Game lag on Spark

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Uber Geek

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#1844872 11-Aug-2017 05:34

here is my pings on a spark VDSL connection.

Tracing route to 24.105.30.129 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 * 6 ms 5 ms mdr-ip24-int.msc.global-gateway.net.nz [122.56.116.6]
4 15 ms 6 ms 17 ms ae8-10.akbr6.global-gateway.net.nz [122.56.116.5]
5 6 ms 5 ms 5 ms ae2-6.tkbr12.global-gateway.net.nz [122.56.127.17]
6 134 ms 145 ms 138 ms xe7-0-1-10.lebr7.global-gateway.net.nz [202.50.232.162]
7 134 ms 133 ms 140 ms ae0-10.lebr8.global-gateway.net.nz [202.50.232.42]
8 143 ms 129 ms 129 ms los-brdr-01.inet.qwest.net [63.235.40.241]
9 159 ms 152 ms 134 ms los-edge-07.inet.qwest.net [67.14.102.146]
10 130 ms 131 ms 131 ms 65.153.29.230
11 141 ms 152 ms 134 ms 37.244.0.35
12 148 ms 132 ms 131 ms 37.244.0.103
13 135 ms 135 ms 135 ms 24.105.30.129

Trace complete.

Tracing route to 103.4.115.248 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 75 ms 6 ms 5 ms ae8-10.akbr6.global-gateway.net.nz [122.56.116.5]
5 6 ms 5 ms 5 ms ae7-2.akbr7.global-gateway.net.nz [122.56.119.53]
6 35 ms 30 ms 30 ms xe7-0-2.sgbr3.global-gateway.net.nz [202.50.232.10]
7 33 ms 29 ms 29 ms ae7-10.sebr4.global-gateway.net.nz [122.56.127.214]
8 34 ms 29 ms 29 ms as55497.nsw.ix.asn.au [218.100.52.65]
9 29 ms 29 ms 29 ms 103.4.115.248

Trace complete.

not a huge deal of difference, certainly nothing to show the issue is with your connection

I tend to agree with hio77 and think something else it at play here.

can you flash the spark firmware on the vodafone device?

xolu

25 posts

Geek

#1845355 11-Aug-2017 19:54

I have also been experiencing what I would describe as very intermittent lag on my spark 30/10 fibre connection just the last couple of days between the hours of 7-midnight connecting to a Blizzard server located in sydney, perhaps we have a related issue.

I've done a few tracerts and haven't really noticed anything out the ordinary with those. Its not consistent lag like you'd feel if you had 150ms vs the usual 60ms. It feels like 60ms with constant hiccups every couple of seconds. Could this be a packet loss issue? I'm not exactly well versed in network terms so I don't want to say something silly :P

I tried a ping in cmd to the server IP and noticed a few of them timing out every so often, does that help anyone suggest what the issue is.

Lemming

73 posts

Master Geek

#1845379 11-Aug-2017 20:51

Mine seems OK at the mo..was only unplayable the first night i swapped to Spark..

Lemming

73 posts

Master Geek

#1845382 11-Aug-2017 20:52

But what u describe is similar to last night for me.., but longer intervals than every couple of secs..

Gamgetta

14 posts

Geek

#1845626 12-Aug-2017 19:46

currently on spark VDSL, 55meg down 17meg up, in the past week i get random spikes/disconnects that only seem to affect gaming. i can be in WoW/Fortnite and ill be playing fine then everything kinda just stops in the game, im forced to close the game and reconnect. during this time discord voip is working, downloads working, twitch streams will still work etc. this happens even when its only the game running with nothing else using the internet.

The issue can occur within 15 mins of starting the game to 1h. super frustrating.

Talkiet

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#1845631 12-Aug-2017 19:53

Gamgetta:

currently on spark VDSL, 55meg down 17meg up, in the past week i get random spikes/disconnects that only seem to affect gaming. i can be in WoW/Fortnite and ill be playing fine then everything kinda just stops in the game, im forced to close the game and reconnect. during this time discord voip is working, downloads working, twitch streams will still work etc. this happens even when its only the game running with nothing else using the internet.

The issue can occur within 15 mins of starting the game to 1h. super frustrating.

This is a pretty good description of your issue, especially the fact that you have other stuff running at the same time which is (apparently) unaffected. Remember that Gaming is realtime and interactive though - your twitch stream might not get data for a few seconds but provided the buffer is big enough, there's no noticable impact. If however you're actively using VOIP (ingame chat?) during the game issues, then that's a really good indication that the issue likes either in the remote servers, or their specific path back to Spark.

We do not discriminate between traffic types on Spark Fibre (or ADSL/VDSL for that matter), so there's zero chance this is something targeting game traffic only.

It's most likely there's either periodic issues on the path (which are largely out of our control) or at the servers (totally out of our control). It's also possible that it's affecting all traffic and you're only noticing it on game traffic.

You could test that by running a continuous ping to somewhere like 219.88.188.7 and letting it run while you're gaming... When you notice issues, pop back to the ping and see if that's dropping packets as well.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

Gamgetta

14 posts

Geek

#1845659 12-Aug-2017 20:57

Talkiet:

This is a pretty good description of your issue, especially the fact that you have other stuff running at the same time which is (apparently) unaffected. Remember that Gaming is realtime and interactive though - your twitch stream might not get data for a few seconds but provided the buffer is big enough, there's no noticable impact. If however you're actively using VOIP (ingame chat?) during the game issues, then that's a really good indication that the issue likes either in the remote servers, or their specific path back to Spark.

