[WXC/VFX] Changing to xnet

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Lurch

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#24350 22-Jul-2008 06:11

1) international bandwidth / WoW gaming any good ATM?

2) Wanting to go fusion, have my phone with Orcon so going to move both my phone and broadband to xnet then change to fusion. Good plan?

:D

xpd

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#150097 22-Jul-2008 08:39

I play WoW via Xnet and it depends on the server you play on Ive found.... Thaurissan and Cenarius sit around 3-400ms, Blackwing lair sits around 500ms.

Pity theres no local (as in actually in NZ) realm

1-200ms pings would make the game so much nicer.

Moving from a 3rd party phone provider to Xnet is a fun process....

Options to do it are :
Disconnect from orcon, join Xnet and get new number
or
Switch to Telecom for a month, then to Xnet keeping same number.

Telecom are still stalling (well..thats IMHO anyway) with allowing users to just port straight between providers.

XPD / Gavin / DemiseNZ

Ragnor

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#150348 22-Jul-2008 15:46

You can reduce your ping to the more normal~180-250ms by using a SSH tunnel to a webhost in the US that's local to the servers.

Why?
Blizzard still have the nagle alogorithm turned on at the servers. This alogorithm has a bad interaction with delayed acknowledgement packets. Basically the servers don't send more packets until they recieve acknowledgements which means our latency is effectively doubled (200+ ms to send a packet to us, 200+ ms for us to send a response before another packet is sent).

If you tunnel your wow traffic through a ssh proxy, the server will see the ssh proxy server in the US as the end point, the ssh proxy server will sent acknowledgement packets at US latency sub 30ms and you get a 180-250ms ping.

http://www.wowtunnels.com/ is offering free ssh tunnel service funded by donations. Setup instructions are on the site it basically involves running Putty (which any Linux user will probably be familiar with) and a Freecap or Proxifier to redirect wow traffic via the ssh tunnel.

It's a night and day different playing with 200ms vs 400-500ms.

Re: Xnet

I left when they had their multi-month international bandwith problem several months ago but I've heard gaming is ok pre midnight and goes to complete crap as soon as the after midnight free leeching opens up on their torrent plans currently.

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#150354 22-Jul-2008 15:58

Ragnor:

http://www.wowtunnels.com/ is offering free ssh tunnel service funded by donations. Setup instructions are on the site it basically involves running Putty (which any Linux user will probably be familiar with) and a Freecap or Proxifier to redirect wow traffic via the ssh tunnel.

It's a night and day different playing with 200ms vs 400-500ms.

Thanks for that, Ill have to check it out

XPD / Gavin / DemiseNZ

attilathegorilla

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#150435 22-Jul-2008 18:47

International bandwidth is still crap and it`s gonna stay that way. You may need to adjust your gaming periods and play during the day. No chance during peak times, from about 8 or 9 pm usually.

If honest work and justice are not enough - we'll get a lawyer.

Ragnor

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#150526 23-Jul-2008 00:49

Alienate all the relatively low usage gamers who need a good ping and attract all the leechers who only care about pirating as much media as possible via bit torrent...

Quite a strange business plan really...

Lurch

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#150527 23-Jul-2008 06:13

Thanks for the replies, will have to stick with Orcon (although there international/gaming is bad at peak times). I dont really want to to change my gaming time though as that wouldnt work with my work schedule too well.

Have wow tunnel setup but even with that some nights on Orcon I get really high latency problems. So my hunt for a good ISP continues. :(

Was thinking Snap net but there have been reports about there being issues there too. Vodafone looks good money wise (apart for the sign up deal) but not a great setup for gamers....

Telstra / back to Telecom.. nooooooo :) lol

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#150534 23-Jul-2008 07:55

Hehe... Telstra are pushing themselves into the gaming arena a bit lately.... they were quoted in the Herald on launch of their new games site that "all local games would be free data such as World Of Warcraft" - I was like.. "Umm... since when are you guys running a local realm ?" Never got a response from them

XPD / Gavin / DemiseNZ

attilathegorilla

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#150538 23-Jul-2008 08:15

Ragnor: Alienate all the relatively low usage gamers who need a good ping and attract all the leechers who only care about pirating as much media as possible via bit torrent...

Quite a strange business plan really...

The torrent plan has no negative impact on others before midnight, the free period starts at midnight. But international speds are crap way before that, usually from about 8 pm every day. This is not due to the torrent plan, it`s simply due to Xnet not willing to give us enough international bandwidth. It`s all about the money.

If honest work and justice are not enough - we'll get a lawyer.

attilathegorilla

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#150558 23-Jul-2008 09:40

Vodafone looks good money wise (apart for the sign up deal) but not a great setup for gamers....

Why is that? I`m getting very attracted to Vodafone, they`re not expensive and being a big company they can probably afford not to let their contention ratios get too high.

If honest work and justice are not enough - we'll get a lawyer.

Lurch

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#150813 24-Jul-2008 01:43

No interleaving off option, plus if you dont want to sign up for their free internet to the end of the year the only other option is to pay the $99 connection fee, the downside to that is that they still lock you into a year contract even after paying that.

Why not take the free internet deal you say, well they make you sign up for a toll package. So If I went for the FS/FS 20GB deal it would be $30 off a month until the end of the year but after that I'd be paying $90 a month plus a toll package. So would be over $100 a month.

I dont need a toll package. :)

Lurch

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#150814 24-Jul-2008 01:48

Having said the above if Vodafone dropped the $99 connection fee I'd go for that option.

Ragnor

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#150815 24-Jul-2008 03:50

Interleaving off is a must for gaming!

Telstra and Slingshot seem like the only solid options for gamers playing on US servers. Perhaps some other lesser known ISP's like Inspire or MaxNet might be ok also but definately not xnet, xtra. vodafone or orcon.. which is a shame really.

Lurch

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#150816 24-Jul-2008 06:12

Hmm, Orcon have interleaving off as default and use to be a great gaming ISP but the last few months internationally its been pretty bad. If they fixed that issue properly and had a decent package at a good price then I'd stay on.