375 replies to this topic

[Jon Cunningham]

We're working on some lag a number of you are experiencing. One of the things being done to mitigate it is adding direct peering with them. This should help, because currently your traffic flows from TW and generally onto Telia; a slightly more direct route should help a bit more.
A number of you also received new routers from them recently. Some of these appear to be faulty.

You can diagnose these by running the ping -n 5000 address.of.your.router and watching for abnormal lag in the connection from your machine to your router.
Just an update.


--

For others with various issues, please be sure to check the performance of your own home router and to verify there isn't anyone else using your internet. Be aware that the Time Warner boxes in particular perform quite poorly right now, and that Comcast is in the middle of a lawsuit for turning home routers into public WiFi spots.

We're aware of a couple of ISPs that have routing issues (you can check whether you have routing issues by running a tracert and watching where the traffic reports it is going).

Be aware that lag that "looks like" lag may not actually be caused by bad network connections at all - there are dozens of reasons why you might be rubber banding and bad internet is only one of them.

We hope to make time to write up a more comprehensive guide to fix network problems in January, and as always we have ongoing negotiations with our ISPs to improve game network speed for you.

[Milocinia]

I'm so glad I don't live in 'murica. How on earth Comcast manage to get away with the things they do is just beyond me.

Edited by Kyocera, 09 December 2014 - 04:10 PM.

[Clit Beastwood]

Is this by any chance going to improve hitreg? I get a lot of dropped packets unless I play via SSL vpn.

[Captain Stiffy]

Does this have anything to do with net neutrality?

[lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol]

Jon,

It means A LOT to me and I'm sure to the rest of us that you'd look into this problem and inform us about the issue. I really do appreciate your professionalism and time that you have taken to address the issue, especially when our ISP's could really give a damn less.

Hell, just based on this I promise I'll buy the Resistance pack soon, even though I'm a clanner and won't really be able to use them in CW.

Thank you.

Edited by 00ohDstruct, 10 December 2014 - 06:45 AM.

[Clit Beastwood]

I'm well versed in network testing and diagnostics, if I'm able to be of any assistance I'll gladly grab logfiles, etc. I'm running a pfsense firewall with verbose logging. From what I've seen, at the beginning and ending of every drop there's a flurry of packet drops on my firewall - when I had a different OS running on my hardware router appliance it would detect a DOS attack whenever drops started or finished. I'm guessing the two are related - I'm wondering if TWC is filtering or throttling the data on MWO ports because, for all intents and purposes, it's unidentified traffic. If our routers are seeing this flurry of activity as a DOS attack, it's not outside the realm of possibility that TWC might be seeing it as the same thing. I can generally drop and get 2-3 drops in before my 92ms ping climbs to 400-500ms. These issues were not present prior to the server move. Related or not, I don't know, but my hitreg went out the window when the server move happened. Since then I've played far less MWO. Hitreg is noticeably better on my Dad's COX cable connection, and from my office's COX fiber connection.

Here's a snapshot of my traffic shaping queues. I cleared the queue stats right before playing for a little while last night. I played a few drops on my regular connection (the qgames queue) and 1-2 drops via VPN (tunneled and categorized into the "qdefault" queue (port 443)).


Here's how the traffic queues are defined - this is the MWO section rules


Here's the most recent traceroute (much improved from immedately after the server move, after the server move, for a while, I was getting 90 something hops to get out of SoCal)


Speedtest


Pingtest


Additional troubleshooting stuff I've also tried
- Switching between multiple Motorola SB6141 routers. (Best downstream performance)(I have a bunch of them).
- Using the new ARRIS router provided by TWC. (10+ minutes to sync?? WTF channel bonding!? Best upstream performance).
- Yes I've run it with the computer direct-connected to the modem (sb6141 and the new arris, model number not available at the moment) and there were no changes.

The lag spikes, etc. were not present in any other games or applications I've tried running, and I've been leaning hard on the network while testing some workstation virtualization stuff from work to home. No packet loss while doing that or anything else, but once I start the MWO client the packet drops start as soon as I click "launch".

Edited by Fierostetz, 10 December 2014 - 10:25 AM.

