latency issues

cactus jack

has anyone else being experiencing high latency issues in the past week? i normally am down around 80-110 ms but am now varying between 500-900 ms. tried the dns flush but hasn't seemed to make any difference

TechnoPool

big time, are you with eircom?

cactus jack

upc

TechnoPool

cactus jack wrote: »

upc

well that's my theory gone


im with eircome and its bouncing up and down

skygrazer

cactus jack wrote: »

has anyone else being experiencing high latency issues in the past week? i normally am down around 80-110 ms but am now varying between 500-900 ms. tried the dns flush but hasn't seemed to make any difference

I have the exact same issues, used to be about 100ms now avg 500 and upwards and game keeps getting so lagged out it takes a few seconds before anything I do is actualy done....

Here is the scoop on this prob which I believe to be the case and is happening to alot of european isp's and concerns traffic shaping/throttling....
UPC confirm they have throttling inplace and blizzard have changed they way thier game communicates between your pc and the servers which is behaving much in the same way as P2P does and so UPC is treating the game data as P2P dta.....
what this means is that WOW data is given a much lower priority in transmission in the same way as P2P and so the latency and delays in transmitting the game data is causing problems ingame.

Virgin Media have the exact same issue which you can check out on thier boards and apparently will have thiers fixed on 9th Dec. Im hoping UPC will be doing the same altho this isnt gaurenteed. If not, bye bye UPC, hello a proper decent isp provider

Kiith

I'm also experiencing this issue with UPC. Last few weeks, regardless of what server i play on, i get really bad lag. At times i'm waiting 2-3 seconds just for a spall/ability to go through. Really annoying, and if the above is true then i'm gonna call them tomorrow and complain.

Mr. CooL ICE

Yes, exact same here. UPC 15M in Dundrum. I thought it was the weather or something, but I'm kinda glad to hear I am not the only one.

Xyo

levelling isn't going to be fun if we have to deal with this lag

GHOST MGG2

blizz better fix this crap fast as going from 50ms to 1500ms isnt on tbh..and just before the cata launch too..bastards..they wont even acknowledge the problem on forums

Nehaxak

Get this, run it, restart, enjoy latencies 30ms or below...

http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info13581-LeatrixLatencyFix.html

What does it do?

Leatrix Latency Fix will reduce your online gaming latency significantly by increasing the frequency of TCP acknowledgements sent to the game server. For the technically minded, this is a script which will modify TCPAckFrequency.

You will see reduced latency in many online games including World of Warcraft, Aion, Warhammer, Lord of the Rings, and more.

System Requirements

Leatrix Latency Fix is supported on these operating systems only.
Windows XP (SP2 or higher)
Windows Vista (SP1 or higher)
Windows 7
Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows are supported.
Macintosh users should read the relevant section in the FAQ below.

How It Works

Online games generally use the TCP protocol which requires that network segments sent to your computer be acknowledged in order to provide a reliable connection.

Windows bundles these acknowledgements together and sends them in pairs. While this is an efficient way of dealing with them generally, the inevitable delays caused by the bundling process increase latency considerably.

This is because when Windows queues up an acknowledgement in order to bundle it with the following one, the game server has to wait for the acknowledgement timer to expire before sending new data.

Leatrix Latency Fix removes the acknowledgement bundling process so that an acknowledgement is sent immediately for every segment that's received. This produces a significant reduction in latency as there is no longer a delay before new data is sent to your computer.

In a normal networking environment, you would prioritise network efficiency over latency and use the Windows defaults, but in online games the opposite is true and you want the lowest latency you can possibly get.

Typical Scenario

If you could listen to a conversation between your computer and the game server, this is what you would hear.

Before Leatrix Latency Fix is installed:
Server: "Ok computer, I just sent a data packet over to you, got it?"
Your computer: ...
Server: "Come on, answer me! I don't have all day! Stop wasting time!"
Your computer: ...
Server: "Ok, forget it, I've waited long enough, sending another one over! Got it?"
Your computer: "Yep, got that one, also got the one you sent before, thanks."
Server: "Well, why didn't you acknowledge the first one when I sent it? I was waiting ages!"
Your computer: "Sorry, I'm just trying to make the network more efficient by bundling the acknowledgements together in pairs. This is how I'm setup by default."
After Leatrix Latency Fix is installed:
Server: "Ok computer, I just sent a data packet over, got it?"
Your computer: "Yep, send the next!"
Server: "That was fast! Ok, here's another, got that?"
Your computer: "Yep, send the next!"
Server: "Wow! What an improvement! Now that's more like it!"
Your computer: "Yep, it's certainly keeping me on my toes, thanks!"