We do not discriminate between traffic types on Spark Fibre (or ADSL/VDSL for that matter), so there's zero chance this is something targeting game traffic only.

It's most likely there's either periodic issues on the path (which are largely out of our control) or at the servers (totally out of our control). It's also possible that it's affecting all traffic and you're only noticing it on game traffic.

You could test that by running a continuous ping to somewhere like 219.88.188.7 and letting it run while you're gaming... When you notice issues, pop back to the ping and see if that's dropping packets as well.

Cheers - N

Yeah its really odd, i was in wow last night, it dropped and i didnt realise, ingame chat still worked, i got a ready check sent from another player which uses a WoW addon... so i didnt even realise till they had started that i had disconnected.

I thought maybe it was to do with fortnite as thats where i specifically noticed the issue originally, but when the exact same issue happened in WoW i knew it wasnt just fortnite that im having this issue with. Ive never experienced this issue up until the last 1.5 weeks. So id be doubtful that its the remote servers that are causing it. Im currently running a ping to the IP above while playing to see if anything shows if it happens again.

edit: literally just happened again, nothing out of the ordinary on the ping (using stock standard windows cmd), no dropped packets, no change in ping.

edit2: and again :|

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Talkiet

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#1845683 12-Aug-2017 23:12

OK, now try pinging to 8.8.8.8 ... That should be in Sydney I think... carry on gaming. If the 8.8.8.8 stays good when the gaming degrades then whatever the issue is, is outside of NZ. (If 8.8.8.8 degrades it's still probably outside of the Spark network, but it's an easy test to try next.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

Gamgetta

14 posts

Geek

#1845729 13-Aug-2017 09:41

will give that a go today.

Gamgetta

14 posts

Geek

#1845817 13-Aug-2017 14:39

11:30am So i played for like 30 minutes earlier was fine, no game drops, no packets lost pinging to 8.8.8.8.

2:05pm Just started now, within 5 minutes, i had a drop out, while pinging to 8.8.8.8 i saw a single request time out around the time of the drop in the game, pings around 45-50ms.

i will reconnect and start another test.

2:08pm Game just started, during this test i did see a request time out but no drop in game so far.

2:20 stopping test, will start again when new game starts.

2:25pm New Game started: 2:40pm game just dropped, no dropped packets around the time of the drop

hio77

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Lizard Networks

#1845818 13-Aug-2017 14:42

this is very much sounding like possibly a game fault rather than a connection fault, However happy to check the physical VDSL line there.

It is possible you are experiencing errors on the connection which is not totally dropping it, but causing bursts of packet loss.

I expect on a 55/17 connection you are unlikely to be congesting it.

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Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

Talkiet

4793 posts

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#1845854 13-Aug-2017 15:06

As Hio77 suggests, it's looking more that it's localised to the game server, or a path specific to the game server. Different ISPs can have different paths to different servers (although that's less of an issue when they are only as far away as Australia)... Different paths will have issues at different times so it's not always easy to give an answer as to whether there's a 'best' ISP for gaming.

If you're desperate, there are measures you can take which MIGHT help. One is a VPN like Astrill and using an endpoint in Australia. That MAY change the path a bit, and can use a different transport for most of the way less susceptible to loss than TCP.

I'm sorry but I'm not sure what else I could suggest at this point. It's a very intermittent error encountered only on one international site - that's basically impossible to track down - especially as it's happening outside of peak hours so is very unlikely to be congestion related.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

Gamgetta

14 posts

Geek

#1845859 13-Aug-2017 15:17

I could understand it being a game fault if it was isolated purely to Fortnite, but its not, it happens with WoW/PuBG etc and the fact that this issue with all these games all started at the same time, i doubt its coincidence that these games managed to have the same issue at the same time.

So unless theres an issue with the path out and all these games are taking the same path im not sure where to go next.

Its just that im playing Fortnite more frequently during the day that other games and its easier to test it there. I will be raiding between 7-10pm tonight on WoW and will monitor if it happens then as well.

Talkiet

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#1845882 13-Aug-2017 15:53

Gamgetta:

I could understand it being a game fault if it was isolated purely to Fortnite, but its not, it happens with WoW/PuBG etc and the fact that this issue with all these games all started at the same time, i doubt its coincidence that these games managed to have the same issue at the same time.

So unless theres an issue with the path out and all these games are taking the same path im not sure where to go next.

Its just that im playing Fortnite more frequently during the day that other games and its easier to test it there. I will be raiding between 7-10pm tonight on WoW and will monitor if it happens then as well.

That's why I have also been saying "path to the server" as an option. It's likely that some game servers share common paths to various ISPs.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

RekujaNZ

1 post

Wannabe Geek

#1845887 13-Aug-2017 16:04

I've also noticed micro disconnections through various games and even while browsing.

Steam will drop connection randomly for 5-6 seconds, friend list goes offline and back up.

YouTube will stream perfectly fine sometimes, but the video will stop downloading and buffer for 5-6 seconds before it picks up again and downloads the entire video at full speed.

Have also disconnected from World of Warcraft and have seen the micro disconnect cause a freeze lag in PUBG before it comes back to normal after 5-6 seconds.

Wellington region, modem doesn't disconnect according to the VDSL page in the modem settings, uptime still solid.

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