[aniviron]

Thanks for the update Jon. I guess I'm not too surprised that this is a TWC issue; I was pinging ~80 from Texas on TWC to the old servers, and ping ~120-150 now, which seemed like a big jump. Wouldn't mind so much if the zoom in/out and vision modes didn't need to auth with the servers though.

We also just got a new router, pinged it as per your suggestion. It's <4ms about 95% of the time, but every 20th ping or so it spikes to 70-100 for one ping. This is the third time we've replaced our router since they upgraded their service to compete with google fiber coming to the area, and this is the best of the bunch though.

[Clit Beastwood]

aniviron, on 10 December 2014 - 08:11 PM, said:

We also just got a new router, pinged it as per your suggestion. It's <4ms about 95% of the time, but every 20th ping or so it spikes to 70-100 for one ping. This is the third time we've replaced our router since they upgraded their service to compete with google fiber coming to the area, and this is the best of the bunch though.

Are you on wireless? Or older cat5 cable/100baseT, etc.? I'd generally recommend you try a few drops with your modem direct-connected to your computer, just to see if it improves.

[aniviron]

Fierostetz, on 10 December 2014 - 09:18 PM, said:

Are you on wireless? Or older cat5 cable/100baseT, etc.? I'd generally recommend you try a few drops with your modem direct-connected to your computer, just to see if it improves.

It is directly connected to my computer. Cable is new, got onboard 10/100/1000, so that's not the issue.

[Clit Beastwood]

aniviron, on 11 December 2014 - 12:16 AM, said:

It is directly connected to my computer. Cable is new, got onboard 10/100/1000, so that's not the issue.

just wondering, 4ms to your router is kinda long.

[Alekzander Smirnoff]

Hmm, this might explain all my problems... I'm also a TWC customer but I have the Ubee modem which is direct connected to my desktop computer and I've had so many problems with it and MWO since the server move. I'm at work right now but when I get home I'm going to try the ping test. My old cellular internet connection I had before I moved was more reliable than my land line is at my new house, which is rather disturbing. Anyway, looks like its time to call up TWC and complain to them about my issues.

[Bhael Fire]

I'm on TWC as well in Texas. I used to get 80-90 pings. Now it's never lower than 120...and often around 400-600 every other match now. When it's that high, the game is unplayable unless I disconnect and then rejoin the match — which sometimes resets the ping down to around 120.

[Clit Beastwood]

Well if you do call them, tell them you're getting unexpected lag in an online game and see if they can commit to whitelisting the ports for you.



the ports are

TCP 45461 and 45464

UDP is a range from 21000-30000



Since many of us play on long marathon mech'ing sessions, they might be throttling it, or maybe just setting it low-priority in favor of something else. I suspect thats why its so much better when you use an SSL VPN to route the traffic through 443. I know I sound like a spokesman for the company, but pingzapper is the best I've found for tunneling that traffic through a low-lag VPN. I wish that WTFast would work, but it disconnects me from MWO. Life's not perfect with pingzapper, but it's better than awful

[aniviron]

Fierostetz, on 11 December 2014 - 08:44 AM, said:

just wondering, 4ms to your router is kinda long.

Yeah it is, I am used to 1ms from when I was on Charter up north. I think TWC just got the cheapest possible modems, we have no end of trouble with ours, and apparently the problems we are having are very common. Nothing we can do about it, since the contract forbids us from using our own modem and router...

Bhael Fire, on 11 December 2014 - 10:27 AM, said:

I'm on TWC as well in Texas. I used to get 80-90 pings. Now it's never lower than 120...and often around 400-600 every other match now. When it's that high, the game is unplayable unless I disconnect and then rejoin the match — which sometimes resets the ping down to around 120.

This is exactly what I'm getting, TWC in TX as well.

[Bhael Fire]

aniviron, on 11 December 2014 - 03:11 PM, said:

This is exactly what I'm getting, TWC in TX as well.

My pings have gotten even worse tonight; now averaging 600-900...and even disco / reco doesn't help.

