24 replies to this topic

[DaChonkin]

In Mechwarrior Online my upload/download/ping speeds are good but in every match I've tried mechs march in place then suddenly I'm at a different place. Frequently I loose the server yet youtubes stream effortlessly.

Any thoughts?

[Therax]

What you are experiencing is packet loss.

Packet loss is not always obvious in an up/ down speed test, and I have had trouble seeing packet loss in ping tests as well. The in-game ping number seems to use an average over multiple seconds, so while your in-game ping counter will increase while you are packet lossing, it might not be very noticeable.

Youtube pre-buffers their non-live streams, so the minor short disconnects that cause packet loss will not necessarily stream watching.

Probably the best way to see if you are indeed dropping packets would be to use an online speed test that tracks dropped packets, not just speeds and ping. I am in Canada so I use this site: https://www.cira.ca/...erformance-test
You can Probably find something similar for where you live.

It could be related to your service providers connection to the MWO servers, in which case it might not show up in tests or on other web services. You could try to manually set an alternate DNS server to test this.

Finally, if you are using a wireless LAN connection, try to switch to a wired connection, at least to test.

[feeWAIVER]

Try resetting your internet.

[DaChonkin]

Thanks for the replies. Sadly I'd never heard of packet loss, but I'm not a tekki at all.

[Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie]

are you by chance using wifi?

if so, go get an ethernet-cable if it's easy to 'install' in your house/flat (so that you don't trip over it, etc).
wifi is great, it's just not ideal for gaming purposes.

[Elizander]

I haven't tried recently, but if you have a VPN you might want to try and see if it leads to less packet loss than your current connection.

This happens frequently with other games. It might not even be your ISP or the MWO servers, but some place in-between that is messing up and causing you data loss. As an example, the most common solution to some connection problems with FFXIV that caused disconnects was a VPN. This problem only happened for certain regions due to something happening in between them and the server.

This might get fixed or it might not. It's out of PGI's and your hands to fix that specific issue so a VPN or changing ISPs might be required.

Over the course of having played this game for many years, there have been at least a handful of times when it was unplayable for me due to the reasons stated above.

Edited by Elizander, 03 May 2022 - 03:36 AM.

[The6thMessenger]

Have you tried turning it on and off again?

[LordNothing]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie, on 03 May 2022 - 02:35 AM, said:

are you by chance using wifi?

if so, go get an ethernet-cable if it's easy to 'install' in your house/flat (so that you don't trip over it, etc).
wifi is great, it's just not ideal for gaming purposes.

wifi is fine unless you are in an area with a lot of other wifi, such as dense urban environments. i have the only wifi6 router in the building and never drop a packet (i also have an it degree and know how to set it up properly).

in noisy environments you can try and find a channel that isnt used as much to avoid packet contention. i did this a lot in the early days of wifi. sometimes running cable is the better option. id drop cable for those sweet sweet gigabit speeds if all my network gear wasn't on a different floor.

[Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie]

LordNothing, on 03 May 2022 - 08:37 AM, said:

wifi is fine unless you are in an area with a lot of other wifi, such as dense urban environments. i have the only wifi6 router in the building and never drop a packet (i also have an it degree and know how to set it up properly).

in noisy environments you can try and find a channel that isnt used as much to avoid packet contention. i did this a lot in the early days of wifi. sometimes running cable is the better option. id drop cable for those sweet sweet gigabit speeds if all my network gear wasn't on a different floor.

makes two of us, then and a clear "yesno". wifi is fine - if there's literally NOTHING near it that can interfere. and there's plenty, as you will well know (heck, even if clear, routers/switches, nowadays often-to-always have powersaving features, which will affect performance).
now, wifi isn't the devil - it is very useful for it's intended use.
but if you want a "fast, secure and stable" connection, nothing beats some good old-fashioned wires.

I'm also NOT saying 'hardwire your complete house', but: if you're playing over wifi and having connection issues, wifi itself is the first thing to look at. ymmv, ofc.

Edited by Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie, 03 May 2022 - 09:46 AM.

[LordNothing]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie, on 03 May 2022 - 09:38 AM, said:

makes two of us, then and a clear "yesno". wifi is fine - if there's literally NOTHING near it that can interfere. and there's plenty, as you will well know (heck, even if clear, routers/switches, nowadays often-to-always have powersaving features, which will affect performance).
now, wifi isn't the devil - it is very useful for it's intended use.
but if you want a "fast, secure and stable" connection, nothing beats some good old-fashioned wires.

I'm also NOT saying 'hardwire your complete house', but: if you're playing over wifi and having connection issues, wifi itself is the first thing to look at. ymmv, ofc.

if it weren't a rental id be poking holes in the drywall willy nilly. i also have a cat thats a known cable chewer so any cable runs have to be either hidden out of sight or well armored (like cat6 f/utp). i also cannot have any runs across open floors as i live with people with mobility/balance issues as they would pose a significant tripping hazzard. the layout of this building would make cable runs problematic. my room upstairs has a number of computers including my networking cabinet (which contains my router, cable modem, an external hard drive and a raspberry pi). and the stairs are clear accross the floor plan. if i owned it id probibly drilled some holes and dropped some cable between the floors.

had a thought about moving the network cabinet to the ground floor. the 3 computers down stairs are all against 2 adjacent walls, and there is an unused heater register i could run under along one wall, and a large entertainment center and desk on the other. by some weird quirk of fate, my network cabinet is exactly 2 inches too wide to fit between the desk and the entertainment center and there is just nowhere else to put it. i could throw money at the problem, a second router, or a narrower cabinet. a lot of effort for something thats not really a problem.

