and there's really nothing you can do about it except get a cable and hook it up. I'm also on wireless and it's not SO bad for me, although does get annoying as medic when you're about to go in with uber and you la-. .. . .g.

What Drake said.

But a while ago I had wireless but no lag spikes.
I had the network device that came with the motherboard but it got broken.
Plus, this happens with steam games ONLY.
I think I've played some other MP on my computer with the wireless but no trouble

I have the same thing here, except the other way around. I used to get massive lag spikes all the time and now I don't. No explanation for it except... it's wireless. It's a fickle bitch.

You could try replacing the part which I've looked at doing as well, but if you're not sure it's the problem you'd be spending a lot of money on nothing. I'd try to get in contact with Big Lou or HellBlazer for this type of stuff as I only know the basics. As this is the tech help section I'm sure they'll be around shortly.

The way Source games handle networking is interesting, in that data is streamed in ticks, 66 times a second for good servers. If a tick gets lost, the game can interpolate between the recent ones, but if too many get lost, the game has to ask for a full update from the server, which takes a long time. If you are dropping packets, which seems to be the case, your computer is periodically getting a full refresh dumped on it, which can lag out limited-bandwidth connections, like your wireless. Try running a cable and see if that helps. I used to play on wireless, got ~100 ping on TF2F servers, but after running 100 feet of Ethernet line, I get less than 30 most days. It makes a huge difference.

Is there any way I could make the game lag normally, y'know, just drop the framerate for a little while?
And I usually have a ping of about 50 (just saying).

Quote:

You live up to your name, good sir. Where did you learn your information about the Source games network?

There is a big whitepaper on Source Networking protocols, if I can find it again, I'll post it.

EDIT - This:
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Source_Multiplayer_Networking

His client is losing packets, and therefore making incorrect assumptions about other player's locations. The server normally sends only small changes every tick, but each full cycle, he gets an entire update. Since so many things differ, it slows down his system from all the corrections it has to make. At least, that's how the article makes it out. I don't really know about other games' networking systems, but I would hazard a guess that any Quake descended engine uses something similar.

EDIT EDIT: I'd also like to say that I may be critically overthinking this. Your wireless might just be flaky. Try a cable and tell us what happens.

Can't use a cable, it's too far away, its actually like maybe 3 feet away from my computer and there's a wall between.
And at my other "home" (It's too long to explain for a real word), its in another room maybe 16 ft away from me