Pretty bummed out. :/

[reflectorjones]

Tracing route to 192.99.109.129 over a maximum of 30 hops (TWC MO)

1 25 ms 25 ms 22 ms cpe-69-76-144-1.kc.res.rr.com [69.76.144.1]
2 12 ms 10 ms 9 ms tge7-4.ksczksmp02h.kc.rr.com [65.28.17.62]
3 10 ms 9 ms 13 ms tge0-11-0-24.ksczksmp01r.kc.rr.com [98.156.43.202]
4 11 ms 12 ms 12 ms agg10.ksczmogn01r.kc.rr.com [98.156.42.4]
5 25 ms 27 ms 23 ms ae30.dllatxl3-cr01.kc.rr.com [98.156.42.0]
6 26 ms 33 ms 26 ms 107.14.17.136
7 26 ms 46 ms 25 ms ae0.pr1.dfw10.tbone.rr.com [107.14.17.232]
8 34 ms 34 ms 22 ms dls-bb1-link.telia.net [213.248.93.189]
9 73 ms 74 ms 72 ms nyk-bb2-link.telia.net [62.115.137.50]
10 109 ms 71 ms 69 ms nyk-b2-link.telia.net [213.155.130.30]
11 109 ms * 109 ms nwk-1-6k.nj.us [178.32.135.212]
12 124 ms 126 ms 126 ms 192.99.146.84
13 128 ms 127 ms 124 ms 198.27.73.231
14 711 ms 708 ms 683 ms 192.99.109.129

Trace complete.

Ping statistics for 192.99.109.129:
Packets: Sent = 30, Received = 30, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 823ms, Maximum = 917ms, Average = 873ms

___________________________________________________

Friend in MO (Non TWC)

Ping statistics for 192.99.109.192:
Packets: Sent = 7, Received = 6, Lost = 1 (14% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 112ms, Maximum = 115ms, Average = 113ms

___________________________________________________

Another Friend in MO (Non TWC)

Png statistics for 192.99.109.129:
Packets: Sent = 52, Received = 51, Lost = 1 (1% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 71ms, Maximum = 251ms, Average = 85ms

Is this clearly a TWC issue?

[Alekzander Smirnoff]

I should note TWC ate my local cable provider a few years ago so I may not be experiencing this issue quite as bad but here's my data from Kentucky. As I stated above, I get disconnected from game server all the time while trying to start a match. Once IN though I never seem to disconnect.

Trace:
Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6002]
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\Brett>tracert 192.99.109.192

Tracing route to mwomercs.com [192.99.109.192]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 3 ms 24 ms 2 ms 192.168.0.1
2 10 ms 12 ms 11 ms cpe-96-28-144-1.swo.res.rr.com [96.28.144.1]
3 13 ms 11 ms 12 ms tge0-7-0-7.lsvnkyfb01h.midwest.rr.com [74.139.1.
61]
4 13 ms 15 ms 15 ms be20.lsvqkydb01r.midwest.rr.com [65.29.31.24]
5 23 ms 27 ms 24 ms be24.clevohek01r.midwest.rr.com [65.189.140.166]

6 32 ms 35 ms 31 ms bu-ether25.atlngamq47w-bcr01.tbone.rr.com [107.1
4.19.38]
7 31 ms 31 ms 58 ms 107.14.19.160
8 33 ms 31 ms 32 ms fxp0.n0.lax91.adelphiacom.net [66.109.7.162]
9 36 ms 34 ms 34 ms ae-2-52.edge3.Newark1.Level3.net [4.69.156.43]
10 34 ms 39 ms 36 ms ae-2-52.edge3.Newark1.Level3.net [4.69.156.43]
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 49 ms 45 ms 57 ms 192.99.146.84
13 46 ms 56 ms 47 ms 198.27.73.231
14 48 ms 46 ms 56 ms mwomercs.com [192.99.109.192]

Trace complete.

Ping:
Ping statistics for 192.99.109.192:

Packets: Sent = 30, Received = 30, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 45ms, Maximum = 49ms, Average = 46ms

[aniviron]

Bhael Fire, on 11 December 2014 - 08:40 PM, said:

My pings have gotten even worse tonight; now averaging 600-900...and even disco / reco doesn't help.

Pretty bummed out. :/

Same :[

[InspectorG]

Captain Stiffy, on 10 December 2014 - 06:37 AM, said:

Does this have anything to do with net neutrality?

Oh yeah.

Basically, ISPs get to determine policy. They cry otherwise but thats business in 'Merkuh. Follow the lobbying and appointees...

[Bhael Fire]

So...are users of TWC pretty much boned? Is there something that can done about this? It's very frustrating.