Performance Issues

Technical Support
1

I’ve recently had really bad performance issues with HOTS, as I’ve seen many other forum posts about. Posting here, because I feel I’ve exhausted about all the troubleshooting I can do myself.

The issue I’m having is screen freezing/stuttering. It’s either making a game completely unplayable with how bad and persistent it is, or randomly doesn’t shows up for a split second here and there in a game, and is otherwise fine.

Initially, I simply tried to turn settings down, but even with everything set to low, this persists.
I’ve attempted repairing the game, reinstalling fresh twice, saving to another SSD, disabling background apps (gamebar, updater agent, etc). I’ve reset my modem/router and swapped ethernet and coax cables. I’ve removed all splitters on my cable connection, and I’ve been running a wired connection the whole time. Nothing has seemed to help.

I understand that internet usage as of late has been greatly increased, but I also moved to a new home, and want to rule out other possible causes, if they are present.

Here is my looking glass test result:
TRACEROUTE:
traceroute to 73.154.31.13 (73.154.31.13), 15 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 Blizzard Blizzard 0.307 ms 0.307 ms 0.376 ms
2 24.105.18.131 (24.105.18.131) 1.435 ms 1.454 ms 1.458 ms
3 137.221.105.16 (137.221.105.16) 1.476 ms 1.487 ms 1.492 ms
4 137.221.66.18 (137.221.66.18) 0.570 ms 0.645 ms 0.659 ms
5 137.221.83.82 (137.221.83.82) 5.955 ms 5.959 ms 5.963 ms
6 137.221.65.68 (137.221.65.68) 5.907 ms 6.274 ms 6.262 ms
7 137.221.68.32 (137.221.68.32) 6.256 ms 6.252 ms 6.253 ms
8 te-0-1-0-2-8-pe02.600wseventh.ca.ibone.comcast. net (50.242.151.165) 5.656 ms 5.653 ms 5.650 ms
9 be-11587-cr02.losangeles.ca.ibone.comcast. net (68.86.83.17) 7.227 ms 6.699 ms 6.691 ms
10 be-11523-cr01.houston.tx.ibone.comcast. net (68.86.87.174) 32.355 ms 32.365 ms 34.098 ms
11 be-11423-cr02.56marietta.ga.ibone.comcast. net (68.86.85.21) 46.305 ms 45.821 ms 45.853 ms
12 be-1302-cs03.56marietta.ga.ibone.comcast. net (96.110.32.77) 44.942 ms 45.020 ms 45.276 ms
13 be-1311-cr11.56marietta.ga.ibone.comcast. net (96.110.32.14) 45.663 ms 45.274 ms 45.313 ms
14 be-301-cr11.ashburn.va.ibone.comcast. net (96.110.32.2) 58.088 ms 58.140 ms 58.147 ms
15 be-1311-cs03.ashburn.va.ibone.comcast. net (96.110.32.113) 58.250 ms 58.601 ms 58.609 ms

21/04/2020 23:11:59 UTC

PING:
PING 73.154.31.13 (73.154.31.13) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 73.154.31.13: icmp_seq=1 ttl=48 time=173 ms
64 bytes from 73.154.31.13: icmp_seq=2 ttl=48 time=181 ms
64 bytes from 73.154.31.13: icmp_seq=3 ttl=48 time=89.7 ms
64 bytes from 73.154.31.13: icmp_seq=4 ttl=48 time=139 ms

— 73.154.31.13 ping statistics —
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 2997ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 89.794/146.157/181.361/36.129 ms

21/04/2020 23:11:59 UTC

MTR:
Start: Tue Apr 21 23:11:59 2020 Blizzard 1.|-- Blizzard 0.0% 10 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.4 0.0
2.|-- 24.105.18.131 0.0% 10 0.6 0.6 0.5 0.8 0.0
3.|-- 137.221.105.16 0.0% 10 0.9 0.8 0.6 1.1 0.0
4.|-- 137.221.66.18 0.0% 10 0.5 0.5 0.4 0.7 0.0
5.|-- 137.221.83.82 0.0% 10 5.9 8.6 5.6 18.4 4.4
6.|-- 137.221.65.68 0.0% 10 5.8 9.5 5.7 40.4 10.9
7.|-- 137.221.68.32 0.0% 10 5.9 7.1 5.9 12.3 2.4
8.|-- te-0-1-0-2-8-pe02.600wseventh.ca.ibone.comcast .net 0.0% 10 5.6 5.7 5.6 6.0 0.0
9.|-- be-11587-cr02.losangeles.ca.ibone.comcast. net 0.0% 10 6.8 7.1 6.3 7.8 0.0
10.|-- be-11523-cr01.houston.tx.ibone.comcast. net 0.0% 10 32.8 33.8 32.8 35.3 0.6
11.|-- be-11423-cr02.56marietta.ga.ibone.comcast. net 0.0% 10 45.1 45.9 45.1 46.8 0.3
12.|-- be-1302-cs03.56marietta.ga.ibone.comcast. net 0.0% 10 45.2 45.2 44.7 45.8 0.0
13.|-- be-1311-cr11.56marietta.ga.ibone.comcast. net 0.0% 10 45.8 45.2 44.9 45.8 0.0
14.|-- be-301-cr11.ashburn.va.ibone.comcast. net 0.0% 10 57.9 57.9 57.7 58.2 0.0
15.|-- be-1311-cs03.ashburn.va.ibone.comcast. net 0.0% 10 58.6 58.4 57.9 58.6 0.0
16.|-- be-1312-cr12.ashburn.va.ibone.comcast. net 0.0% 10 58.5 64.3 57.9 117.6 18.7
17.|-- be-302-cr11.pittsburgh.pa.ibone.comcast. net 0.0% 10 63.0 63.2 62.7 65.8 0.7
18.|-- be-1411-cs04.pittsburgh.pa.ibone.comcast. net 0.0% 10 63.0 63.9 63.0 70.8 2.3
19.|-- 96.110.42.174 0.0% 10 64.1 73.1 63.9 145.4 25.5
20.|-- 96.108.66.106 0.0% 10 69.6 69.6 69.6 69.7 0.0
21.|-- 68.85.156.102 0.0% 10 69.8 69.8 69.7 69.8 0.0
22.|-- ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
23.|-- c-73-154-31-13.hsd1.pa.comcast. net 0.0% 10 191.8 144.2 83.1 291.2 72.8

