Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Hi, im currently on vm 20mb and seem to get quite a bit of lag when playing black ops online, ive tried every suggestion I could find on the net to improve things but none of it has made a blind bit of difference.

So now my question, is there any chance that changing to 30mb or 60mb may help? Or would the lag most likely be exactly the same?

Also on a side note, if things don't improve I may switch to bt infinity when its available here. Does anybody here use infinity, how does it compare for gaming?

If I had infinity installed can I have the line split so that it enters my property in 2 different places, so that I could have the phone and hub in 2 different rooms, like I have now with virgin or would this have to be done internaly with extensions or something?

Thanks guys, any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

I use Infinity & Virgin Media. My son mentioned lag on the VM circuit a few months ago - so I switched him onto Infinity.

A few weeks ago, he complained of lag on BT Infinity (ping to be precise - Black Ops) so I switched him back to VM where he has remained. In between the last two episodes, my circuit went from one upstream channel to two; the upstream is the critical item for this sort of gaming.

Being on 20 meg, if you have the older cable modem, you can't get two upstream channels. So you can report your modem as damaged (you'll need to turn internet off for a few days) and you'll get a SuperHub - or you can upgrade to 30 meg. The speed upgrade itself will do nothing.

Hope thathelps. BTW, if your area is hopelessly congested, it may not work out.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

It would be easy for me to jump all over this and blame Vm as being crap for gaming but that isnt always the case (see above) but as soon as you mentioned (lag Ops) I thought it might not be all Vm's fault after all.

Firstly I play Black ops 2 a lot (stopped at 5th prestige) only because Black Ops 1 via xbox or PS3 is so laggy I point blank refuse to waste another minute with this reched game. I moved away from VM to Sky for gaming reasons mostly and I now have a pretty much perfect line for gaming, but and it's a pretty massive but, Black Ops 1 and 2 have to be the worst FPS game ive played from a lag perspective, and it can manifest itself in many ways.

By far the worst for me is host lag, thats when you pull host at the start of the game and suddenly you struggle like mad to get a kill, years ago on games like COD 4 when you got selected as host you got a host advantage and could seriously kick ass.

However with the more modern equivelant like Black Ops 2 they build in an element of lag to prevent the host from having the advantage, sometimes (most times for me) If I pull host the game plays like crap, so bad sometimes I rage quit and when I do back out of the game it comes up with the message about changing host, which proves my argument (in my eyes at least).

So cutting through all the usual possibilities, like wireless or wired, port forwarding blah blah blah, I would seriously try a different game and see if you experience the same issues whilst playing it.

I know it sounds like I hate Black Ops, but I dont, some games I can have great fun on, others suck major ass, its just the way the game is managing your connection at that particular point in time, or the host has a poor connection, or host lag.

These points may be contrevertial to some but Ive been playing FPS games for ever and you get to know how a game should play and when it's not quite right, even tonight I played a few games on my xbox and got elements of lag in 2 out of 3 games, so I back out and low and behold I'm host again.

Of course it may be possible your on a bad part of VM's network and changing to a higher speed may improve things, the only real proof is by giving it a go and seeing for yourself.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Agree with this. i play black ops alot, host sucks major.

Upload speed is important, and ping (in my humble opinion),

But as said above, hosting tends to be reason for lag (I will often quit game, if I spot my connection lagging, and 9 times out of 10, I was hosting the game)

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Just for kick's last night, me and 5 other friends played Cod 4 (private matches) all night via the xbox, the host was in Canada and the game played smooth as silk, one of mates who is on Vm's 100 Mbps tier was suffering from lag (warping) most of the time.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

I think we need to also add that with Infinity if the connection has had a high level of interleaving applied to it the ping will be higher (I seem to recall your Infinity connection has a massive minimum latency Seph) Since I have moved from VM to BT Infinity ping has been nothing but stable and extremely lower than my VM connection because I have no interleaving applied.

Oh and lag... sorry what is lag? not seen that since the move ;)

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

If a gamer has a choice of openreach fibre (infinity/sky) or VM, they would be a fool to take the VM line. VM's jitter problems which cause problems with games are well known and can persist for a year without virgin fixing it.

Lag, warping and other issues went when I dumped virgin and went to Sky. Gaming is much smoother now with a lower ping which is consistent

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

fifa is another game that is bad for lag

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

I have the vmdg280, can this get two upstream channels and is this being done as part of the upgrade?

