I'm experiencing significant lag during online racing. Have done some investigating, and lag is present regardless of the number of other cars on the track. The latency/lag bars on the bottom LH side show that all bars are low to mid range and mine is high, a couple of times in the red. As noted below, my system is clearly not the quickest here, but with my graphics set to the mid-range I don't think I should be having this many issues. Lastly, checked my internet connection speed and it's running right around 4.2 mbps.

System Info:

P4 1.8
1Gb Ram
nVidia 6800XT (256mb)

Any suggestions on improving performance with existing hardware would be most appreciated.

Internet or network lag is usually a problem with your connection or connection speed and usually not hardware related.

OP do you use a wireless link somewhere in your system? as this can cause latency probs(try using a patch cable if you use a wireless router) , also other network traffic from your LAN or your PC can cause this , especially if you or someone on your LAN (if you have one) uses P2P software.
If you are using a wireless router set up the WEP security maybe your nieghbours are getting a free internet connection slowing you down

Some ISP's use bandwith limiting worth a check at their support page.

I have heard of some software firewalls or antivirus that cause slowdown but I can't remember which ones

SD.

Are you using a router? It may be that your connection is being limited. As Gunn mentioned, a slow system does not neccesarily create network lag, just a lower framerate, so it should be a connection problem.

Hi Folks, and thanks for the feedback. I am using a cable modem wired right to my system (ie. not wireless). No LAN either. The only thing that I can figure out is that it might be my Norton anti-virus, as that is really the only program running concurrently. My problem is that I cannot figure out how to shut it off (simply to test the theory). I've tried all of the logical means -- close program, close program using system tray, using ctl+alt+del to access the processes menu to manually end task -- nothing works. Apparently Norton is smarter than I am! Also, just to note, my frame rates are running around the 40 fps range, depending of course on the number of other cars on track -- clearly not the fastest, but good enough for now.

If anyone can tip me off as to how to close Norton (less deleting it entirely), as I am curious to see if it has that much of an effect on the internet speed.

Thanks again for your suggestions,

AD.

Quote from ALREADY DEAD :

Apparently Norton is smarter than I am!

Heh, that is not possible. You might find it difficult to remove from your PC, it is so intrusive. Norton could be your problem, it has a reputation for causing many types of problems with PCs. But check for any other process that may be accessing the Internet automatically.

Quote from Gunn :

But check for any other process that may be accessing the Internet automatically.

If you want to check, I think you can use this in the command prompt:

netstat -nap