Mr. CooL ICE

Nehaxak wrote: »

Get this, run it, restart, enjoy latencies 30ms or below...

http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info13581-LeatrixLatencyFix.html

Already tried it. Not much improvement. Definitely a UPC issue.

Just off the phone right now and support guy I talked to confirmed my connection was ok, but that many others are also reporting this issue with WoW in particular. He said not much can be done because its the weekend, but something should be done at Monday at the earliest.

If this is the case, I would advise anyone with ping issues to phone UPC and complain about it. Last thing we want is to be timing out in Hyjal on Tuesday!

GHOST MGG2

sorry nexahak..but the problem were experiencing is a hardware routing problem and not a algorithm one..while i agree the leatrix fix works great when telianet isnt treating your data like p2p..at the moment blizzard have to instruct telia to return there data package processing tree back to the way it was prior patch 4.03 or get UPC to stop traffic shaping p2p data (which they wont)

Nehaxak

Cool. In fairness, I haven't played myself in a couple days and I'm on UPC also.
I'll start it up now and see what latency I'm getting then report back.

Nehaxak

lol holy crap, yeah I'm sorry guys. I just logged on now and am getting 6,950Ms latency

Latency settled down now to just under 2,000Ms - mental stuff.

Hmmm...

:mad:

Nehaxak

I'll try login to wow via an OpenVPN in the UK and Netherlands and see if that helps with the latency. Will report back

Just tried UK VPN there - perfect latency - 30Ms

VPN in Netherlands was fine for about 5 minutes (30ms and under) but then shot up to 2k+ MS and I was disconnected. Could be down to just the VPN itself though but the UK one is perfect anyway.

So...Hmm, would look like UPC is the problem, at least in part anyway.

Little bit more testing, would seem that the problem is both in Ireland and NL, well going by my VPN there anyway.
So maybe UPC is routing through to NL and that's where the problem is ?

GHOST MGG2

nehaxak can u recommend any free vpn services i can use with wow:-p

Nehaxak

Dunno any free ones myself, I use blackvpn.com, got a code (PUSGUKC) which gave me the US, UK and NL VPN's (Global package) for €10 for 3 months.
Again though, only the UK one was good, problem still existed with high latency on the NL one and never tried the US VPN with Wow, presume that would be higher than the UK one anyway.

Kiith

I really hope they sort it out. Levelling is a pain as it is, and i don't want to have to deal with it while levelling to 85 next week.

skygrazer

jus a warning tho concernin VPN

if you check UPC's policy, they dont support VPN and they can cancel your subscription if they catch you and you dont stop using it

also regarding the "fix" posted previous bout leatrix latenct fix. altho this may help reduce your latency by a percentage (say from 80 down to 50) this doesnt fix/help with the current issue as its not true latency lag, its simply UPC treating the data as low priority P2P traffic so it joins the queue in thier routers to be sent instead of being sent directly like webpage requests etc

Nehaxak

skygrazer wrote: »

jus a warning tho concernin VPN

if you check UPC's policy, they dont support VPN and they can cancel your subscription if they catch you and you dont stop using it

also regarding the "fix" posted previous bout leatrix latenct fix. altho this may help reduce your latency by a percentage (say from 80 down to 50) this doesnt fix/help with the current issue as its not true latency lag, its simply UPC treating the data as low priority P2P traffic so it joins the queue in thier routers to be sent instead of being sent directly like webpage requests etc

Wrong.

Section 12: Use of Virtual Private Network (VPN)
As stated above, the UPC Services are for residential use only and we do not support the use of VPN. If we find you are using VPN we may instruct you to stop using it and you must comply with this request. This is in order to prevent problems with our network and other Internet users.

Says nothing about cancelling subscriptions.

Then again, their FUP covers almost everything as being against their terms and conditions in one way or another so I wouldn't be arsed bothering to be worried about it either way.

Also, Leatrix doesn't reduce anything by any percentage, it merely turns features off that are un-needed/unwanted for gaming, it gives a full description of what it does on it's main page I gave a link too.
Either way it's of no use for this problem as the problem lies outside your control and in the hands of either UPC, Telia or Blizzard so it won't help regardless.

ferrigan101

Exact same problems here on UPC. What have you guys been saying when complaining? I assume they try to say that none of it is anything to do with them?

