Lag Issues, suspect packet loss or graphics issues?

[gmping]

Hi all.Within the last month or so I've been experiencing some pretty horrific lagging in game.  Watching that new status window I can see where my FPS crashes to 0 and I also get red spikes indicating packet loss at the same time.This leads me to believe that it may be more of a connection issue as opposed to a graphics issue.  I also try on my other computer to play and get the same hideous lag.Could it be graphics? Maybe, seeing as how I run 1920X1200 on a Core 2 Extreme and 2 8800GTS video cards.  We all know the issues EQ2 has with multi-core and graphic processing reliance on the CPU rather than the GPU.  But running it on my other older single core computer produces the same lag.So I ran a tracert to see what I would find. I was a little surprised by what I saw. Here's a sample and yes, Hop 2 has been continuously doing this.<span style="color: #ffff00;">Tracing route to sdkeq2-04-01.everquest2.com [199.108.12.129]over a maximum of 30 hops:  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.0.1  2     *        *        *     Request timed out.  3    22 ms     9 ms     *     ge-1-3-ur01.olympia.wa.seattle.comcast.net [68.86.99.97]  4    10 ms    15 ms     *     te-9-4-ar01.burien.wa.seattle.comcast.net [68.86.96.10]  5    29 ms     *       13 ms  te-9-1-ar02.burien.wa.seattle.comcast.net [68.86.96.170]  6    21 ms    13 ms    19 ms  te-7-4-ar02.seattle.wa.seattle.comcast.net [68.86.96.198]  7    25 ms    18 ms    33 ms  COMCAST-IP.car1.Seattle1.Level3.net [4.79.104.110]  8    13 ms    14 ms    17 ms  te-3-3.car1.Seattle1.Level3.net [4.79.104.109]  9    17 ms    16 ms    15 ms  ae-2-52.mp2.Seattle1.Level3.net [4.68.105.33] 10    63 ms    62 ms   127 ms  as-2-0.mp1.SanDiego1.Level3.net [64.159.1.137] 11    63 ms    64 ms    60 ms  so-8-0.hsa1.SanDiego1.Level3.net [4.68.112.130] 12    63 ms    64 ms    65 ms  vl861.sdtermswitch-1.sonyonline.net [63.215.251.130] 13    63 ms    66 ms    68 ms  vl831.sdkollsw-1.sonyonline.net [64.37.144.82] 14    63 ms    71 ms    62 ms  sdkeq2-04-01.everquest2.com [199.108.12.129]Trace complete.</span>Could this be a firewall or router issue?  Maybe, though I have zero lag issues on any other game.  I can play Vanguard at max settings, lag free, and 40+ fps in the busiest of zones.Short of msconfig and dxdiag, which I may have to include in a follow on post if no solution is found, can anyone give me any ideas as to why I'm lagging?Thanks ahead for any input.

[harleygjc]

your problem sounds very similar to mine! did this just start for no apparent reason? I get huge packet losses of around 28+ each time I tried to cast a spell is yours around the same? it sounds to me like it's either soe's networks are a bit twitchy or maybe as suggested to me it's your isp! although mine have said there have been no changes made at all recently but it sounds a lot like the same kind of trouble! do you get high pings as well by any chance?

[gmping]

<cite>harleygjc wrote:</cite><blockquote>your problem sounds very similar to mine! did this just start for no apparent reason? I get huge packet losses of around 28+ each time I tried to cast a spell is yours around the same? it sounds to me like it's either soe's networks are a bit twitchy or maybe as suggested to me it's your isp! although mine have said there have been no changes made at all recently but it sounds a lot like the same kind of trouble! do you get high pings as well by any chance?</blockquote>I've only been moderately keeping track of my ping during these "spikes." But I do hover consistently between 100-200 ping. I have cable internet, 4mbit bandwidth.Every now and then I'll see it spike upwards to 300 but for only a few seconds and it does not normally seem to be coincidental to my lag spikes. I'll keep a better lookout to see if I am wrong and the ping does spike with my lag.And sorry to hear you're in my same predicament. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />

[TSR-TrevorG]

Please feel free to post a pathping to that server as well too.