21/04/2020 23:11:59 UTC

2

Hey there,

The Looking-Glass is showing high latency when the Blizzard server pings your modem’s IP, so this may be a local network or ISP issue.

Can you try running a WinMTR test for the duration of a match when the problem is occurring?

  1. Download WinMTR
  2. Right-click on the downloaded .zip folder and select “Extract All”, to extract the files to a new folder.
  3. Open the new WinMTR-v092 folder that was created, then open the WinMTR_x32 folder.
  4. Right-click on the WinMTR application and select “Run as administrator”.
  5. Launch the game and join a match. Once you’re loaded into the match press Ctrl+Alt+F to bring up the performance stats in the upper-left corner and note the server you are connected to.
  6. Quickly Alt+Tab out of the game and type the server IP address in the “Host” field.
    Central - 24.105.62.129
    West - 24.105.30.129
    Australia - 103.4.114.233
    Singapore - 202.9.67.59
    Brazil - 54.207.104.145
  7. Click “Start” to begin the test then Alt+Tab back into the game. Allow the test to run for the full duration of the match, then click on “Stop” when you’re done playing.
  8. Click on “Export TEXT” to save the results as a text document, then post the results.
3

Here’s the log:

|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| WinMTR statistics |

| Host - % | Sent | Recv | Best | Avrg | Wrst | Last |

|------------------------------------------------|------|------|------|------|------|------|

| 192.168.0.1 - 0 | 831 | 831 | 0 | 4 | 41 | 0 |

| 96.120.63.169 - 2 | 793 | 783 | 6 | 47 | 300 | 76 |

| 68.85.234.45 - 2 | 797 | 788 | 5 | 47 | 288 | 76 |

| 96.108.66.54 - 2 | 793 | 783 | 8 | 47 | 308 | 84 |

|be-77-ar01.mckeesport.pa.pitt.comcast.ne t - 2 | 793 | 783 | 16 | 55 | 307 | 41 |

|be-31611-cs01.pittsburgh.pa.ibone.comcast.ne t - 2 | 793 | 783 | 15 | 56 | 310 | 84 |

|be-1111-cr11.pittsburgh.pa.ibone.comcast.ne t - 2 | 793 | 783 | 18 | 59 | 310 | 84 |

|be-302-cr12.ashburn.va.ibone.comcast.ne t - 2 | 793 | 783 | 19 | 61 | 321 | 36 |

|be-1212-cs02.ashburn.va.ibone.comcast.ne t - 24 | 436 | 333 | 21 | 57 | 287 | 38 |

|be-2207-pe07.ashburn.va.ibone.comcast.ne t - 2 | 793 | 783 | 22 | 64 | 374 | 36 |

|as4436-1-c.600wseventh.ca.ibone.comcast.ne t - 2 | 793 | 783 | 23 | 67 | 314 | 27 |

| ae1-br01-eqdc2.as57976.ne t - 2 | 786 | 774 | 79 | 122 | 370 | 145 |

| et-0-0-2-br01-eqch2.as57976.ne t - 2 | 786 | 774 | 78 | 123 | 394 | 146 |

| 137.221.65.132 - 2 | 786 | 774 | 77 | 122 | 384 | 104 |

| et-0-0-2-br01-eqla1.as57976.ne t - 2 | 786 | 774 | 79 | 125 | 344 | 145 |

| 137.221.68.79 - 2 | 786 | 774 | 78 | 121 | 353 | 151 |

| lax-eqla1-ia-bons-02.as57976.ne t - 2 | 786 | 774 | 78 | 120 | 366 | 93 |

| 24.105.30.129 - 2 | 786 | 774 | 77 | 119 | 370 | 104 |

|____________|||||||

WinMTR v0.92 GPL V2 by Appnor MSP - Fully Managed Hosting & Cloud Provider

4

Hey, FUNION! Thank you for including the WinMTR Test! The connection tests here is showing consistent loss after it leaves the home network.

| 96.120.63.169 - :warning: 2 | 793 | 783 | 6 | 47 | 300 | 76 |

This is the comcast network, which is losing 2% of packets after this peering node. Packet loss that is this consistent is caused by throttling or mitigation.

In this situation, it is outside of your hands and outside of our control since the problem is starting just outside of the home network. This will need to be addressed by the internet provider.

As a temporary workaround, an alternative connection or while not supported, a VPN can also help around the routing concerns.