Online Gaming Pings on Xtra Go Large??

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badserb

16 posts

Geek

#10242 11-Nov-2006 22:45

Heyas,

Ever since Xtra switched me to their "Go Large" plan, my pings in online games (especially those in Australia) have been spiking very badly. On servers in Melbourne/Brisbane/Sydney I used to get 90-120ms pings on my 2Mb/20Gig connection and it was very stable... now I start on 140-160ms minimum and it goes anywhere to 300-500ms every 3-5seconds. I am getting a splitter installed for my ADSL, because my wiring is pretty bad, but I never had these problems before the plan change. Anybody know what could be the issue?

Also, can anybody recommend me a good ISP for online-gaming pings to NZ and Australia?

P.S. I don't really care much about the download speed (as I am 10km away from the exchange), I can only get 1.2mb/ps and thats been consistent whether I was on 2mb plan or Go Large.

willnz

573 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 3

Trusted

#52039 12-Nov-2006 08:33

You sure you haven't gone into the "naughty boy" pool? I would recommend Orcon (then again I am biased) - as the pings are always good - and you can disable interleaving on the max speed plans - which (for me) dropped my ping times to NZ servers from 70 to less than 10ms.

Though, being 10km (!) away from the exchange, turning off interleaving may not be a good idea. But hey, it's worth a try I guess. :)

Skyxjin

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#52096 12-Nov-2006 17:10

I have the same problem, only, I'm a slingshot user.

Before the upgrade, I usually would get between 100-300 but now it spikes like hell into 2000+.
Whats making FS broadband so unstable?!?

PIERCD

58 posts

Master Geek

#52132 13-Nov-2006 10:29

I too am having problems in peak times.

Spoke to Xtra yesterday, they assured me there are no longer any problems with the Go Large plan and that the "Naughty Pool" hadnt been implemented yet.

Playing World of Warcraft on a US Server, latency is nominally 500ms off peak. Add in weekend daytime traffic and it kept having frequent 8000 - 16000ms spikes, same thing happened with Ventrillo, interestinly enough I also had very bad latency with woosh this weekend as did my flatmate, but was not near as bad as what was happening with Xtra.

So I rang the helpdesk and asked if it would be better to put me on the "pro" plan, they assured me I would not see an improvement in latency.

badserb

16 posts

Geek

#52151 13-Nov-2006 13:07

I also contacted them, and got pretty much the same response. A few NZers that play online games have suggested Orcon as a pretty good provider for international gaming. They are talking about 60ms pings to Australian servers, though they are closer to the exchange than I am (pretty much every1 is I think :P). Either way I am having a splitter installed this Wednesday, and I have switched to Orcon's Max/Max 15gb plan thats about $60 a month and should kick in by this Friday. I will let you know if there are improvements in pings.

barf

643 posts

Ultimate Geek

#52167 13-Nov-2006 14:40

What I think is causing the problems is the 'traffic managment' that Xtra snuck into the Go Large plan. It's supposed to throttle bit-torrent and etc but if they had any idea they would know it buggers up online games too.
The Xtra Pro plans are not traffic managed and I get 90-130ms (UDP) on the Aussie Internode game servers using pro advanced. Choose your next ISP carefully and make sure they don't do any layer-7 or application-layer filtering.

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spazz

266 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 2

#52207 13-Nov-2006 18:55

Dude, 10km?! You're lucky you're getting DSL at all...

http://walkingisoverrated.com

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PIERCD

58 posts

Master Geek

#52251 14-Nov-2006 09:41

Well,

I got a follow up call from Xtra last night, it was possibly the most candid customer service person I spoke to.

He knew of my problems as he had experienced them himself at home, and basically said, he had been forced to move to the "Pro" plan to resolve it.

So I have requested the change myself, will report back here after the weekend, cause that seems to be the real test of whether it is good or bad.

Fraktul

836 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#52336 14-Nov-2006 21:12

Haha, this was a CS rep or a sales rep

PIERCD

58 posts

Master Geek

#52381 15-Nov-2006 09:26

Well, I can report on a difference and it isnt even the weekend yet.

Pings during the week on go large were sitting around 600-900, Pings on the "Pro" plan were 350-500 and they didnt spike once.

I hate to say BS on the first CS rep I spoke to who said there shouldnt be a big difference in latency.....but damn you can feel the difference. Oh yeah and it has the added benefit of all round browsing being insanely faster.

I feel like I have been living under a shell for the last 2 years, I have been on Woosh and well 50K was as good as it got for me....250K downloads, probably doesnt seem a lot to you guys, but man thats huge for me.

badserb

16 posts

Geek

#52384 15-Nov-2006 09:43

300-500ms pings? Damn, how do you manage with that... I suppose if its World of Warcraft it doesn't really matter :)

Just a quick update anyway - I had a broadband splitter installed just this morning and I have to say that $150 price tag is worth it. I just checked my speed this morning on www.speedtest.net as opposed to the morning of the 11th (same times) and my rate went from 1038kbps on the 11th to 1714kbps on the 15th. Uploads didn't change but thats probably because Go Large is a pretty bad plan. Considering that I'm 10kms away from the exchange such a speed increase is pretty good. Mind you the wiring in my house was pretty bad and had 3 phones connected, but take it as you will.

My Orcon order (Max/Max 15gb) had to wait until I got this done, so I will let you know how my pings/speeds compare as soon as I have switched.

cokemaster

Exited
4937 posts

Uber Geek
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Lifetime subscriber

#52386 15-Nov-2006 09:53

badserb: Uploads didn't change but thats probably because Go Large is a pretty bad plan.

Or that simple fact that Go Large has a max upload speed of 128kbps (shows as 160kbps in the modem line speed) so you were probably reaching that already....

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badserb

16 posts

Geek

#52517 15-Nov-2006 22:24

I stand corrected. I was under the impression it was Max/Max - but thats just me looking forward to my Orcon connection. :D