[gmping]

Here's my result for my pathping to antoniabayle.everquest2.com<span style="color: #ffff00;">Tracing route to sdkeq2-04-01.everquest2.com [199.108.12.129]over a maximum of 30 hops:  0  hal-9000.hsd1.wa.comcast.net. [192.168.0.117]  1  192.168.0.1  2     *        *        *Computing statistics for 50 seconds...            Source to Here   This Node/LinkHop  RTT    Lost/Sent = Pct  Lost/Sent = Pct  Address  0                                           hal-9000.hsd1.wa.comcast.net. [192.168.0.117]                                0/ 100 =  0%   |  1    0ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  192.168.0.1                              100/ 100 =100%   |  2  ---     100/ 100 =100%     0/ 100 =  0%  hal-9000 [0.0.0.0]Trace complete.</span>

[TSR-DanielH]

Your connection seems almost entirely blocked.  Could you give us some more information about your network setup?  Are you trying to connect from a military base or university?  What kind of router/firewall setup are you using?  This information will help us a lot when trying to diagnose the issue.

[gmping]

In response to harleygjc ping requests I monitored my connection window and looked specifically at my ping during these lag spikes.Yes my ping does spike as does packet loss, fps, bps, every time I get a lag spike.Typically with a spike I see around 500 ping and often witnessed 1000+ pings with the highest ping being 2117 during one spike.I also went to <a href="http://www.dslreports.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.dslreports.com</a> and performed a couple tests on my connection...Speed Test<a href="http://speedtest.dslreports.com"><img border=0 src="http://www.dslreports.com/im/50876582/3916.png"></a>I also ran a line quality test to check for packet loss. The results are here: <a href="http://www.dslreports.com/linequality/nil/2384664" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><b>http://www.dslreports.com/linequality/nil/2384664</b></a>As you can see the test results in zero packet loss.To restate, I only have these lag spikes with EQ2.  Specifically, Antonia Bayle server. I can play Vanguard, LOTRO, UT3, BF2 with no lagging.

[gmping]

<cite>TSR-DanielH wrote:</cite><blockquote>Your connection seems almost entirely blocked.  Could you give us some more information about your network setup?  Are you trying to connect from a military base or university?  What kind of router/firewall setup are you using?  This information will help us a lot when trying to diagnose the issue.</blockquote>I am not on a military base or university. The rest of the info your requesting I will PM you due to potential security concerns. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />

[harleygjc]

<p>gmping your issue sounds very similar to mine! have a look at my thread here <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=15&topic_id=416701" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=416701</a></p><p>I'm getting very high pings of 500 up! usually over 100 and like you've mentioned everything goes with it! high packetlosses etc so it sounds like we've a almost indentical problem mine started around a month ago and for no apparent reason! at least I/you know now that there is others with this problem! and again like you I've found that this is limited to just eq2 but I've no idea why as of yet!</p>

[Wingrider01]

<cite>harleygjc wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>gmping your issue sounds very similar to mine! have a look at my thread here <a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=15&topic_id=416701" target="_blank">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=416701</a></p><p>I'm getting very high pings of 500 up! usually over 100 and like you've mentioned everything goes with it! high packetlosses etc so it sounds like we've a almost indentical problem mine started around a month ago and for no apparent reason! at least I/you know now that there is others with this problem! and again like you I've found that this is limited to just eq2 but I've no idea why as of yet!</p></blockquote>Given the tracert, I would start talking to comcast, there are a number of timeouts there that can cause issues. If you do any bit torrent since they are starting to restrict bandwidth to ips that do that.

[harleygjc]

unlike Gmping I don't use comcast! my isp is VirginMedia and I don't use bit torrent either, but like Gmping my problem started around a month ago for no apparent reason and my symptoms are very similar to his so there must be a problem somewhere other than our systems!

[Albrig]

