having lag in p2p gameplay

    ive been playing p2p with some mates since the update came out a couple days ago and anyone on a different internet to the host is always lagging even though we dont live very far apart.


    the sort of lag we get is around 20000 roughly for our ping and tends to get to the point where our ping is in the negative.


    also even though we lag while our own actions lag other peoples actions and what they do to the world updates in real time without lag.


    wondering if you might have some sort of solution to the issue.


    thanks in advance for any assistance.

    What is the download and upload speed on your PC? with the upload being the most important one here.

    If the ping is that bad, there is definitely something wrong with the connection (or the particular client - i.e. high load client side). Is the particular client (or the host) able to play regular multiplayer on a public server? If there are also problems with the ping, it might be either an issue with the internet connection (e.g. high packet loss rate), or another program blocking the connection (e.g. a firewall or an antivirus program).


    Sometimes it could also be a temporary issue with the Steam relay servers.

    client side upload is atleast 2mbps and download is around 30mbps.
    i have 0.5mbps upload and roughly 2.5mbps download.
    we do live reasonably close so we should be experiencing ping around 60.
    were all able to play multiplayer although they lag for us due to the servers being in completely different regions however the lag is around 300-500 ping nothing like were getting in p2p.
    and the firewall and antivirus are not interfering either.
    we have tried opening ports aswell.

    Do the lags also occur when someone else hosts the server (i.e. presses the green "Play with friends" button)? When playing via P2P, Steam first checks if it's able to establish a direct connection to the other clients. If the ports are blocked, this doesn't work, so it uses the Steam relay servers instead to redirect the traffic (which is slower than a direct connection).
    The actual speed of your internet connection doesn't really matter btw, it only depends on how stable the connection is. Theoretically you could get much better pings with stable DSL 1000 (1 Mbps) than with unstable DSL 100000 (100 Mbps)^^


    Sometimes it could be also caused by the ISP. Steam P2P solely uses UDP, and I have seen cases in the past where some ISP had massive issues handling UDP packets...


    Alternatively I'd recommend to try regular LAN mode. In this case, only the host needs to forward his ports (4254-4258 TCP and UDP) in his router, then other clients can join his game by connecting to his remote IP.

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