My phone exchange now says its accepting orders for infinity but I still cant get it, i live about 2-3 miles from the exchange. Could anybody give me a rough idea of how long im likely to have to wait for my cabinet to be enabled or is it impossible to say.

So for now ill have to stick with virgin and hope that things improve, but if they don't then when i have the option i will be switching to infinity.

Thanks for all the info guys. :tu:

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

No - the VMDG280 is not DOCSIS 3 compatible.

Yes - as part of the speed doubling, you'd get a Superhub which will support up to 4 upstream channels.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

You need to find out when your FTTC cab is up as it doesn't matter about the exchange distance for FTTC.

What does the FTTC checkers says when you put your number or post code in?

The streetwork page is good to find out if Openreach is doing something near you.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Also you can have alook round your immediate area. If the BT cabinet has a larger newer cabinet a few yards away, then Infinity is available or shortly to be available to you.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

u could be waiting months my nearest exchange got done at christmas and i still cannot get it i'm looking june at earliest so just signed new contract with virgin still next year

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

BT and VM no comparison really.

Generally jitter is the prime factor for FPS type games.
Base latency is also a factor but in my opinion 2nd to jitter and packetloss, unless the base latency is hugely high.

Seph's son probably was used to a certian base latency so his game got thrown off with seph's highly interleaved line.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Tried the checkers and they say this, "We couldn't find any information about your postcode. This usually means that there are no current plans to roll out a fibre product to your postcode area" , so it doesn't look good and there's no sign of any new cabinets either.

I have another question, can you have congestion on one speed tier in your area and not on another or would all speed tiers be affected the same?

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

If you mean VM speed tiers, all of the 30 meg and over tiers are defo on the same infrstaurcure. On any local node, all such subscribers affect each other.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

i have vm broadband don't have one problem gaming so that theory is a lot of rubbish. ok u had problem and virgin couldn't fix it doesn't mean every person who games on vm get problems i don't get any problem and quite a few ppl on here would says the same. what i don't get is lots of ppl on here always have to say sky service is better no one bothered it does my head in reading quite a lot of threads seeing the same thing.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

I had problems too...it is why I don't miss virgin broadband

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Seems you have a bit of Sky envy :rolleyes:

Infinity and Sky are very similar services due to them both using the same FTTC topology and offering pretty much the same quality of connection, especially in relation to gaming.

The fact the OP started this thread to get advice on gaming and Infinity, it is natural for those who have been customers of both to share their opinions, which is what has happened. It is Virgins fault that the gamers answering the OP's question are much happier with the other fibre providers and no matter how much you jump up and down with rage if someone mentions sky, that is your own problem. Anger management may be an option for you.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

I have both VM and Infinity (seems the right place to mention this again).

Currently VM provide much better ping that Infinity (PIP has noted that my interleave is high whereas others may have lower interleave).

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Define 'much better'? What latency are we talking, and jitter?

(I'm just curious)

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

"Much better" is viewed through my son's eyes when playing CoD.

When my VM circuit was on 1 upstream, Infinity had the edge. Infinity minumum TBB ping is c. 32 ms. VM is around 14 ms. Average ping is respectively 32ms & 16 ms.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

For me, minimum ping in game on Maidenhead based servers was 32ms on VM when it had no problems, although it would jump to 40 and 50ms all the time so a fair amount of jitter.

On the same servers but with sky, my in game ping sat steadily at 12ms mostly, droping to 11 a fair bit, with it hitting 20ms every so often.

Its not just ping and latency that is different between the VM and Sky connection when gaming though, although I can't explain exactly how or why that is. The easiest way I can explain it is if you have every driven with the handbrake slightly on but not realised it because the car appears to be driving fine to you. When you do notice and turn the brake off, you then notice the car drives smoother, without the drag you had before. This is how it felt moving from VM to Sky.

As for why this happens, I could only guess that VM's network is doing more work with packets, maybe splitting/combining tcp streams or traffic managing type hardware. As I said, I don't know why it feels different, it just does.

Being a long time quake player who is happy playing with config files and commands like cl_timenudge 30, knows how different netcode in games affects the feel of game, I do know what im talking about when it comes to the feel of gaming on different connections.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

VM was aweful for me, sorry if that bothers you.

---------- Post added at 16:10 ---------- Previous post was at 16:08 ----------

would your son be happy with min ping of 14 that jumps to 30 then to 100 then back to 14 then to 50 then to 40 then to 70 then back to 14 and so on?

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

I don't understand why people are arguing that their own personal experience with an ISP somehow defines that ISP for everyone. Depending on your area and where you live, YMMV between each provider.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Couldn't agree more. My son plays PS3 online games and has no complaints. There is no universal right or wrong here ..

