Thread: Windows 7/Vista TF2 Ping Spikes [FIX]

FYI this is just a link to a topic on the Steam Forums. However I felt it was worth posting here as well.

The original thread can be found by clicking these words.

Originally Posted by RaveMoyers

Hi there, I've recently had an extremely annoying issue regarding sound, games, multiplayer, and Windows 7. When I would start up a game (such as Counter-Strike Source or Heroes of Newerth) and connect to server, my fps and ping would be nominally OK, but the game would lag. In HoN this would be displayed by the heroes moving jerkily around the map, even though my fps and ping were good. In Counter Strike, this evidenced itself by glitchy nades that don't bounce smoothly, and whenever sounds are played, the ping spikes a bit. It's kind of like playing on a 33 tic server, for those of you familiar with the game. None of these issues occurred in single player games or in the aforementioned games with a local server. Symptoms included warping, skipping, and lagging while moving or viewing other players move.

My optimal solution was to keep the MMCS service running, as if you turn it off your audio may start cackling/skipping in an annoying fashion. However, I disabled the network throttling component of this service. I believe it's a general audio problem specific to Windows 7 and multiplayer / online games. I don't think the audio card or the drivers make a difference, or at least they didn't in my case.

Leave the multimedia class scheduler service running, but disable its network throttling feature:

* Open regedit
* Go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\SystemProfile
* There will be an entry for network performance throttling, default value is 10; set it to FFFFFFFF hex (willl look like 0xFFFFFFFF to the right of the entry)
* Reboot


This removed the lag I was experiencing while still enabling me to have normal sound in-game. Specs in profile.


Games affected:
Source Engine Games (Team Fortress 2 (TF2), Left 4 Dead, Counter Strike Source (CS:S, CSS))
Heroes of Newerth (HoN)
Call of Duty Series (CoD), possibly including Modern Warfare
Overlord Series (Overlord, Overlord: Raising Hell, Overlord 2)

For those interested, here are some articles on the MMCSS:
How to use the throttling mechanism to control network performance in Windows Vista
Disabling/Tweaking Vista’s Multimedia Class Scheduler|The Bits 2.0

I have altered the post slightly to fix links and make it easier to understand.

WARNING: Even though I have tried this fix personally I don't believe I have played on the server (dblcrs) for enough time to notice a difference. HOWEVER this does not mean the fix won't work for you. Just make sure to follow the instructions exactly.

And for those who are skeptical you need only read the Microsoft Support article which walks you through how to do the same thing. And I can assure you that if done properly there will be no negative impacts on your system, at least none that are immediately noticeable.

One final note is that even though the reference links are about Vista, the fix is supposed to work for Windows 7 32/64-bit.


Thanks for your time and good luck,
Pho3niX

I hope this helps even just one person. If you try this please reply and describe any results both negative and positive.