PL and associated lag issues

[Droopy_Bollocks]

Hi Guys,

Just thought I'd post this for information, just tried to play a couple of games tonight, started getting horrendous PL (10-50) so I thought I'd investigate after a full restart (PC, Modem etc)

I wasn't the only player with it, 7, Dober and a couple of others were showing it too.

Upon checking it appears Level 3 Communications in Frankfurt were the cause of the issue (screenshot of visual traceroute attached) but I should point out that players should check their PL if they're having lag issues because it ruins the game for others, hence I left.

Just thought I'd share it in case other people didn't realise the cause but it's not really fair to stay in the game if you're lagging your arse all over the place.

One thing to be aware of though, each ISP will have it's own preferred route to any given IP address, so not everyone in one country will suffer the same problems.

DB

Traceroute.jpg (273.55 KiB) Viewed 13849 times

[Zon3r]

I was having huge p/l but after switching to another access point, it was ok. (btw, why is this in the announcements? it should be in Ceonss )

[laboRHEinz]

Hi Guys,

Just thought I'd post this for information, just tried to play a couple of games tonight, started getting horrendous PL (10-50) so I thought I'd investigate after a full restart (PC, Modem etc)

I wasn't the only player with it, 7, Dober and a couple of others were showing it too.

Upon checking it appears Level 3 Communications in Frankfurt were the cause of the issue (screenshot of visual traceroute attached) but I should point out that players should check their PL if they're having lag issues because it ruins the game for others, hence I left.

Just thought I'd share it in case other people didn't realise the cause but it's not really fair to stay in the game if you're lagging your arse all over the place.

One thing to be aware of though, each ISP will have it's own preferred route to any given IP address, so not everyone in one country will suffer the same problems.

DB

Traceroute.jpg

This graph also shows that your connection gets routed through USA / Broomfield which simply doesn't fit to your average ping of around 33ms. Physically not possible. Thus, I'd highly doubt the accuracy of your tool. Then there is your very first hop obviously having some latency hickups (or what's that peak about?). So, do the informations about Frankfurt's Level3 node display its performance alone or is it just the sum of the entire route?

[Pegasus]

Too true, if an ISP has made some shitty dealings with their (trans)continental partners in terms of pathing and your con with your regular gaming servers suffers for it because of pointless back-n-forth packet routing, there's not much you can do once you've made sure the raw deal you're getting is consistent (across times of day, IP pools, etc.) besides terminating your contract and going with another competitor. I've been made painfully aware of that reality myself in the past, and every time I read about new instances of bullshit routing I can't help be reminded how, even with Net Neutrality still in effect around most parts of the world, the Web still remains a Far West landscape of corporate dealings on a certain level :/. Anyway, hope that shit is only temporary for ya, Droops.

I was having huge p/l but after switching to another access point, it was ok. (btw, why is this in the announcements? it should be in Ceonss )

Good point, moving...

[Cat1981England]

Alternatively in windows you can type "tracert 176.57.143.200" in command prompt.

[Pegasus]

Pffttt, "tracert". Bro, you gotta check out VisualRoute's graphics, bro. I'm talkin' hella dope 1080p/60fps, dawg.

[Droopy_Bollocks]

Yep Cat could (and did) use tracert but it doesn't keep testing the connection as the visual tool does - it's just a front end for tracert and ping anyway

Labor the broomfield hop doesn't occur constantly (the max ping as was shown on the trace was 307ms) it only appears on occasion and the broomfield link is also a part of Level communication. Of course my average ping realtime sits between 33-50 usually, I'm wondering if it's a load balancing thing or a handover ID reporting thing within Level 3?

The node reporting the PL last night I pinged manually and it reported the loss accurately (non of dem fancy graphics type malarky peg) which is the address ae-3-80.edge7.Frankfurt1.Level3.net [4.69.154.139] and on pinging it this morning, it appears fine so there was something weird going on last night as I don't normally get PL

Anyway, next time I'll just stfu and leave! pmsl

[Cat1981England]

Anyway, next time I'll just stfu and leave! pmsl

Nah, we all have lag problems ever now and then. Anything that could potentially help people out is definitely worth saying

[Droopy_Bollocks]

Anyway, next time I'll just stfu and leave! pmsl

Nah, we all have lag problems ever now and then. Anything that could potentially help people out is definitely worth saying

Well the problem was obviously temporary, played tonight with no PL whatsoever and no lag.

I mentioned the issue to a network engineer I know, he guessed it was Level 3 communications that was causing the problem as it's common apparently when they're either doing unscheduled maintenance or routing some packets through their US servers for analysis. The problem is pretty much confined to Virgin cable users apparently, I ran a tracert from a terminal on a work site today via BT and all their traffic goes via Deutsche Telecom.

Tonight's Traceroute

Traceroute 280514.jpg (229.27 KiB) Viewed 13792 times

Ah well, such is life I guess.

DB

[RottenToTheCore]

You use internet-explorer?