gaming latency with orcon internet

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ChickenSoup

22 posts

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#102959 27-May-2012 03:12

Hi guys
I've been having a few issues with orcon in regards to playing games and hope someone can shed some insight
Heres the background, I'm flatting (or studio'ing with other people) in Dunedin, and the place is running on orcon internet. What kind of plan we are on i have no idea since landlord hasnt told me the specifics other than this place is on orcon, although i can find out later on if need to.
Now heres the problem, my latency for almost any online game i play, regardless of where im connecting to (say, NZ/AUS server or US server), as soon as someone in the flat starts watching youtube or any kind of video streaming my latency shoots up from a standard 50ms-200ms to around about 800-1200ms.
Opening web pages and other stuff seem to be unaffected and download speed is still fast, only the latency in games seem to just go through the roof. This occurs regardless of bandwidth used, as in it happens even when the data cap has renewed.

This never happened when I was on vodafone last year, where some of my flatmates would be gaming while others would be streaming videos and all were happy, which makes me wonder why it happens with orcon.
Anyone else also experience this?
Any help is appreciated

If i've missed any information please tell me
Thanks

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I fix stuff!
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#630974 27-May-2012 12:26

Hi ChickenSoup

We are doing some changes Wednesday morning which should address this.

ChickenSoup

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#631231 27-May-2012 22:16

Ok, thanks for the quick reply :D

Sounddude

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#631281 28-May-2012 08:26

Hi ChickrnSoup

Re-reading your original post, the changes that we are doing won't help.

It sounds like your landlord who is providing your internet access is doing some sort of ratelimiting of some sort, which would explain the latency increases when just doing any other traffic on the network.

xpd

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#631291 28-May-2012 08:47

As Sounddude said... could be some QOS setup - is the account owner a network geek by any chance ? :)

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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ChickenSoup

22 posts

Geek

#631417 28-May-2012 12:12

lol, not sure whether hes a geek or not. havent really seen him since we signed the tenancy :\
So i just did a quick google on QOS setups and whatnot and got a brief idea on what it is... sounds like what is happening to me at the moment.

Is there anything I can do to change this without accessing router?

Unfortunately the landlord got a new router at the start of this year since the previous tenants last year trashed it up by tweeking the settings and finally breaking it (not sure how, but this is what he told us), and also locked the access to the router.

if not ill probably try and contact him in the next few days and ask whats going on...

Ragnor

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#631425 28-May-2012 12:21

QoS is a good thing if done right for a flat situation, prioritising latency sensitive applications like gaming and voip over large downlaods, torrents etc.

However generally all consumer/retail routers are pretty bad at this. Many geeks go with a two device setup: modem/router bridged into more powerful 2nd router running TomatoUSB, Gargoyle Router (OpenWRT), pfsense etc.

You best bet is to talk to the landlord and find out what the current situation is, details of the plan and cap, settings on the router etc.

ChickenSoup

22 posts

Geek

#631426 28-May-2012 12:23

I see... is there a way to check whether he has a QOS set up before i ask? ive been doing some googling and cant seem to find out.

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Ragnor

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#631448 28-May-2012 12:43

ChickenSoup: I see... is there a way to check whether he has a QOS set up before i ask? ive been doing some googling and cant seem to find out.

Effectively nope.

Unless the landord is a tech geek if you ask him about QoS they probably won't have any idea what you are talking about.

Q: What make/model is the modem/router?

ChickenSoup

22 posts

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#631494 28-May-2012 13:53

oh bummer :<

oh sorry I'm out at uni right now, will tell you once i get home.

mercutio

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#631503 28-May-2012 14:25

this can happen if the sync rate is low.. there's a fixed amount of buffer regardless of sync speed. but it'd have to be around 1 or 2 megabit to get that kind of degredation.

the other thing that can cause the same thing is uploading.. maybe they're uploading to youtube (or something else), or using bittorrent?

also depending on the game.. if it uses tcp/ip rather than udp. (diablo/wow use tcp.. starcraft uses udp) then packet loss can cause ping spikes. (you can probably google the specific game to find out what it uses)

ChickenSoup

22 posts

Geek

#631690 28-May-2012 21:46

Sorry for getting home so late

Its a 2 router setup with
- D-Link DES1008D as main router
- Linksys WAG160N Wireless-N ADSL2+ Gateway as wireless access point

mercutio: this can happen if the sync rate is low.. there's a fixed amount of buffer regardless of sync speed. but it'd have to be around 1 or 2 megabit to get that kind of degredation.

the other thing that can cause the same thing is uploading.. maybe they're uploading to youtube (or something else), or using bittorrent?

also depending on the game.. if it uses tcp/ip rather than udp. (diablo/wow use tcp.. starcraft uses udp) then packet loss can cause ping spikes. (you can probably google the specific game to find out what it uses)

sorry didnt quite catch you there on low sync rate and stuff, can you explain a bit more plz ><

mercutio

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#631701 28-May-2012 22:05

ChickenSoup: Sorry for getting home so late

Its a 2 router setup with
- D-Link DES1008D as main router
- Linksys WAG160N Wireless-N ADSL2+ Gateway as wireless access point
mercutio: this can happen if the sync rate is low.. there's a fixed amount of buffer regardless of sync speed. but it'd have to be around 1 or 2 megabit to get that kind of degredation.

the other thing that can cause the same thing is uploading.. maybe they're uploading to youtube (or something else), or using bittorrent?

also depending on the game.. if it uses tcp/ip rather than udp. (diablo/wow use tcp.. starcraft uses udp) then packet loss can cause ping spikes. (you can probably google the specific game to find out what it uses)

sorry didnt quite catch you there on low sync rate and stuff, can you explain a bit more plz ><

well if you can download at 200k/sec, and there's 100k of buffer, then it'll buffer up to 0.5 seconds...

