Your ping in CS2, Valorant, or FiveM isn't just a function of your internet connection. Windows has a TCP/UDP stack with default settings designed for general internet browsing — not for real-time game traffic.
What's adding to your ping
Nagle's algorithm (TCPNoDelay=0 by default): buffers small outgoing packets and waits for more data before sending. This is good for file transfers. For a game sending 64 position updates per second, it adds latency.
Interrupt Moderation on your NIC: your network card batches incoming packets and triggers one interrupt for many packets at once. This reduces CPU usage but adds receive latency. For gaming, you want the interrupt to fire immediately.
Energy Efficient Ethernet: the NIC drops to a lower power state when utilization is low. On a game server with burst traffic patterns, this causes jitter.
TCP Receive Window Auto-Tuning: Windows dynamically adjusts the TCP window size. On low-latency connections to game servers this creates unnecessary adaptation cycles.
The changes
# Disable Nagle
reg add "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters" /v TCPNoDelay /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
reg add "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters" /v TcpAckFrequency /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
# Disable TCP auto-tuning
netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
# Disable RSC (Receive Segment Coalescing)
netsh int tcp set global rsc=disabled
# Disable ECN
netsh int tcp set global ecncapability=disabled
For NIC-level settings (interrupt moderation, EEE, Wake on Magic Packet) you need to go into Device Manager → your adapter → Advanced tab and change them manually per adapter.
MTU matters more than people think
Packet fragmentation is invisible in ping tests but causes real jitter. If your MTU is set to 1500 but your connection can't handle 1500-byte packets without fragmenting, every oversized packet gets split and reassembled — adding latency.
Find your real MTU:
ping -f -l 1472 8.8.8.8
Decrease the size until it stops showing "fragmentation needed". Add 28 for the IP+ICMP headers.
A tool called IzanagiOP has an MTU auto-detector built in — it binary searches to find your real MTU automatically. Rest of the network tweaks are also included. Discord: https://terweb.lt/
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