Looks like I'll have to give up my spot in the raid tomorrow was going to be my first lk kill as well.....

skygrazer

okay mabye I worded it wrong by percentage I didnt mean a set amount as in say 30% I simply meant it may reduce your latency by a small amount
regarding vpn, they state you must comply if they ask you to stop, infering if you do not they will cut you off at least that is my interpretation of it, I may be wrong

anyway monitoring my own personal lag issues in wow of late, several days ago when it was fist apparent that we were suffering latency issues, it was mainly in bg's, dungeons and raids....yesterday amaziingly I had very little latency issues, ms was a little higher than what it used to be (was about 100, yest was 250) so looked like it was fixed. Then today the latency was extremely bad, even worse than when it origionally went bad.

In some forums peeps are saying that UPC techs are awar of the issue and are looking into it which makes me wonder if they are trying to sort it out hence the improvement yesterday but got a little setback or maybe its just coincedental...

My guess it that we will simply have to wait and see what happens in the next few days and hopefully Blizzard or UPC release some sort of statement regardiing the issue....fingers crossed

Nehaxak

There's little hope of any statement being released by either, especially UPC.
I'm switching ISP on Monday if it's not fixed.

Not particularly bothered by losing 30Mb broadband if the connection is pissed all over by UPC and their traffic shaping, they can shove it where the sun don't shine. I'd rather a 1Mb low latency dependable connection than this crap.

Dodd

I have two isp's and one is UPC.
I have tried wow on both on the some pc and some char. UPC is just really bad and I get dc'ed.
The other isp is fine.

ferrigan101

skygrazer wrote: »

Here is the scoop on this prob which I believe to be the case and is happening to alot of european isp's and concerns traffic shaping/throttling....
UPC confirm they have throttling inplace and blizzard have changed they way thier game communicates between your pc and the servers which is behaving much in the same way as P2P does and so UPC is treating the game data as P2P dta.....
what this means is that WOW data is given a much lower priority in transmission in the same way as P2P and so the latency and delays in transmitting the game data is causing problems ingame.

Virgin Media have the exact same issue which you can check out on thier boards and apparently will have thiers fixed on 9th Dec. Im hoping UPC will be doing the same altho this isnt gaurenteed. If not, bye bye UPC, hello a proper decent isp provider

Any links for the lazy there skygrazer? Wouldn't mind reading up on this throttling stuff.

Dermighty

Nehaxak wrote: »

There's little hope of any statement being released by either, especially UPC.
I'm switching ISP on Monday if it's not fixed.

Not particularly bothered by losing 30Mb broadband if the connection is pissed all over by UPC and their traffic shaping, they can shove it where the sun don't shine. I'd rather a 1Mb low latency dependable connection than this crap.

UPC have not changed anything, it is Blizzard who changed the method of handling traffic. The only reason people now have an issue with UPC is because they didn't automatically move along with Blizzard in changing something, they are two separate entities and I wouldn't expect either company to be very up to date with each other.

I will say that my housemate was on to UPC and they said it's a Blizzard issue, he then rang the premium support line and was told the same thing (by somebody who was not very enlightened about the whole issue to be honest).

Dodd

I don't know if UPC care to fix it but there is no way blizz would care less.
http://www.davyuk.com/PricesAndCharts?equityIdx=$0$$$ATVI.OQ
They did well in this recession.
It is up to UPC to sort it out as other isp are working fine.

Kiith

It's pretty much unplayable for me now. Huge delays in even the most basic things. If this doesnt get sorted, i think i'll wait to try levelling to 85, cause it will just annoy the hell out of me.

Nehaxak

Dermighty wrote: »

UPC have not changed anything, it is Blizzard who changed the method of handling traffic. The only reason people now have an issue with UPC is because they didn't automatically move along with Blizzard in changing something, they are two separate entities and I wouldn't expect either company to be very up to date with each other.

I will say that my housemate was on to UPC and they said it's a Blizzard issue, he then rang the premium support line and was told the same thing (by somebody who was not very enlightened about the whole issue to be honest).

No, it's not a Blizzard issue, it's a UPC issue and it's not just effecting Ireland but all UPC customers around Europe.

Blizzard's network team have contacted UPC and UPC are working on it, but there is no timeframe on when exactly UPC will sort things out.

It's to do with UPC shaping traffic, ports and prioritisation to limit p2p downloads among other things on their network but which is also now effecting gaming on world of warcraft due to the ports it's servers use when you're connected to same, which if I'm right, have changed recently to be more dynamically assigned rather than a set static group of ports.

