Just wanted to let any WoW players here might be interested in smoothping, cuts your latency in half Ive been using smoothping for couple of months, works great. Use to get 400ms now with this app im getting 200ms.
Just download the two apps - Putty and Freecap, install then follow the easy steps to set it up. Your notice the difference next time you log into WoW.
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Hmmm, I didnt realise there were free versions of this available. I have a few friends that still play, and if I ever get the time/money/get through my back log of important things to do then I am considering starting again, so thanks.
It's important to note thou that if they ever do start charging or they overload the servers too much then it is possible to do this using a virtual private server in america for a few dollars a month.
So how does the app work ? I can only assume that it sets some static routes to WoW servers rather then relying on your ISP and the other routers in between doing it for you.
One is that it forwards all WoW traffic from your computer to the server in america over an ssh tunnel. Then, when the traffic is received by the server, it relabels the packets with it's own IP and send it off to the WoW servers. Cause of certain ways that WoW works, local traffic is given priority over international traffic. Doing this fools it into thinking that you are playing from a local address and gives you priority. The packets are then sent back to the server, which sends it back to your PC via the shh tunnel.
Another reason is that the traffic appears as ssh traffic at routers etc. While they wont admit it, it seems fairly clear that ISP's give priority to ssh traffic, so it traverses the internet nodes faster.
last but not least, it allows you to turn off nagles (I think thats what it's called) algorithm which basically wont allow you to send packets under a certain size, and will wait till you have generated enough data before it sends it off to blizzard. This can cause lag while your computer waits for enough data to be generated.
The biggest problem with it is that you are relying on the other server to be able to process your traffic quickly. If the server gets overloaded (it can take a lot, but smoothping is not the first one to offer this service and all the others before have suffered from overloading) then you basically end up back at square one. Like I said previously, it then may be worthwhile to get your guild or just a group of friends to rent a VPS over in america and set it up to do this for you. It's ridiculously cheap if you get enough people.
bradstewart: Great program... my ping went from an average of 350ms to well over 1000ms. I've tried it several times in the past but never with any decent result.
Thats werid? smoothping makes your ping jump 700ms on average!!!! lol. Mate something's not right there, every post ive read on another site where smoothping is tried ( www.gpforums.co.nz) are all very good results for them all on average their ping has drop by half. Did you try other servers putty offers? For me losangeles01 & boston03 gives me the best ping (200ms) where the other servers would raise my ping.
You could try 'pingbetter' never tried it myself but what ive read is 'pingbetter' works well, you have to pay to use it though. http://pingbetter.co.nz/
last but not least, it allows you to turn off nagles (I think thats what it's called) algorithm which basically wont allow you to send packets under a certain size, and will wait till you have generated enough data before it sends it off to blizzard. This can cause lag while your computer waits for enough data to be generated.
no lag like you mentioned since using smoothping, before i would get 433ms just standing around in wow, if i did a raid it would jump from 600 to 1500ms where i would get disconnected. Smoothping, 200ms when im in a raid 380 to 433ms.
If the server gets overloaded (it can take a lot, but smoothping is not the first one to offer this service and all the others before have suffered from overloading) then you basically end up back at square one.
Had this happen a couple of times with losangles01 server as its usually the best one so everyone grabs it when overloading happens I just log out and choose another server. I might not get the 200 I would get with losangesles but far better than if i just relied on WoW's.
Worst Response To A Crisis: From a readers' Q and A column in TV GUIDE: "If we get involved in a nuclear war, would the electromagnetic pulses from exploding bombs damage my videotapes?"
There are heaps of people offering an ssh tunnel services to improve gaming pings to the US. For example: LowerPing, PingZero, GamerPath, WowTunnels ...and so on
They all start out free then sooner or later they need to (or just feel like making $ and) start charging a small monthly free to cover the costs of running the servers.
Enjoy it while it's still free and when it's not it's still worth paying a few bucks a month for. 200ms vs 400ms is worlds apart.
Wow is unusal as it uses tcp/ip instead of UDP for communication, latency really suffers badly from the delayed acknowledgements over geographical distance (like NZ >> US) using a ssh tunnel to a US endpoint means the US endpoint will acknowledge packets sent by the wow server much sooner than your PC would.
Nope, it's useful for everyone playing the US version of the game. The Oceanic servers are still hosted in America, the only difference being that the server clock is adjusted to a more local time for us. The general idea is that people in this timezone would be able to get together at more normal hours than trying to raid at 2am like what used to happen when there were only US servers.
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