I think what Harryn9000 was getting at is the situation where someone posts a question and straight away gets a set of replies along the lines of "VM is rubbish, Sky is brilliant .. by the way, what was the question again?"

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

to be precise, the original post was

"Hi, im currently on vm 20mb and seem to get quite a bit of lag when playing black ops online, ive tried every suggestion I could find on the net to improve things but none of it has made a blind bit of difference.

So now my question, is there any chance that changing to 30mb or 60mb may help? Or would the lag most likely be exactly the same?......."

And we responded about lag we have experienced.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

If you post a tracert to a couple of the Black Ops servers you are using, some of us on the higher tier products could run the same trace so you can see if what you are currently getting can be bettered? It may also show if your current line has problems. Do you have a Thinkbroadband Ping monitor running? If you do, can your share this as this should add more information.

As you are on the 20M product, this may mean you are on the legacy part of VM's network (for the local segment) so this could mean you can get a better quality product line if you upgraded to 30M but this is risky, people have found it can get worse :(

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

For VM the individual experience differs vastly between customers but with Infinity/sky Fibre, the experience is consistently good. Literally all the posters on this forum that have switched to another fibre provider have not had lag while gaming. Are these users not allowed to pass on their experience if their other provider is performing much better? :rolleyes:

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

I think the danger is to paint the Infinity option as a perfect paradise. It may well be the case that yours and the others lines are better than the VM one they replaced but this does not make this a universal truth.

I have attached a screen shot I took earlier this month from the first page of the BT Infinity support forum, as you can see they have problems too ..

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

For speeds it isnt universally perfect correct as they can vary base on line length and quality. However jitter wise its pretty consistent across the country which is by the way what the topic is about. Whilst VM has huge swings based on where you are.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

I wouldn't claim any isp is perfect and I agree that everyone here who switched not having problems doesn't make it a universal truth. It is pretty close to being a universal truth though!. Knowing the topology and technology of VM and the other providers network, where the bottlenecks are, the amount of available bandwidth at different parts of the network along with the testimonies of customers all go to build up a picture of VM not being the best choice for gamers.

As for the screenie, how many of those circled were found to be problems with the FTTC connection in the end? That is how meaningful the screenshot is compared to tech savvy users giving their honest opinion after using multiple isp's (within a recent timeframe)

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

One should imagine that would be a fairly small sample, and would an 'honest opinion' be one that agreed with yours? ;)

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

You can say its a small sample or anecdotal but the writing is on the wall ;)

Someone giving an opinion based on their own experiences with VM and another fibre provider has nothing to do with agreeing with me. More people having similar experiences however tends to give weight to what is being said, no matter what the topic. It just so happens that this topic is about gaming lag, in which VM compare poorly to other fibre providers.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Here's a pathping report to a UK Black Ops server (well I think it is ;) )

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

How many upstream channels should be locked on? I have a Superhub on the 60 Mbps tier and while I'm locked on to 4 downstream channels, I'm only locked on to 1 upstream: -

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2013/05/20.png

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

dont forget the ASA slapped VM on gaming performance. As ofcom data is proof in the pudding, it shows even adsl providers significantly outperform VM.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Two upstream channels are usually offered when you have 6 downstream or more. VM do the downstream area upgrades first.

Your area might not have yet been upgraded.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

call of duty black ops and fifa are both host based by one person is server so 9/10 it ain't ur connection for black ops u could be paired with someone in europe or the usa i paired with french and german quite a lot of the time. the only game FPS that i no is decicated servers is BF3

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

I play world of tanks before the free upgrade I was on 20 meg with a ping of 11 never really had any lag issues since the free upgrade my ping has hardly ever been less than 50 it hovers around the 65/70 and the lag has at times been terrible to the point of not playing online games any longer.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Have you tried modem mode?

If that doesn't work, the usual reason is that whereas previously you were on an underutilised legacy network (as in channels and VM servers), when you were upgraded, you were put onto the DOCSIS 3 network shared with a much larger number of people. Although you have more downstream channels than before, it is possible, nay likely, that the ratio of users to capacity on the DOCSIS 3 network is higher than on the legacy network.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Ok guys, i see the new superhub has now been released and was wondering would the new hub in itself offer any improvement to gaming?

If i was to pay to upgrade to get one and my connection ended up being worse is there any chance i could get them to put me back on 20mb using the new hub?

Could i even just pay for the new hub to use on my existing connection?

