BF2 High Pings Lately...

[bob4432]

within the past 2 weeks i have been getting extremely high pings when playing on numerous servers in bf2. these are servers i have gamed on before without any issues. my network setup has not changed. my pings use to be 30-40ms and now are a min of 100 and up to 500.

i am on a cox cable connection, with ~900KB/s down and ~60KB/s up.

i ran a test from dslreports and here are the results -
http://www.dslreports.com/quality/nil/1968000

is there anything there that would indicate it is on my end?

also, the setup i am using is pretty much the same as it has been for the past 2yrs.

any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

also, i get the same results regardless if my machine is using the onboard marvell Gb nic or my trusty old 3com 905b pci nic.

also i have ruled out anything from my machine as far as viruses or spy/malware along with looking at firewall logs. just stumped as to why all of a sudden my ping is horrible.

the guys i normally have in my squad are having the same issues too, we are within 50MI of each other and all have cox.....

 

[Fardringle]

Based on those DSLR results, it looks like your connection is fine but a couple of Cox's routers are dropping a lot of packets. If you click on the links for the IP addresses of the routers that are highlighted in purple in your results, you'll see that a lot of people have reported problems with these two routers recently. I would give Cox a call and ask them when they expect the issues to be resolved with the routers at IP addresses 68.2.13.33 and 68.2.14.66.


edit: had to fix some typos

 

[bob4432]

could those issues cause the lag and also the additional 70-300ms+ in pings?

 

[Fardringle]

Definitely. When those routers are dropping more than 30% of the packets that are sent through them, it means your computer has to resend 1/3 of the packets to the game server, meaning that BF2 (or any other game) has to wait that much longer to receive a response from the server, and the response time from the server is what gives you your in-game ping time and what determines the overall latency (lag) while playing the game.

 

[bob4432]

this would definately explain why my buddies that use cox are having the exact same problems with the high pings....

this should be interesting when i call cox tech support to tell them how something is wrong with their equipment, you would think they know this already. here goes the call

 

[spidey07]

I'm sure they know.

But having an overloaded router isn't normally something you can just wave a magic wand and fix. It may take re-engineering which takes time.

 

[bob4432]

here is another test i did this morning -
http://www.dslreports.com/quality/nil/1968214

still looks bad, just not at 30% percent.

they way i look at it is cox markets the gamers pretty heavy in their t.v. adds, and if my ping is so much higher then they need tor rectify it. i am sure i am not the only one calling in judging by the # of others haiving the same problems. can't they just replace it? or is it overloaded?

 

[spidey07]

it's most likely that interface is overloaded...too much traffic and the router just has to drop packets

or something else...normally pings are treated with a lower priority than other traffic so if the router is busy it may delay or not even respond to a ping.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: spidey07
it's most likely that interface is overloaded...too much traffic and the router just has to drop packets

or something else...normally pings are treated with a lower priority than other traffic so if the router is busy it may delay or not even respond to a ping.

i know they just recently upped the speed to 9Mb/s down and 1Mb/s up, if people want to pay an extra $15/mo....

 

[spidey07]

well there you have it.

poor network planning/engineering = stress points/dropped packets.

 

[bob4432]

i gave them a call and at first gave me the song and dance that it was on my end and "thos online tests are not too accurate". after i gave them ip addresses of the routers that were the issue the tech admitted that they were doing some type of work "within that area"?

he suggested that i have all of my friends call up and complain because it will draw managements attention. so i am going to make a new thread to hopefully get people to call in to cox tech support about this, because it looks like a pretty big problem according to dslreports and all the issues the people that go through that router have.

the problem is that it really only affects gamers or anything that needs a quick ping as the speeds are still high...

 

[spidey07]

hah, which means it really isn't a problem in the provider's eyes.

Cox director of OPs to directory of architecture&Planning...

"well it looks to be causing some latency problems"

"what do we care, that only affects the gamers and they're a small percentage of our customer base...we'll let this one ride out until the next engineering review"

 

[bob4432]

sh!t, you are probably correct. looks like i might give qwest a call...... does dsl have more latency than cable? by a standards and design standpoint?

sh@t, maybe i will have to start organizing some lanparties with atleast 32+ peeps, i have my old P4 @ 3.0GHz sitting here...

or am i just being too picky? i have read other stating that a ping of ~120 is not really a difference than one of 30-40, but i can see the problem with my eyes and my death ratio has gone through the roof. is it a combination of bf2s netcode and the ping?

 

[spidey07]

I have no idea about games and performance.

But your cox problem looks to be in their transport network and doesn't have anything to do with the access technology.

The may fix it if enough people complain. I can guarantee that engineering is probably aware of the problem.

 

[bob4432]

is there any way that my router could be causing the problem? i have talked to people over at dslreports.com and they said the icmp stuff didn't matter and since i have 0% loss after the icmp 30% loss areas, all should be good.

just last night i found server via all seeing eye. ii tracerouted them and they all came back in the 40ms range, but when playing sometimes i would get serious lag and my ping was over 600 when everybody elses was 50ms.

hell i even tried, just to rule out my machine, at 800x600 and still the same problems.

i have tried the onboard nic and also my trusty 3com 905b cards i have used for years and always the same result.....

here is my latest dslreports quality test...http://www.dslreports.com/quality/nil/1972133

 

[bob4432]

help please? any way this can be on my end?

 

[spidey07]

try it without the router, that's the easiest way to find out.

games don't need much in terms of bandwidth or packets/per second so it's doubtful - but not outside the realm of possibility.

reboot router, try
remove router, try

 

[bob4432]

thanks, will give it a try without router as i already have rebooted everything therer is to reboot. the tech people at cox say that since the hops after the ones that list the 30% show 0% loss there is no probelm. that is where they keep getting me as i don't know much about wans and cable/dsl networks and infastructure.

 

[spidey07]

well I didn't look at the trace too closely, but it still seems to be within their network.

But as i also said earlier - some guy complaining about latency is on the bottom of the list as far as actually doing something about it from a carrier perspective (residential stuff)

<soapbox on>
You pay for the service you get with no guarantees. That's why it is so cheap, shortcuts and severe oversubscription have to be made.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: spidey07
well I didn't look at the trace too closely, but it still seems to be within their network.

But as i also said earlier - some guy complaining about latency is on the bottom of the list as far as actually doing something about it from a carrier perspective (residential stuff)

<soapbox on>
You pay for the service you get with no guarantees. That's why it is so cheap, shortcuts and severe oversubscription have to be made.

this sux....there is basically no reason for me to game when i have so much latency, i could probably get better pings with dialup, what a sh!tter

 

[spidey07]

well (in no offense), quit your bitchin' and do something about it.

I would suggest finding better servers based more in your geographic area.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: spidey07
well (in no offense), quit your bitchin' and do something about it.

I would suggest finding better servers based more in your geographic area.

i am looking at the all seeing eye and using servers with pings in the 40-50ms range...the only thing faster would be a lan, but those don't work with my schedule which is sporadic at best

what i don't understand is why only ~3wks since the problems startup....

 

[bob4432]

the problem continues as now i am nearly bald, tonight i was hitting 800ms pings....here is a ping plot from a couple of weeks ago. could it be the problem, especially ip 68.2.14.77???

thanks for taking a look -

PingPlot