EDIT/UPDATE 1: Nope – still rubberbanding/lag issues congruent with original post. New router makes no difference.
Good day everyone,
Recap / Intro
Following up with my original post trying to capture and document objective data surrounding the rubberbanding issue that appears to be impacting many players.
Outside of my original post, the past ~2 weeks of playtime manifested the same issues. The severity of the issue increased during peak play hours, but became reasonable or non-existent during off-peak hours. This led me to believe the issue was volume or timing related and not an issue on my end because OW1 never had this type of issue in ~5 years of playtime in the same environment.
However, while the issue seems to be impacting many people, it doesn’t seem to be the majority of players. (To reiterate, this was happening to me virtually all game, every game during peak hours; not just an occasional blip).
Trial and Error
Not being a role model for patience, I decided to try a new router on a whim. Previously I had a Netgear R6220 connected directly to my PC with an ethernet cable. I’m a single person in a an apartment, so other users are no impact.
While using this router, I tried enabling/disabling UPnP, manually forwarding all known Overwatch/Battle.net ports, enabling/disabling QoS, ensuring latest firmware, enabling/disabling NAT, enabling/disabling SIP – none made any material difference.
I decided to swap out my Netgear router for a Linksys and perform an A/B test. My data is only limited to ~2 days of playtime so I need a larger sample size to be definitive. The Linksys router, so far, performed without issue in ~10-12 hours of game time (conversely, the Netgear would’ve had the issue repeatedly).
Too Early to Say Conclusions and Anecdotes
I will continue to test on my new Linksys Router (AX1800, factory stock settings outside of credential changes). I cannot reply to this post, so I will have to make edits with updates.In my limited testing (10-12 hours of game time), my change to Linksys seemed to immediately resolve my issues.The strange issue is timing - to my knowledge I can’t think of any good reason the router would perform poorly during peak hours but fine during off-peak hours. I would expect a consistent behavior regardless of timing.Regarding Netgear – I’d be curious to see what devices other people experiencing the issue are using. I’m wondering if its Netgears implementation of UPnP or port forwarding that doesn’t jive with whatever changes were made in OW2.
EDIT/UPDATE 1: Nope – still rubberbanding/lag issues.