My concern is that other than the gaming lag my connection works great i can use iplayer, youtube etc without the buffering problems that i see a lot of you guys suffering from, so i don't want to be stuck paying more money for a worse connection.

Any advice???

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

First post on here for a long time (welcome back Carth) hehe

Anyways, 20meg connection, small grey virgin (ambit? ) modem with similar issues as those above when playing online games:

* World of Tanks - had to give up as lag/jitter made it unplayable really

* DayZ - inconsistent would probably explain it. Ping starts fine at around 20 ish, then around 5 minutes later ranges around 80 to 150. Ping tests & tracerts to the server show no loss or high counts ( I believe one hop of 33ms was highest).
Last night was awful, I even experienced a massive Desync issue that none of the other players had.

I have no unnecessary programs running while playing.
Various speedtests show favourable results 16 - 20 meg). Had a look at modem config and all seems within the limits.

Here's the thing, I often play with a clan mate who lives 4 doors away and is also on 20 meg NTL - he gets a constant ping or 18 to 22 with little or no lag/jitter and both games play well for him.

Others on the server experience no issues either.

The only thing I can see that may cause a problem is high (90 to 98%) CPU useage - could all the above be caused by that ?

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

I'd say you'd be worth updating your equipment to a DOCSIS3 capable device. It could be that you just happen to be on a congested channel.

EDIT: Way, small grey modem? Do you have a modem number? Sounds like you might have a really really old modem, possibly one that's not even capable of reliably handling 20meg. They all tend to be black (Ambit 256, SB5100, etc.).

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

From personal experience, I would agree more with the qualifications Chrys has advised.

In our house, currently, the FPS gamnig experience is better on VM XXL than on BT Infinity 80/20. The lag on my Infinity circuit is twice that of VM - possibly due to the aluminium run to the FTTC box. Whatever is causing the poor SNR margin - nothing we do improves that.

Is there a trick to try?

---------- Post added at 12:24 ---------- Previous post was at 12:20 ----------

Is that PC CPU usage? And is it down to other process running at the same time?

Queuing theory tells me that there is a long service queue which may well show up as latency. But that's theory not knowing what's actually happening on your CPU or indeed what that CPU is.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Well Seph.

Depending on types of games played, I think the 2 things that affect gaming are jitter and latency. Jitter on a FPS is going to have more importance than latency as although low latency beats higher latency, inconsistent latency is a killer. If jitter is fine then low latency is preffered but on some type of games jitter isnt a problem and then only latency matters. Since your VM connection seems to not have much jitter issues (better than the VM average) then that gives you a better experience. I agree BT isnt the best isp out there for base latency, even if you on fast path (as I am) they have some strange routing going on. People in london eg getting routed to sheffield and back before hitting london sites. I believe I get routed up to birmingham before going down to london. Plus there is some places getting that multiple round robin affect on some routers (as I do) which creates a permanent jitter of around 2ms, not big enough to register but is there. (the blue line seen on my BT tbb graphs) such as the one below.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/s...20-09-2013.png

If you asking how to get your BT line back to fast path then I would first suggest geta unlocked hg12 modem on there so you can see whats going on, such as sync speed, snr margin, error rate, interleave depth etc. Without that you operating blind. Get some graphs made over a period of time using one of the hg612 graphing apps, that will then reveal if you have a steady stream of errors or you getitng bursts at certian points of the day, you can also check if you are on a ECI or HG dslam, which can be relevant, eg. using a ECI modem on a ECI dslam reduces the error rate sigificantly over using a HG modem on a ECI dslam which can then be enough to make DLM drop it back to fast path if interleaved.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Chrys

I'm not at home today so can't check. Can you tell me - is HG612 v3B VDSL2?

Cheers

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

yes, its one of the 2 openreach modems, so is a 50% chance you already have it but locked. I unlocked the one BT gave me, its trivial to do.

http://huaweihg612hacking.wordpress.com/

see on the right hand side is links to instructions.

Basically download the unlocked firmware. (same as default firmware except port 80 is opened on the firewall for access to gui and 23 for telnet).
disconnect it from the internet, power off and plug in directly to pc/laptop with lan cable, make sure pc is on static ip.
when you power it on you have to hold one of the buttons down (i think reset button says in the instructions), this puts it in recovery mode, and from there you can flash the unlocked firmware.
Once unlocked connect back to the dsl cable and router as normal, it will come back online. But also connect a 2nd lan cable to the 2nd lan port on the hg612 (the one that comes taped over, remove the tape), and then you can access the gui/telnet on 192.168.1.1.

