FIFA lag fix

FIFA lag fix

We now have an actual fix for lag in FIFA. The guys at Netduma approached us given all of our work on lag and asked us to test their gaming router.

We tested it in over 500 FIFA15 and FIFA16 games and when set up and used correctly it stopped lag in over 80% of all the games we played. A true FIFA lag fix! All the previous help remains below too, essential knowledge. Still brilliant in FIFA17.

It has several features which help you control your network and connection, and more importantly who you play against online. We have created 3 videos to show how the Netduma works for FIFA, how it exposes the FIFA matchmaking and also the settings we use on the router.

The main video shown below has links to the other 2 at the end and in the description. We have linked all 3 below the video just in case. This has taken a lot of effort and we wouldn’t recommend anything unless we believe it makes a difference to your FIFA gaming. If you aren’t able to buy a netduma router the rest of the page below remains on how to help stop lag.

If thinking of buying a Netduma router use code fifaaddiction at check out on their website for 5% discount https://netduma.com

FIFA lag fix https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDaaz1q6Hcs, FIFA lag exposed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo3VTQEvDGc, FIFA Netduma settings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq5RdhuvH7c

FIFA lag fix help if no Netduma router

Following months of research we have a good idea of the issues at each stage when playing FIFA. We have completely revamped this page because lag and connections are complicated so we need to try break them down. Before we start there is no guarantee that you will have completely perfect gameplay because at any one point in time 1 or a combination of all the 6 areas below could create an issue. However you can give yourself the best chance possible. We also know where the biggest problems are. Please read all the sections if having problems including section 7 with lots of tips and workarounds. Also make sure you check out the FIFA connection issue page and our latest FIFA game changer page!

You can be the best FIFA player in the world but if you have lag online you have little chance of winning. Which frustrates us so many FIFA players world wide. There are many types of lag and the worst is probably button lag where you press the pass button holding the stick in one direction and by the time the lag has finished it registers the direction your stick is milliseconds later. Making the game unplayable and less enjoyable.



1. Your ISP (how to test)

We know that in the UK (4pm-midnight) many ISPs such as Virgin/Sky/BT actually struggle with capacity of their networks and latency issues. Especially during major events or game launches. We know this as in forums admins have actually admitted their networks were at capacity. 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.

FIFA ping 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 Uni 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. We also recommend setting superhubs/routers supplied by your ISP to modem only mode and using your own router. Instructions and video below section 3 on how to set the most popular superhub to modem mode (Virgin Media superhub). ISP supplied routers are generally crap for dealing with traffic and connections. If on BT check this forum for BT infinity on routers you can use with BT Infinity. Sky actually say it is against their terms and conditions to not use their supplied kit and there is no modem mode available. However some routers allow Sky connections and usernames/passwords to work on them without much tweaking. If you are techie have a read of this forum for Sky fibre

3. Router setup for FIFA

Now as above if you only have the supplied router from your ISP then not all the options we suggest below will be available to you. Whichever settings you find which match you can change. Other settings you don’t have you will just have to see how you go and maybe think of investing in a better separate router. Typically good routers cost between £70-£100.

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 Sky etc to your own router. This is so you can access further settings which might not be on the ISP supplied router. EG the Virgin Superhub2 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 (also video below)- How do I set up Modem Mode on my Super Hub?

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 Portforward site. Click on the console you have to open the page – Xbox360, PS3, XboxOne, PS4 also shown in the video at the end of this section. 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), and we had it as advice on this page since FIFA12. 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 to Xbox Live or 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 or XboxOne and it will show you how to set them. Use our list below for 360 PS3 or PC. 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.

  • XBOX 360
    UDP: 53, 88, 3074, 3659
    TCP: 53, 80, 3074, 3659
  • XBOX ONE
    UDP: 53, 88, 500, 3074, 3544, 3659, 4500
    TCP: 53, 80, 3074, 3659
  • PS3
    UDP: 3074, 3478-3479, 3658-3659, 5223, 6000
    TCP: 80, 443, 3659, 5223, 10000-10099, 42127
  • 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.

FIFA speed test

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.

Find your router support page using google then type in qos you should see something similar to – Setting Netgear QoS

Our speed test gave us a potential upload of 11.62mb but we did the test within the router QoS check area and it said 9322kb (9.3mb). Worth doing the tests a few times at different times of day see what your average result is. Then set it slightly lower. Decided to set ours at 8mb. As per the QoS guide above setting it too low or too high will not be of benefit to your gaming.

Netgear qos



Videos showing setting Router to modem mode. Setting up port forwarding using Portforward website and setting up a separate sky router
[slideshow_deploy id=’5606′]


4. Sony (PSN) / Microsoft (XboxLive) network

It is ok having a great ISP with great connection and download/upload speeds with amazing router. But if Sony or Microsoft have issues with their networks you will have bad or even no connection to the FIFA services. This can make games disconnect and give problems trying to find opponents. You can check the sites below for any planned maintenance or major issues. Xbox Live much better for this and even include FIFA updates. Good to keep an eye on both on twitter. We will tweet out if we see any @fifaaddiction

http://support.xbox.com/en-GB/xbox-live-status

http://en.support.sonyentertainmentnetwork.com/app/service_status

matchmaking options
origin online settings

5. Your opponent

In FIFA we recommend you only play if it shows 3 green bars. For every version on FIFA make sure that your matchmaking is set to local. To find this in the menus go to Customise, Online Settings, Matchmaking options. Set Approximate Location Matchmaking to yes.

6. The EA FIFA servers (testing your connection)

First off check that the servers are actually up and live especially if trying to access FIFA Ultimate team. We will tweet out when they say there is maintenance or an issue. From our testing over the years we know that the EASFC servers create issues. We recommend switching off all sharing of EASFC and the more people who do this the less stress there will be on the servers. In our opinion too much info is recorded and tracked which we don’t really need to know. Like a friend has just drawn a FUT match etc.

We also know that when the servers are at capacity same as with the ISPs everything grinds to a halt. From the trading market to lag to connecting to games. Not much we can do but we know that when it was near the end of FIFA14 Ultimate team was smooth. Where as at the start same as now in FIFA15 everything is lagging disconnecting and generally a mess. EA have blamed lots of it on Ultimate team being overloaded with bot accounts farming coins. We won’t go into detail on that but we know this does create an added load on the servers. No longer a big problem in FIFA 17.

UOTrace EAserver

You can check your connection to the EA Servers by downloading some software called UOTrace. This is advised by EA staff and on their support website – http://help.ea.com/uk/article/how-to-uo-trace. As you can see we found an issue with a Virgin Media server having 16% packet loss and the support staff reckon it wasn’t a problem when we raised it on the forum – VirginMedia EA Server packet loss. Which is against what EA say so who do you believe. Interestingly the Virgin Media server was fixed a week later. So it is worth testing and adding to forums.

We do know that EA have attempted to cut out lots of cheats online who attempted to actually create lag and disconnects in the game. So a few techniques people were using aren’t now possible. It is difficult for EA we have to admit that as a lot of things are not their fault. Idiots trying to ruin the game are as big a problem as the capacity of the EA Servers.

7. Tips for better FIFA connection

These are now on the FIFA connection page to stop this being the longest page ever. Once you have done the steps above check that page for all the tips and tricks which can help clear connection issues and give better gameplay.

8.Your monitor or tv can cause lag

We did lots of research on this and created a blog when we found different monitors and televisions can create lag. Due to their refresh rate which can be very different depending on your television. Monitors designed for PCs shouldn’t be a problem but worth checking. Read our blog on TVs with lowest input lag and what it is – https://fifaaddiction.com/4914/best-tvs-for-gaming