Experiencing Connection Problems? Something you should know.

[Astralman]

Your connection problems may not be what you think they are.

http://www.cambio.net/bfping/index.html

[Radar-C}{G-]

Re: Experiencing Connection Problems? Something you should know.

Nice article. It's a great way to communicate what the actual problem may be rather than blame a game manufacturer for connectivity issues. For an analogy, blaming EA for all of the connection issues is like blaming EA for for poor graphics when trying to play BF2 on high settings with a GForce 5200 128MB card.

But what it doesn't explain away is that playing other games like CS:Source, hosted in the same region as the BF2 server, I know this because I know the server owners, I would get frequent connection issues with BF2 1.3 but not a single connection issue on CS: Source.

It could be that EA's ability to handle fluctuations in network connectivity is not as good as it could be. Just a thought.

[Heavy552 AWG]

Re: Experiencing Connection Problems? Something you should know.

Ok. I understand you.

We are going to need a software that does the routing direct to the game server using long haul connections in the fewest hops possible.

We usually dont get a choice where our data packets go on each hop of it;'s journey to the server and back.

We need the software that is easy to use to route our own data packets to and from a particular game server we wish to connect to; using the fewest and highest speed hops to get there.

I have played other games here in the USA and around the world that does not suffer connection problems as EA games does. Is it because there is too much overhead... gamespy, statistics, punkbuster and all the other baggage loading down a other wise good game?

I play F.E.A.R. for a evening and NOT ONE CONNECTION problem. I pla BF2 and the wasted time loading, verifying and to be dropped is enough to make one throw the computer out of the window.

America's Army increases in complexity every year and yet thier servers work pretty fast.

Hmmm. I wonder.

[imported_Dr.D]

Re: Experiencing Connection Problems? Something you should know.

Oh sometimes I get major ping spikes in game (Up to 500-700) that have NO realtion to any of what they were talking about. I used ping plotter to check, its someof my huge ping spikes are caused by BF2 or Punkbuster I can't be sure.

[JonnyMacFred102]

Re: Experiencing Connection Problems? Something you should know.

BF2 and punkbuster are responsible for the majority of the lag. It's the game engine's fault.

[PaWg]

Re: Experiencing Connection Problems? Something you should know.

I would like to know what proggie he used to IP trace.....................

[Astralman]

Re: Experiencing Connection Problems? Something you should know.

http://www.pingplotter.com
version one

I guess I could have been more direct, but I don't like being accusatory. But, yeah, as long as this problem is there with the internet, "certain" game developers will hide behind that and drag their feet at a good analysis of their product. Why go to all that trouble if it's really, and demonstrably, somewhere else? Best of all worlds...then check out the game's performance...this gets into Alice in Wonderland thinking. Design the game around the erratic nature of bandwidth? Any way you slice it, the customer ends up biting that bullet. I think that's what everyone would really like to see, not having to bear the brunt of this sort of thing. You can't help but feel they're taking your money then laughing it off. You can argue it's not that much money, but that's not the point. You feel foolish if you don't get what you paid for...or if you got what you paid for but thought it was something else.

I don't think the cable industry, or the gaming industry are all that fired up about dealing with our "petty" consumer woes. That's when I get confrontational about it. Blows against the empire-like. As if that would get us anywhere.

[PaWg]

Re: Experiencing Connection Problems? Something you should know.

Thanks for the heads up Astralman, this is a wakeup call to us all........amazing how many places your packets go......

[Tikigod]

Re: Experiencing Connection Problems? Something you should know.

Astralman -- too bad Valve gave up on their Powerplay initiative. Fixing the internet's architecture for games was a noble goal.

[old sch00l]

Re: Experiencing Connection Problems? Something you should know.

UK GAMERS ONLY..

There have been a lot of complaints around the web about HIGH PINGs during peak times for UK upto 4-8Mb broadband users.

This is because BT have sold the MAX package to ALL UK ISP providers to allow download speeds from 2Mb upto 8MB.

There are two problems with this for GAMERS at peak times - your ping is hitting 200+ ms - you will get auto kicked from the server with pings higher than 150 usually:

The reasons for this are:

1. Bank Interleaving gets turned ON, this means that if packets are lost, the service will go back, trying to get these packets - this is not needed for online gaming and is detrimental to your ping but will allow upto the 8Mb speed

2. At peak times the contention ratio i.e. the number of users at the same time using the same connection feed (usually a contention ratio of 50:1 i.e. 50 users sharing the same connection pipe) is unlimited with the MAX setup, because Bank Interleaving is turned on, they allow this to increase to a guesstimate of approx. 200:1 - this is also detrimental to your ping.

So if you have a 4-8Mb connection and are having issues with ping rates i.e. 150-200+ at peak times, this is the reason why.

The solution is to ask your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to turn OFF Bank Interleaving, you will be guarenteed good pings 24/7 BUT your max download speed has to decrease to approximately a max of 2Mbs

So if you've been having problems with your lagggg/ping recently at peak times (usually between 8PM & 11PM) atleast you know why!

[Heavy552 AWG]

Re: Experiencing Connection Problems? Something you should know.

Does the USA ISP's have to deal with this "Bank Interleaving"?

I rather have 100% service both up and down to and from a server than a really fast service that trips and goes back looking for a packet that is not valid anymore.

[Astralman]

Re: Experiencing Connection Problems? Something you should know.

The UK tends to view their end of the internet in national jurisdictional sense, whereas the US has a herd of individual enterprises. Dual processor servers have this bank interleaving option, but it depends on which server, and their individual policies as to whether its used. The prevailing view deals with corporate web useage so the trend will be to have the option turned on. Corporate useages don't transfer data in the same amounts, and with the same methods as do memory hungry games such as BF 2, so as a group, we're pretty much unrepresented in the main. That would mean, then, that if the move becomes nationwide, we'll have an additional problem to deal with.

This may all seem dark and dour news, however, if someone has a few million to spend, setting up a gaming only web might, in time, be quite lucrative. Not the sort of thing that financiers are into these days, though.