After that also disable QoS to give a 10% boost to upload speeds.

You can buy these unlocked on ebay if you want also.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Thanks for the replies.

Koshin: sorry, small black modem Ambit 256 :dunce:

Seph: High CPU use when playing the game and also on TS.
CPU is (single core) Athlon 64 3700 running at 2.4 ghz. Task manager shows mainly only these two using the CPU, (game 75%, TS3 22% approx) with an occasional 2% used by Windows Desktop Manager.

Been thinking of upgrading to the 30 meg package deal but if it's my PC where the problem lies there's no point until I sort it out.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Carth

If you've got a pal with a dual core laptop or i3/i5/i7 and try it you can gauge whether or not it is your CPU.

---------- Post added at 16:33 ---------- Previous post was at 16:29 ----------

Thanks Chrys. I've bought an unlocked HG612 off eBay v3B. That way I have one that still works if I screw up.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

I spoke to someone recently who had been sold Sky Fibre to improve his online gaming. He clearly had no idea about the connection technicalities.

He called to complain that he was only getting 21ms ping to the game server whereas his son-in-law was getting 70ms on Virgin 60Mb.

Oh, how I chortled.

I explained lower is better on ping and he was happy.

Don't know why he was sold fibre, though, really. He was getting 21Mb on ADSL although the better upload would probably better for gaming.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

You mean better ping.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Yeah, games don't tend to actually use a lot of bandwidth, 1Mbit would probably suffice for most. All about latency.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

actually most games dont use any more than 300kbit up or down

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Hello I'm currently on 100 meg (had my double speed increase) and my online gaming lags sometimes and glitches, I have the vmng3000 or whatever it is called, would I get better performance going to a shub2, also I've been thinking of going down to the 60mb package, you get a shub2 with that, or will that just make it worse?
Thanks.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

The short answer is no, it won't make a difference if you use a SHUB over a VMNG300.

The long answer is - maybe, depending on how congested your area is.

What tier you're on shouldn't really affect your pings unless you're using the connection a lot at the same time.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

I would imagine the are is pretty congested, because I occasionally get browser freeze, so how would a shub2 help (maybe) and is there anything I can change in my router to help?
Thanks.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Gotta laugh! Kush's long answer is shorter than his short answer!

Whatever tier you're on, you're better off with a SH2 than the VMNG300. This is because the SH2 can bond 8 channels and so your chances of having higher throughput are greater because the VMNG300 can only bond 4 channels. There is a point at which congestion will cause that to make no difference.

Then you'd want to run the SH2 in modem mode but your router would need to be capable of >120 meg WAN-LAN throughput; you may have one of those already but I don't know.

Finally, going down to 60 meg is only worth doing if it's 60 meg you get now instead of 100 meg; and then provided that yur monthly charge goes down too.

I think that covers it.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Long and short of it is since I am well warned not to download anything in the evening, I don't need 100 mb as I now set anything large I need to download whilst I am sleeping, so I'm not paying for 100mb unless it makes difference to my latency etc.
Thanks.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

No - faster download speed will not improve latency.

Incidentally, gaming lags are usually due to upstream latency caused by congestion. Downstream congestion can also affect gaming latency, but the upstream is more susceptible, IMO.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

I'm put of contact and i could go to infinity 2, i don't want to sign into a new contract till i know hat i'm doing is correct, here is my test
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedt...10451910560488
it says my latency is 29ms

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

I run the Thinkbroadband quality monitor 24x7 and my latency there is around 18 ms. So 29ms is high.

I can see why, - it seems that you have upstram congestion.

What is the latency when you test inside the VM network using speedtest.net and selecting a Virgin Media host? If that drops to 10 or 12 ms then the bottleneck could be at the interconnect/peering point out to the internet.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

ive tried baguley, manchester and wolverhampton and they are all 12-13ms, so does this mean there is nothing physically i can do?

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Your result tells me that the congestion lies outside the VM network or at its peering point with the gaming site and indeed with the TBB site. Not much you can do about that other than to badger VM for months.

BT Infinity looks like a rosier option IMO.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Just to jump in late and say after flicking through and seeing all this about Host's on Call of Duty series and FIFA lag. I've yet to experience a problem hosting a black ops game. Infact we're a trio of gamers with 120mb x2 and 1x BT Infinity line and it's fine whomever pulls host. I've played FIFA 13 on both Xbox and PC this time round and yet to experience any significant in game lag with that either.

