Ping Question - Lag Related

[Mistura]

Hi guys, sorry to post this here but didn't know where else to go with it.

My connection is dreadful. Normally playing with big lag spikes most of the time which is making pvm tough and pvp near impossible.

I live in the UK and play on Europa with a 10 meg internet connection, so i should not be having these problems. Something is definitely wrong.

Can someone take a look at this screenie and tell me if there is an obvious reason why I should be getting such bad lag during play?

 

[Harlequin]

I believe the problem may be on the last 3rd hop - uuk202020.uk.customer.alter.net. (or the hop just before it)

The subsequent hops are back down to 40+ ms.

That particular one is spiking to 169 ms, could congested or even dropping packets.

Edit: Speak with your ISP first and give them your tracert results. If it doesn't work, talk to EA and have them lean on their ISP.

 

[Mistura]

Yeah that hop definitely looks suspect. I wonder who is responsible for that part of the connection? I always suspected it was maybe my router or slow isp (im with bt broadband) that was causing the problem but from what I can see there it is neither.

I have emailed EA with that screen grab and all the info, so hopefully they might be able to help out in some way.

I mean, if it was a case of having to change ISP then I would do it in a second, i just don't want to start going to the hassle of that without knowing that it will solve the problem.

 

[Harlequin]

I suspect alter.net is EA's ISP. If you ping the US servers, you'll get alter net too.

 

[Chiera]

there's a thread in the Europa forum about conn problems already. Seems like most of them are alter.net related. Seems like it's a fixed routing policy to route to ea via alter.net. So changing your isp won't help I am afraid. Looks more like a problem ea has to sort out with alter.net.

 

[Mistura]

Mmmm. I'm not so sure that the problems i'm having are directly related to the overall problem with the Europa server currently.

The reason being is that I've always had these lag problems over the past year or so, on and off, even before the europa lag problem emerged.

As well as that, there are others from the UK who are playing lag free while i'm suffering from huge lag spikes.

My guess is that the Europa lag problem is adding to an already existing problem that i've got, so that alter.net isp could be an additional problem and not the main issue.

Who knows though, could be a number of things

 

[Mistura]

I ping to Europa at around 45ish. No packet loss.

Occasionally my connection works okay and other times huge lag spikes.

The ping never seems to change though... Is this normal?

Shouldn't 45 ping be giving me quite a good lag free connection?

 

[Bomb Bloke]

I'd call 40ms pretty good. Not perfection, but certainly not bad. It means you should be less then half a second behind events happening on the server. Anything over 100ms and you'll start to notice it.

 

[Chiera]

well your trace at least suggests a problem with alter.net.

 

[Beastmaster]

There is a reason that a POLL button exists in UOtrace. Your screenshot is only mildly suggestive of a problem. After you do the trace you need to do a POLL and let it run for about 1000 iterations. That will give you a much clearer picture of the problems. That trace could be masking 5 or 6 problems easy.

All that said, the likelihood that Alternet has a problem is very high based on past performance.

 

[Harlequin]

well your trace at least suggests a problem with alter.net.

All that said, the likelihood that Alternet has a problem is very high based on past performance.

Yeah, what they said

Your ping looks ok because most of the time it's ok. If you do an iteration as BM says, you'll probably find that it spikes once in a while or is dropping some packets.

If you suddenly find the client hanging for several seconds, it's indicative that some packets were dropped and your client is resending the dropped packets to the server to sync up.

Sometimes it's even more weird, everyone else moves normally on your screen, but you just can't move a single step.

 

[Mistura]

There is a reason that a POLL button exists in UOtrace. Your screenshot is only mildly suggestive of a problem. After you do the trace you need to do a POLL and let it run for about 1000 iterations. That will give you a much clearer picture of the problems. That trace could be masking 5 or 6 problems easy.

All that said, the likelihood that Alternet has a problem is very high based on past performance.

Will be doing this as soon as I get home.

I thought traceroute was the most detailed check you could do, had no idea what poll was.

 

[Harlequin]

Will be doing this as soon as I get home.

I thought traceroute was the most detailed check you could do, had no idea what poll was.

Sorta, tracert does the route once (or rather 3 times if you use the tracert command from DOS). What BM means is letting the tracert run many times over.

Or if you want to use DOS, you can use "pathping" (this will last around 5minutes). This way you will have a better picture if there are dropped packets.

 

[Fluffi]

Which client are you using?

I posted my details in the thread on the Europa forum: 26 ping, no dropped packets, no nasty hops.

2D was unplayable due to lag/staggering, even though all I was doing was some shopping. I switched to the KR client, and the problem fixed itself immediately.