online gaming and NTL

[meanstreakuk]

I'm not sure it's a routing issue though as, like I said, the connection is absolutely fine most of the time. Every tracert I try looks OK, as it doesn't exhibit the 'spike' while I'm tracert'ing!

It only spikes every 30-40 seconds which is why only an extended ping catches it.

It will look something like:

15ms
14ms
15ms
15ms
15ms
13ms
14ms
1450ms <--- The spike
15ms
14ms
15ms
15ms
15ms
13ms
14ms

As you can imagine, online gaming (and it happens in every game I play, so it's not a gaming server issue - even happens when I connect direct IP to my mate who is on 1mb ADSL in the next village on)

[hammered]

meanstreak,
download the 3dcert app that's mentioned earlier on the post. That will run constantly and you'll be able to see just where the spike is. I've found that my problems are normally appearing on the hop out from within NTL's network.

[jtwn]

Originally Posted by meanstreakuk

Hi people! First post here so go easy.

My setup is...

1) NTL 2mb

2) Ebuyer Extra Value 108MBPS 4 Port Wireless Cable/DSL Broadband Router 40 VPN Tunnels, UPNP with USB Print Server (802.11G+):



3) Belkin 802.11g Wireless PCI Adapter:



4) P4 2Ghz, 1GB RAM, GeForce 4 Ti4600 128MB, XP Pro

I am suffering from regular 'ping spikes'. For example, I will ping -t to www.ntlworld.co.uk and it will be OK most of the time (13-15ms), except that occasionally (every 30-40 seconds) one ping will shoot up to something like 1450ms. It is incredibly frustrating and, as you can imagine, is making online gaming incredibly difficult. The connection is absolutely fine apart from this and surfing the web is (obviously) not affected by this, so our lass is happy enough. I'm sick of having my mate lined up in my crosshairs in IL2 only for it to ping spike and in the second it's done it he's had time to escape.

Any of you gaming veterans know what might be causing the problem? I could move my PC downstairs and pluf it directly into the router to see if it's a wireless problem. The router and PC are around 8-10 meters apart (straight line) but the router is downstairs and across one room. The walls aren't particularly thick and I have either 'Very Good' or 'Excellent' connection.

Or, is this a common NTL issue? Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

Yeah I know what this is and it isn't a problem with ntl. Its a problem surrounding the Belkin card, the RT2500 chip in particular (they have many different variants).

Go to Start>Run
Type services.msc
Stop and disable the 'Wireless Configuration' service.

Do realise that if you need to discover a new network (changed SSID) you will have to start it to find it.

I'll take credit for this, I found the solution =)

[meanstreakuk]

I'll try that when I get home tonight - cheers bud!

I'll also give that 3D TraceRoute app a crack too - looks pretty cool.

Cheers folks!

[jtwn]

If it does work, sorry I forgot it does actually need to discover the wireless network first. I wrote a batch file -

@echo off
cd C:\WINDOWS\System32\
net stop "Wireless Configuration"
exit

and just put a shortcut to it in my startup folder. That is if it works in the first place.

[meanstreakuk]

Nice one!

Does WPA-PSK slow stuff down as well? I could probably have my network unsecured as I live in a village and know all my neighbours (and they wouldn't know the first thing about stealing bandwidth!)

Grr! It was simpler when was ADSL and lived in town 80ft from the exchange. Happy days...

[meanstreakuk]

Well slap me in the face with a cod, the man from Grimsby is a genius! After an extensive extended ping, it isn't spiking!

There wasn't a service called "Wireless Configuration" but rather one called "Wireless Zero Configuration", which is the one I stopped.

I CAN DOGFIGHT AGAIN!!! YES!!!

Thanks for your help jtwn.

[jtwn]

Hahaha cod, ahem

No problem. Guessing the name could vary with XP Home/2000 pro to XP pro (which I'm using).

[sav112]

Originally Posted by meanstreakuk

I'm not sure it's a routing issue though as, like I said, the connection is absolutely fine most of the time. Every tracert I try looks OK, as it doesn't exhibit the 'spike' while I'm tracert'ing!

It only spikes every 30-40 seconds which is why only an extended ping catches it.

It will look something like:

15ms
14ms
15ms
15ms
15ms
13ms
14ms
1450ms <--- The spike
15ms
14ms
15ms
15ms
15ms
13ms
14ms

As you can imagine, online gaming (and it happens in every game I play, so it's not a gaming server issue - even happens when I connect direct IP to my mate who is on 1mb ADSL in the next village on)

I just started getting something like that!

Playing BF2 I even upgraded from 1M to 2M to see if it helped and I’ll be going back down as it made no difference.

Anyway the game sits nice as you like at 23ms etc than goes to 140ms and even 200ms then go back to normal. Strange one but very noticeable.

[hammered]

Sav, you've got the same problem as me, it's more than likely either saturation of the NTL network in your area. Another area that I think maybe a cause is the first hop out of NTL, from my tracerts that I've run. The first hop out always seems to be where the spike happens. Happens most days and at most times. at the moment I think it's a case of grin and bare it... It's better than it was with me, but I think most of my older problems were due to my old Terayon CM. My new NTL250 seems a lot more stable with the 10MB line, but my gaming problems still persist at a lower level then before...

[Craig_e]

These are the results i'm getting from the 3dtracert program. The 1st hop is my router but i'm not sure what the second is? could it be my set-top box?

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/5180/trace37gt.jpg

[hammered]

Well, scrap what I said eariler, I was gaming last nightand... Yep, bad connection spikes happening all over the place.

I'm now going to run 3dtracert for a whole evening on my gaming PC and see what happens. I'll post the results up tomorrow...

[Planetgarb]

I have read this thread with interest as i also online game with ntl on command and conquor zero hour By EA. Just recently there has been quite a lot of disconects and i was wondering what the cause was but a few things have been highlighted.
One thing i was wondering is how do you ping something as my usual ping on cczh is about 109.
Im on 2gb bb so should this be better im in the NR31 area

Thanks

[hammered]

Originally Posted by Planetgarb

Im on 2gb bb so should this be better im in the NR31 area

CHRIST! how did you manage to get onto a 2GB service. How much does that cost per month... LOL...

[Planetgarb]

Sorry its a 3am typo lol 2mb it should reed lol