If you ask me it's just a hit and miss with these things. The last big problem I remember with such things were World of Warcraft and Virgin Media numerous times.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Only thing I'm bothered about going to infinity2 is I want my router in another room to where I want the phone socket, do they charge extra for that?

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

They might run their twisted pair to another room for you for free if you negotiate it right for BT to win you over.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

No. They currently* supply a separate modem and router and you get a free "data extension kit" of up to 25m anywhere in the house. Basically it's an ethernet cable that allows you to put the router wherever you want. The modem has to be within a couple metres of the phone socket but you're free to do whatever you want with the router.

* This may change in future

[Edit]
Just jumping in on the previous comments, as a national average, Virgin Media's ping is *slightly* lower than BT Infinity on *some* packages, and although theoretically the speed you're on shouldn't affect ping, in practice the evidence suggests otherwise - that said the differences are slight, within single digit percentages in all cases. And in spite of the slightly lower ping, VM's jitter is still about 80x higher than BT. Although that does mean if you're lucky enough to have low jitter, your minimum ping could well be significantly lower.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

30m qas. That 5m might make all the difference.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

I take it it is good quality cat 6? Would they run this up the outside wall and into the room above?

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

While you're awaiting Qasi's sound advice, the ethernet they'd supply is internal grade and not weatherproof.

You can always pay to have the BT point of entry moved to wherever you want it. I'm about to do that to have my Infinity & VM ingress in the same room.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Or you could pay to have someone do a professional job of wiring CAT6 around your house.

If I had my way, every room would have an ethernet Socket in it.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Not sure as I've not used it myself, my install was basically a case of "Give me the box and I'll sort out the rest myself" and the techs were competent and obliging.

TBH it doesn't matter what category it is and as I've said dozens of times Cat 6 is pointless (not just for these purposes). The modem ports are 100M only and that's technically handled just fine by Cat 3 cable.

In any case, as above it'll likely not be outdoor rated but in my personal experience even cheapo 99p ebay indoor cable works just fine for outdoor use in rainy ol' Scotland if you take the proper precautions.

If you want the actual phone point moved (not advisable if it's further away) then that's another matter, it'll *usually* cost unless you know your way around the system and will probably degrade your signal so just using the ethernet extension is usually the better option. Unlike VM cable, VDSL phone lines can see significant degradation just by running a few extra metres of it around your house.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Really? The VDSL modems currently in use only have 100M ports? I'm surprised at that. I know the 80Mbit limit is fine on that but still. What happens if/when vectoring rolls out? New modems for everyone?

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Thanks for the replys, certainly things to take into consideration, it's probably swings and roundabouts, if I change to BT and it isn't all that then I'm locked for 18 months, what a nightmare!

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

I think there's EU legislation comin in next year that forces telecoms companies to offer 12 month contracts.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Pretty much. Though new and upgrading customers will probably be supplied with a next-gen modem+router combo that has multiple gigabit ports.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

probably not as vectoring isnt going to bring 100mbit+ speeds. Its more a speed enablier to allow more people to get existing speeds. If higher speeds do come it will probably be a small bump to 100mbit not beyond. Higher then that will be if they use a bigger profile or line bonding or when gfast comes.

Also the days are counting down for these modems, soon self install will be rolled out and then user's will get supplied modem/router combo devices.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

So can it be worth the hassle of changing, and is there some way of me finding out how good the service is on my street?

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

I don't know a lot about Vectoring, but I kept seeing 120Mbit floated around as a figure. Sure, as you say it's more to help people who struggle to get the 76/80Mbit speeds actually attain them but surely just equipping a gigabit port would help eek out a few extra mbits for those who can get it? I know when Virgin upped me to 100Meg (actually 105), I struggled to get more than about 94Mbit using the D-Link with its 100Mbit ports.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

120mbit I think is unlikely to be rolled out from vectoring alone.

To me as well 94mbit,100,120mbit no realistic difference between all 3, once you get to a certian speed its dimishing returns. BT dont need to rollout 120 on FTTC as they already the market leaders with their FTTP/FTPPoD products.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

I know a few people who already have lines capable of 140 when they were installed but have since dropped to 95 because of crosstalk - exactly the sort of situation where vectoring is supposed to restore the full 140. My line with is "average" length for a city does over 110Mbps without crosstalk and 80 with. Again, likely to increase to 150-200 with 30a.

Most people on the 76/80Mbps tariff already get existing speeds - 70% get 70Mbps or more - they don't need any speed enablers. It's the ones on 38/40Mbps and below it's expected to benefit the most.