if you can download at 2000k/sec and there's 100k of buffer then it'll buffer up to 0.05 seconds...

when the buffer runs out packets are dropped. when you create a tcp connection to a remote destination, and a packet is dropped then it has tell the other end to resend it.

so if you have 10% packet loss.. you may have something like

124567890

and it has to wait an extra round trip time to send that extra missing packet.

so if you have a US host that's 200 msec away normally, but you also have a buffer of 200 msec.. then it has to wait an extra 400 msec to get that extra data, on top of the normal 400 msec so you have 800 msec ping... when only 400 would show normally.

as well as this orcon have often got quite high international pings. so for instance, i'd expect ping in diablo 3 to be around 200 to 250 msec now...

but if there's packet loss it could go to 400 to 500..

then someone starts something like youtube going.. and it caches ahead data downloading at full speed until the buffer is full.. then generates some level of packet loss.

one solution on a desktop machine to reduce this effect, is in elevated command prompt you can do:
netsh int tcp set global autotuning=restricted

which will reduce the buffer sizes on the client saturating the connection less when it's already saturated..

but this problem is way more significant if you're at 1 or 2 megabit, than at 10 or 20 megabit..

ChickenSoup

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Geek

#631730 28-May-2012 23:13

I kind of understand now XD thanks

I dont think it has to do with packet loss... although im not 100% sure of anything here
This increase in latency only occurs when streaming/downloading begins

Me and a few flatmates tried all hopping on battlefield and the latencies for everyone is fine, however when i get someone to start a download and/or video stream (tested for both) all our latencies start spiking up and down until the download stops or youtube finishes buffering.

Not quite sure if low sync rate causes this but what are your thoughts?

Kraven

729 posts

Ultimate Geek

#631733 28-May-2012 23:32

ChickenSoup: Its a 2 router setup with
- D-Link DES1008D as main router
- Linksys WAG160N Wireless-N ADSL2+ Gateway as wireless access point

The DES1008D is not a router of any sort, it's an ethernet switch. Also the Linksys WAG160N, in my experience, is fairly unreliable. I have replaced about half a dozen of these units for (business) customers, with an alternative product, due to random disconnections or poor performance issues.

mercutio

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#631735 28-May-2012 23:54

ChickenSoup: I kind of understand now XD thanks

I dont think it has to do with packet loss... although im not 100% sure of anything here
This increase in latency only occurs when streaming/downloading begins

Me and a few flatmates tried all hopping on battlefield and the latencies for everyone is fine, however when i get someone to start a download and/or video stream (tested for both) all our latencies start spiking up and down until the download stops or youtube finishes buffering.

Not quite sure if low sync rate causes this but what are your thoughts?

what's your sync rate?

I tested my connection, i'm on 19.5 megabit sync, which is qute high. you can probably extrapolate.. so if you had 1.95 megabit sync.. you'd be 350 msec extra lag.

Downloading http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test from linux, and doing a ping test from linux too i get behaviour like:

the ping was around 5 and 6 prior..

64 bytes from vip1.AU-anycast1.cachefly.net (204.93.143.143): icmp_req=5 ttl=56 time=39.0 ms
64 bytes from vip1.AU-anycast1.cachefly.net (204.93.143.143): icmp_req=6 ttl=56 time=38.1 ms
64 bytes from vip1.AU-anycast1.cachefly.net (204.93.143.143): icmp_req=7 ttl=56 time=62.3 ms
64 bytes from vip1.AU-anycast1.cachefly.net (204.93.143.143): icmp_req=8 ttl=56 time=60.6 ms
64 bytes from vip1.AU-anycast1.cachefly.net (204.93.143.143): icmp_req=9 ttl=56 time=75.7 ms
64 bytes from vip1.AU-anycast1.cachefly.net (204.93.143.143): icmp_req=10 ttl=56 time=72.1 ms
64 bytes from vip1.AU-anycast1.cachefly.net (204.93.143.143): icmp_req=11 ttl=56 time=69.1 ms
64 bytes from vip1.AU-anycast1.cachefly.net (204.93.143.143): icmp_req=12 ttl=56 time=37.7 ms
64 bytes from vip1.AU-anycast1.cachefly.net (204.93.143.143): icmp_req=13 ttl=56 time=65.4 ms
64 bytes from vip1.AU-anycast1.cachefly.net (204.93.143.143): icmp_req=14 ttl=56 time=65.2 ms

with a total like:

37 packets transmitted, 35 received, 5% packet loss, time 36050ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 35.834/56.278/75.721/13.215 ms

where packet 27 and 30 were dropped.

64 bytes from vip1.AU-anycast1.cachefly.net (204.93.143.143): icmp_req=25 ttl=56 time=65.2 ms
64 bytes from vip1.AU-anycast1.cachefly.net (204.93.143.143): icmp_req=26 ttl=56 time=66.6 ms
64 bytes from vip1.AU-anycast1.cachefly.net (204.93.143.143): icmp_req=28 ttl=56 time=60.5 ms
64 bytes from vip1.AU-anycast1.cachefly.net (204.93.143.143): icmp_req=29 ttl=56 time=57.6 ms
64 bytes from vip1.AU-anycast1.cachefly.net (204.93.143.143): icmp_req=31 ttl=56 time=66.5 ms

to that site i'm nearly doubling my latency from one download, even with a fast sync.. but it's still not too bad...

where you're saying it goes up and down.. if you look at number 12.. that's a lot lower then the ones surrounding it.. the way tcp/ip works is it stops and starts a lot when it gets packet loss. there will be packet loss not showing in the ping too..

i tested the download from windows too and it was about the same.

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