IrishBroadBand used to do similar which destroyed gaming on some SOE games some years back, Star Wars online in particular was badly effected.

geekyjay10

Have the same issue, however i have got somewhat around it, i have a giganews sub, which also gives me free VYPR-VPn access, have used the VPN and latency is down, its still 200ms, but at least it playable, http://www.giganews.com/vyprvpn/

TechnoPool

up to a 500 ping is still playable in fairness for levling

Xyo

We shouldn't have to try and level through 500ms.

Mr. CooL ICE

TechnoPool wrote: »

up to a 500 ping is still playable in fairness for levling

500 ping might be, but its not consistently like that. There have been lag spikes that have been over 10 seconds in length which, depending on the scenario, might leave you to be raped by a few mobs while waiting for the game to respond.

I am ringing again tomorrow to ask about it with the intention of keeping the pressure on. No idea if it will work, but it is worth trying.

Mr. CooL ICE

Another thing that shows that UPC is genuinely screwed up if this:



And that is with the 15 meg package...

While I was talking to support yesterday, I ran the UPC speed test and it was even more obscure as download speed was 363M and 285M download respectively, and the support agent didn't believe me. I just tried it there again and it is at 378M

TechnoPool

Xyo wrote: »

We shouldn't have to try and level through 500ms.

indeed, but i was just making a minor point

GHOST MGG2

The Muppets at blizzard are still not taking any responsibility for this and are still telling people to talk to UPC.

The chances of this getting sorted through the whole of the UPC network isnt looking very good to me considering the cata xpac launches in about 29 hours.

Nehaxak

LordChessington wrote: »

Another thing that shows that UPC is genuinely screwed up if this:

Disable your AV while running the check, or at least the part that monitors web/internet usage.
Avast, AVG and some other one I can't remember the name of, have issues with speedtests, they seem to scan and cache the results, thereby skewing the numbers.

ferrigan101

GHOST MGG2 wrote: »

The Muppets at blizzard are still not taking any responsibility for this and are still telling people to talk to UPC.

The chances of this getting sorted through the whole of the UPC network isnt looking very good to me considering the cata xpac launches in about 29 hours.

Is it not more the fact that UPC are traffic shaping and attempting to cut down p2p file sharing? I agree that it's not looking good for Tuesday but would it just be a case of UPC identifying the blizz data and giving it proper priorty? I have no real clue in all this but it seems the way that it will have to be done. Let's face it, blizz will do what's good for blizz, and won't change back to the way they sending things before.

Mr. CooL ICE

Nehaxak wrote: »

Avast, AVG and some other one I can't remember the name of, have issues with speedtests

The other one would be Kaspersky

Shougeki

ferrigan101 wrote: »

Any links for the lazy there skygrazer? Wouldn't mind reading up on this throttling stuff.

"Put you hand around person's throat. Shake like hell"

Seriously im ona 30Mb UPC line, and started a new char a few days ago (tauren paladin). Same issue here. Was not online fri/sat, but same thing today. Tanking instances was kinda awkward with a second or two lag every 30secs or so....

I dont think it will affect leveling for me that much though... I hope

GHOST MGG2

This is really a major pain in the arse..and the worst timing in the world..
i have 5000 ms right this second in wintergrasp sigh..im so fecking angry

skygrazer

Hello everyone.

Just wanted to let you know that our network team has been in touch with UPC and this is being worked on.

Unfortunately I don't have any sort of ETA

posted by a blue on wow(eu) forums

Shougeki

skygrazer wrote: »

posted by a blue on wow(eu) forums

Thanks for the info

Kiith

At least it's a known issue, and has been talked about by Blizz. Hopefully get a resolution by Tuesday.

shockwave

Latency seems to be a lot better today, playing at 180ms down from 800+ last night. Was actually able to heal some randoms.

Shougeki

shockwave wrote: »

Latency seems to be a lot better today, playing at 180ms dwon from 800+ last night. Was actually able to heal some randoms.

Is that your normal latency? I generally have about 30-70 but reckon 200 is playable enough for grinding to 85 tonight.....

shockwave

Normal latency would be under 100 usually around 80ish but but its a big improvement on the past few days.

Kiith

I had awful lag last night, but on the official forums some people are saying that it's gotten better this morning. Anyone at home to confirm/deny/shatter this?

Nehaxak

Nope it's not fixed. It's less than what it was, coming down to 500ms or under but it's still ridiculous.

GHOST MGG2

The ping on my server argent dawn is now floating around 200-250..
Which to be honest is better than 5k ms that i was having all week.
so for the moment im happy..hope it stays like that so i can grind to 85 tonight:-p

Nehaxak

It won't. It's only lowish now because it's daytime and kids are in school etc.,
Watch it go mental in the evening again if UPC haven't bothered to fix things.