Additionally Openreach are rumoured to be implementing profile 30a at the same time as vectoring which will double attainable speeds on short lines - up to e.g. 280Mbps without crosstalk in the real world.

That we can agree on.

---------- Post added at 07:16 ---------- Previous post was at 07:14 ----------

As mentioned, new modem/routers will become widespread before the new speeds.

And yes 120 is what I'd expect to be the headline figure for the upgraded current service, with 160/200 being implemented as a new tier. Most people on 76/80 already get 70+ as I've mentioned several times.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Here's where my circuit differs. When I was on the 38/40 service, that is what I got. 38 meg.

As soon as the went to 17a, my download speed has never risen above 55 meg, which I put down to something in the 350 m to the cabinet. Aluminium, perhaps. I don't know if vectoring will help that situation.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

I cant reveal too much sadly.

But you have to consider since there is a 40/10 and 40/2 product people who are unable to sync higher than 40 are likely to be on the lower product which in turn stuff's the stats somewhat. If my line only synced at 30mbit eg. why would I pay for the 80mbit package?

Whilst 140 is possible, its not a very high %, certianly not 10%. BT have learnt a little about managing expectations which is one reason we dont have vdsl max (fully rate adaptive no cap) by comparison to your city area example, I started off on 110mbit and am now down to a 71mbit sync, attainable is currently 70 so if I resync again my sync will go down. If someone syncs at 80 on a line that can do 100mbit and as such has a nice high snrm so little chance of been interleaved, they are much less likely to complain than someone with a line that can do the same 100mbit but the max speed is 140mbit on the product, the line is running at just 6db snrm, has too many errors, gets interleaved and the whole situation explodes. I think anything over 100mbit is very unlikely when vectoring is enabled unless its combined with bonding. Personally I think BT wont touch profile 30, gfast will come after vectoring. Also the way the dslam vendors are marketing vectoring to companies like BT is not to roll out lines pushing vdsl2 to the absolute limits but rather allowing rollout of speeds of 100mbit at 400m, isp's using whats capable at 400m as the benchmark.

I respect your opinion and I hope you respect mine, but given the farce adsl2+ is/was with marketed speeds I dont think BT want a repeat and as such will not market speeds based on a 0m attainable distance.

---------- Post added at 17:36 ---------- Previous post was at 17:30 ----------

When you get your unlocked modem seph you can check the quiet line noise level, thats an indicator of crosstalk levels on the line.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Everybody's circuit differs, obviously yours is below average for a 76/20 customer but many in your situation wouldn't have gone for the upgrade at all (hence why the average is higher).

Vectoring won't help aluminium cable be less crap, but if that is being compounded by crosstalk then the latter will be helped.

---------- Post added at 23:58 ---------- Previous post was at 23:36 ----------

Well yes, that's certainly true. If everybody was on 76/20 then the averages would be lower, people who can't get more than 40/10 won't be contributing to the figures because they would be best off on the lower service. How many people would move from the lower band to the upper band as a result of vectoring improvements though, that's anybody's guess.

Indeed, it's not often you see lines go that high but point is simple, it exists in the real world and it does happen. Not a very high % got 24Mbps on 24/2 either, but some still did. But yours is the exact situation that vectoring will drastically improve, bringing your line back up to 100+ without profile 30a which will further improve speeds drastically.

If 70% of people currently get 70+ and we assume they get similar amounts of crosstalk to you, then that means 70% of people will get over 100Mbps once vectoring is enabled. That certainly doesn't concur with the idea anything over 100 is very unlikely. You said yourself your own line can do at least 110 (assuming your 110 result was at zero crosstalk).

Perhaps, but it seems you are "widely" disagreed with:

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php...s-bt-fttc.html

So when the majority of urban lines are <350m, and the national average line length is around 400-500m, and the "benchmark" is 100Mbit at 400m, then how do you come up with the conclusion 100Mbit is "very unlikely"?

Supposedly some others think vectoring + 17a provides 100Mbit out to 600m, not 400.



Marketing and attainability are always different, as you know. But I'd rather have an "Up to 24Mbps" service that does "Up to 24Mbps" than have what I am actually getting obfuscated by some arbitrary "realistic" marketing horsecrap when I can no longer tell if what I'm getting is really "Up to 16Mbps" or actually "Up to 24Mbps". Even then, marketing a 24Mbps service as 16Mbps is one thing, artificially capping everybody on a 24Mbps service to 16Mbps is another. In that vein, I'd rather have an "Up to 200Mbps" service knowing full well my line was likely to be able only do 120 instead of having an artificially capped "Up to 100Mbps" service knowing full well my line was actually able to do 120. Why penalize people who actually live 0m from the cab.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

I meant I think its unlikely BT will market higher than 100mbit just on vectoring alone.