Edited by LordNothing, 03 May 2022 - 10:42 AM.

[Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie]

LordNothing, on 03 May 2022 - 10:41 AM, said:

if it weren't a rental id be poking holes in the drywall willy nilly. i also have a cat thats a known cable chewer so any cable runs have to be either hidden out of sight or well armored (like cat6 f/utp). i also cannot have any runs across open floors as i live with people with mobility/balance issues as they would pose a significant tripping hazzard. the layout of this building would make cable runs problematic. my room upstairs has a number of computers including my networking cabinet (which contains my router, cable modem, an external hard drive and a raspberry pi). and the stairs are clear accross the floor plan. if i owned it id probibly drilled some holes and dropped some cable between the floors.

had a thought about moving the network cabinet to the ground floor. the 3 computers down stairs are all against 2 adjacent walls, and there is an unused heater register i could run under along one wall, and a large entertainment center and desk on the other. by some weird quirk of fate, my network cabinet is exactly 2 inches too wide to fit between the desk and the entertainment center and there is just nowhere else to put it. i could throw money at the problem, a second router, or a narrower cabinet. a lot of effort for something thats not really a problem.

have you looked into powerline? you run into some problems especially in OLD houses here and there, but in the rest, it works like a charm, is fast, low latency and it's quite cheap -now-
think you get 2 adaptors cheap for ~30€/$, or 60 for good ones. enough to connect the 2 floors.
certainly beats drilling stonewalls

anyway: since the OP is nowhere to be seen, guess his problem is solved.. one way or another.
moving on

[Meep Meep]

Whenever online games start to rubber band its time to power down the pc, router and modem and let it sit for about a minute or so. Then turn them back on and it will do a dns flush which updates the dns tables and allows for better packet routing.

[LordNothing]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie, on 04 May 2022 - 05:57 AM, said:

have you looked into powerline? you run into some problems especially in OLD houses here and there, but in the rest, it works like a charm, is fast, low latency and it's quite cheap -now-
think you get 2 adaptors cheap for ~30€/$, or 60 for good ones. enough to connect the 2 floors.
certainly beats drilling stonewalls

anyway: since the OP is nowhere to be seen, guess his problem is solved.. one way or another.
moving on

would only be worth it to me if it was gigabit or faster. part of the reason i want a wired backbone is so im not bottlenecking my nas (which i admit is just an external hard drive plugged into my router, though i have plans to build a proper nas at some point). wifi6 is pretty damn fast, so my backups dont end up taking all day anymore, but wired can definitely hit better speeds. especially if i use the 2.5g ports on both my router and pc.

Edited by LordNothing, 04 May 2022 - 10:57 AM.

[memorandum]

https://packetlosstest.com/

[Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie]

LordNothing, on 04 May 2022 - 10:55 AM, said:

would only be worth it to me if it was gigabit or faster. part of the reason i want a wired backbone is so im not bottlenecking my nas (which i admit is just an external hard drive plugged into my router, though i have plans to build a proper nas at some point). wifi6 is pretty damn fast, so my backups dont end up taking all day anymore, but wired can definitely hit better speeds. especially if i use the 2.5g ports on both my router and pc.

powerline does up to 2400 Mbit/s atm. but yeah, if it's only for the nas, and wifi works fine, i'd stick to that, too.
if you wanna build a nas yourself, there's plenty of linux-distos out there that do most of the work for you.
heck, guess a basic ubuntu/debian install will(?) support several raid-levels without "getting your hands dirty".

Edited by Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie, 05 May 2022 - 06:33 AM.

[Seelenlos]

look here and spread the word:




Damn you are Amis and should know of this man more than me ... (great smart man)

[Seelenlos]

Titus has also a video where he shows a git-script to cleanup.
Cant find it, but that one did even to mine (through me optimized and ****** up) W10 !!! The man can do WONDERS !

Edited by Seelenlos, 05 May 2022 - 07:40 AM.

[LordNothing]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie, on 05 May 2022 - 06:33 AM, said:

powerline does up to 2400 Mbit/s atm. but yeah, if it's only for the nas, and wifi works fine, i'd stick to that, too.
if you wanna build a nas yourself, there's plenty of linux-distos out there that do most of the work for you.
heck, guess a basic ubuntu/debian install will(?) support several raid-levels without "getting your hands dirty".

i always did like linux file shares over windows ones. samba is stupid simple to set up. my router does samba but doesn't have any raid options. its a good stop gap solution. that said we might be moving closer to civilization in the next year or two and i will have to re-evaluate my stance on wifi and can then look at upgrading to a nas actual.

[TheCaptainJZ]

Meep Meep, on 04 May 2022 - 10:52 AM, said:

Whenever online games start to rubber band its time to power down the pc, router and modem and let it sit for about a minute or so. Then turn them back on and it will do a dns flush which updates the dns tables and allows for better packet routing.

ipconfig /flushdns would take care of that for a Windows computer without restarting. Unless I'm mistaken, powering down the computer will not reset the DNS tables.

[Meep Meep]

TheCaptainJZ, on 05 May 2022 - 12:12 PM, said:

ipconfig /flushdns would take care of that for a Windows computer without restarting. Unless I'm mistaken, powering down the computer will not reset the DNS tables.

The only thing that 'needs' to be powered down is the modem but I always say do them all because it can solve a few other issues since some people leave their pc running for days or weeks without a reset including me. But yes the command line also works but its simpler for me to simply power down the pc and shut off the power strip because I can never remember the damn commands.

Edited by Meep Meep, 05 May 2022 - 01:06 PM.