Lag Help

1. Your ISP (how to test)

We know that in the UK (4pm-midnight) many ISPs such as Verizon/Optimum/TimeWarner actually struggle with capacity of their networks and latency issues. Especially during major events or game launches. Not much we can do about this apart from complain and threaten to leave lots hoping we are added some magic list of customers who receive better connections. If we change ISP would that help? Probably not unless a smaller more expensive supplier who still might have to use infrastructure and cables of others. Though in theory you wouldn’t be affected by capacity issues or latency.
Anyone downloading while gaming really does have a higher chance of lag and disconnections. We know that ISPs don’t like people who constantly download so hold them back a bit. The problem here is lots of the downloading uses P2P connections. So the ISPs punish people for it. Unfortunately for us FIFA like many online games uses a P2P connection.
On top of this where you live determines how good your connection actually is. You might have a 30mb service struggling at around 10mb peak times. You might only have fibre for certain part of the route to your ISP. Again not much you can do there apart from move house.
IMPORTANT – Test your potential gaming and streaming ability using the pingtest.net website You need a connection rating of B or higher and jitter needs to be less than 5ms. Jitter = bad gameplay and lag. Also packet loss would suggest a bigger problem. Here is the result of our test.

If you have bad results lower than a B or high jitter the chances are you have poor internet service or lots is going on in your house internet wise. Maybe shared connection with other housemates or family etc. Look at the following sections to see if any of our suggested changes make a difference.

2. Home network setup for FIFA

We recommend cable connection only rather than wireless. Too many things which can affect wireless and if having problems you definitely need to try using a cable/Ethernet Cord. We also recommend setting Routers supplied by your ISP to modem only mode and using your own Router.. ISP supplied routers are generally crap for dealing with traffic and connections.

3. Router setup for FIFA

If you are going to try a new router then the 1st step in this process is setting your ISP router to modem mode or connecting TW etc to your own router. This is so you can access further settings which might not be on the ISP supplied router. EG the TW Router does not have QoS settings which we are going to add here. Also your new router will be better generally at everything. Also if you buy a new Router and have ISP set to modem mode but it keeps disconnecting internet try different firmware versions for a day. We have found the original firmware stable and all new updates rubbish on our netgear. Don’t worry about updating your router with an older firmware and it then saying a new firmware is available.
Few examples on how to update firmware –
http://www.wikihow.com/Update-Router-Firmware
Updating Linksys firmware
Updating Netgear firmware.
Instructions here from Virgin on setting Superhub to modem mode.

So if on the ISP Router or your own now you need to set your console to a static IP address as shown on the Port Forward.com/ site. Click on the console you have to open the page – Works the same for all consoles.
Then we recommend certain settings on your router for FIFA. One setting we are certain makes a difference on FIFA is UPnP (Universal Plug and Play), The KEY is to switch it OFF. Ironically it is supposed to help devices connect to each other and talk to each other. But for some reason with FIFA it creates issues. Again in FIFA15 with the menu lag on PS4. once in your router settings should be in Advanced settings as here – UPnP settings. PLEASE note if you use 2 consoles at the same time on same network UPnP has to be set ON. Nothing can do about that.
Then set port forwarding up for the connections you need (especially with UPnP now off). 1. Console to EA servers. 2. Console Playstation Network. 3. Console to Origin servers. Your connection should then be NAT type 2 doesn’t need to be type 1 fully open. Don’t worry if you don’t know how to set up port forwarding on your router as for a start you can do a factory reset of it and start again. Also there is a website which shows you how to do it for your router and even for FIFA on whichever console!
Go to http://portforward.com/english/routers/port_forwarding/default.htm which takes you to the router list. From there select your make of router (tells you on back of your router, Virgin Media hub is netgear for example). You might see a page saying continue if using add blocker. Click continue then select your router model number. Then select FIFA PS4 and it will show you how to set them. The various videos below show how to set up port forwarding and disabling UPnP.
If not sure ask someone more technical. Here are the ports to forward for FIFA on xbox playstation and PC. The various consoles have different ports required. A combination of what EA suggest and those on portforward.com which includes the Origin servers. We aren’t sure if the Origin ports make a difference or not but if you have enough port forwarding rules (some only allow 20) why not add them in.

PS4
UDP: 3074, 3478-3479, 3659, 6000
TCP: 80, 443, 1935, 3478-3480, 3659, 10000-10099, 42127
PC
UDP: 3659, 9565, 9570, 9000 – 9999
TCP: 3569, 9946, 9988, 10000 – 20000; 42124
EA Origin
UDP: 1024-1124; 18000; 29900
TCP: 80, 443, 1024-1124, 9960-9969, 18000, 18120, 18060, 27900, 28910, 29900

Router set up final steps

Within your router settings almost complete just one more thing which needs setting, QoS (Quality of Service).
Test of your download and upload speeds so we know what your connection is capable of – http://www.speedtest.net The upload speed needs to be added in the next step to QoS.


In your Router settings if you have it QoS as explained HERE needs to be setup for the LAN port of your console. Check on the back of your router which port the cable is in. Then as explained below you can set this to high priority.

Worth doing the tests a few times at different times of day see what your average result is. Then set it slightly lower.