If they did rollout 120 with profile 30 and vectoring or just vectoring/profile 30 alone I guess it makes you happy but I dont see the point, BT already win on headline speeds with FTTP and FTTPoD (which soon will be available in all FTTC areas), and most FTTC consumers are on 40/10 or 40/2.

Regarding my 110, sadly I didnt create any graphs, I unlocked the modem, the first night in the gui it showed 110, which dropped to 105 in the evening.
The next day it was at 90, which I then did make graphs, those graphs showed some QLN but it was low.

Now is some confusion, apparently when I got enabled a bunch of adsl lines got knocked offline, I suspect they forgot to enable the adsl power cutback when I was enabled (I was enabled before exchange was officially enabled), so its possible the 90 to 110 difference was due to full power on the adsl tones.

When the line dropped from 90 to 73 there is a clear QLN increase across pretty much all the vdsl frequency with most of it on the first downstream range. So my guestimate is crosstalk at least for the 90 to 73, but not so sure for the 110 down to 90. My install engineer did link both times to new installs tho so he thinks its crosstalk for both.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Noticed there is no STM today - has it been turned off?

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Hope so, can anyone confirm?

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

The day we can order fibre there's no STM, not complaining but it's a massive co-incidence. (not going to abuse it tho!)

oddly enough upload seems to still be going as speeds been cut in half.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Not been STM for about 3 weeks now :)

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

i'm sure it will be on tomorrow in our area. Just our luck!

Been nice though - a glimpse of the future :)

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

cheers

I notice my speed flux now but before they were solid. But i still get around the 115/120 mark so if that's fine

Edit nah it's on again it must have just been broke yesterday or it's not on but it's so busy i can only get 80. who knows. guess testing it on Monday will see.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Sorry, I'm a bit late to this thread and haven't read all the posts.

My 2 penneth, I have had Infinity for 18 months and there is only myself who uses it, I don't even have a phone on the line :)
The first couple of days after it was installed it was fantastic (on Battlefield bad company 2 for PC) shortly after it seemed to never be as good, no idea why.

In that time the speeds have been good, pings generally good, as in 30ms to German servers (BF3) but my overall "feeling" is one of it's not quite doing what it says on the tin.
64 player servers seem to lag quite often.
My contract is up now so I (read the wife) can't justify a second line for my gaming, I don't feel as though I am leaving behind the nirvana of gaming connections and I am going to fall back on our VM conenction.
My 2 sons never complain about lag, to me anyway, on VM so that suits me.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

My son's experience too. The VM connection games better (COD) than the BT Infinity connection.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Yeah, I've just been on BF3 since that last post of mine, a full 64 player server and I can't recommend it wholeheartedly at all (Infinity) that's why I don't mind getting shut of it.

I had some horrendous games on Black Ops2 but that was to do with their "dedicated" servers I think.

I'm going to look into getting a second VM internet line put in for me :)
I know that didn't used to be possible but I believe that's changed, correct me if I'm wrong, that's what my wife heard at work anyway (VM).

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

bear in mind these games do a speedtest when connecting and the one with the best connection (upload speed) hosts the game (probably very likely on infinity) and artificial lag is then added to supposedbly add fairness.

In terms of connection quality I find infinity in a different league to VM, the only thing VM can win on with my own comparison is base latency, but that doesnt mean jack with the jitter I had. So for you to say infinity was terrible (not just worse) would suggest something else is at play such as the virtual lag.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

Not played the recent ones, but on the older call of duty games, MW2 etc, it actually measured downstream for some reason

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

The BF games are generally hosted on Dedicated servers. Certainly the 64 player games are.

I've not played it since just after launch, but I never had any lag issues on 64 player BF3 servers (Beyond FPS lag, that is). This would probably have been on 50meg as well. I've not used infinity to compare though.

I don't think it's as clear cut as infinity being good/bad and Virgin being better/worse, I think a lot of it depends on your area - in both cases.

Re: Questions about gaming lag, virgin & infinity...
 

ok but infinity generally doesnt have area problems like VM has, it doesnt have random areas which stay oversubscribed for months on end.

If AmAtoL is generally interested in whats going on then he can get the game server ip, do a mtr/trace from both of his connections and compare.