<p>This is not meant to be an answer.</p><p>Particularly with cable, I have noticed that ISPs have a habit of throttling bandwidth. Particularly on the downstream and dynamically. It's never fixed as far as I know. Which is why the upstream is largely ignored because it's so much less (which is what the A in DSL signifies).</p><p>It may surprise you to know that even if you had a 1Mbit connection and your friend has an 8mbit connection, if their upstream is 256kbits and yours is 128bits, the ping and the amount of packets in traffic will be twice as high (and sometimes much more depending on what is actually going through it at any one time).</p><p>For instance, if someone had a 512kbit service (down) and an equal up (let's say for argument, 448kbits), their ping would be 1/8th of an 8mbit down / 64kibit up line - any player of Quake4 wonders how some people get a 10ms ping when they say they're on 512kbit down (but with an equal upstream) and they're on 8mbit  ADSL with 50-70ms. SDSL (when it's specialized to do it) is really the way for a stable ping. ADSL, especially when it goes about 1Mbit, heightens this sensitivity to anything not being pefectly stable on the network. If you tried Asynchronous gigabit networking in an enterprise environment you are going to have a very bad day when the traffic mounts.</p><p>In the case of the OP, comcast's immediate routers to your DSLAM (to your area) are having a problem. There's also a little more than I would expect to get outside of it. In the early days, ISPs had no problem routing you round and round a dozen routers before you even got outside their network (especially London, UK in the early days of DSL - I remember it well; a nightmare you cannot imagine).</p><p>Not quite to the level of comcast, but you get the idea. I'd be amazed if it weren't your ISP rather than anything to do with SoE's surrounding network you're hooking to. But I am absolutely certain that's not the case.</p>

[Wingrider01]

<cite>harleygjc wrote:</cite><blockquote>unlike Gmping I don't use comcast! my isp is VirginMedia and I don't use bit torrent either, but like Gmping my problem started around a month ago for no apparent reason and my symptoms are very similar to his so there must be a problem somewhere other than our systems!</blockquote>Do you do any heavy downloading of Video on Demand or streaming media? They are in the news again for throttling with their "Subscriber Traffic Management" (STM) that they implemented about a year ago

[gmping]

I am aware of Comcast's shady practices when it comes to "network management." <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/1069449046bcd664c21db15b1dfedaee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />But I did decide to confront the beast with my issue. They ran some tests and insisted that the latency problems were with EQ2's servers and not their service. /shrugI am posting another round of tracert and pathping minus my router...<span style="color: #ffff00;">Tracing route to sdkeq2-04-01.everquest2.com [199.108.12.129]over a maximum of 30 hops:  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.0.1  2     *        *        *     Request timed out.  3    11 ms    19 ms     *     ge-1-3-ur01.olympia.wa.seattle.comcast.net [68.86.99.97]  4     *       11 ms    23 ms  te-9-4-ar01.burien.wa.seattle.comcast.net [68.86.96.10]  5     *       13 ms     *     te-9-1-ar02.burien.wa.seattle.comcast.net [68.86.96.170]  6    15 ms    11 ms    11 ms  te-7-4-ar02.seattle.wa.seattle.comcast.net [68.86.96.198]  7    23 ms    14 ms    14 ms  COMCAST-IP.car1.Seattle1.Level3.net [4.79.104.110]  8    14 ms    12 ms    14 ms  te-3-3.car1.Seattle1.Level3.net [4.79.104.109]  9    79 ms    12 ms    15 ms  ae-1-51.mp1.Seattle1.Level3.net [4.68.105.1] 10    49 ms    45 ms    43 ms  as-1-0.mp1.SanDiego1.Level3.net [64.159.1.29] 11    55 ms    44 ms    45 ms  so-8-0.hsa1.SanDiego1.Level3.net [4.68.112.130] 12    44 ms    43 ms    52 ms  vl861.sdtermswitch-1.sonyonline.net [63.215.251.130] 13     *       46 ms    52 ms  vl831.sdkollsw-1.sonyonline.net [64.37.144.82] 14    47 ms    43 ms    43 ms  sdkeq2-04-01.everquest2.com [199.108.12.129]Trace complete.</span>Here's my pathping...<span style="color: #ffff00;">Tracing route to sdkeq2-04-01.everquest2.com [199.108.12.129]over a maximum of 30 hops:  0  hal-9000.hsd1.wa.comcast.net. [192.168.0.166]  1  192.168.0.1  2     *        *        *Computing statistics for 50 seconds...            Source to Here   This Node/LinkHop  RTT    Lost/Sent = Pct  Lost/Sent = Pct  Address  0                                           hal-9000.hsd1.wa.comcast.net. [192.168.0.166]                   0/ 100 =  0%   |  1    0ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  192.168.0.1               100/ 100 =100%   |  2  ---     100/ 100 =100%     0/ 100 =  0%  hal-9000 [0.0.0.0]Trace complete.</span>

[TSR-DanielH]

GMping,We're currently running some tests on the account just to make sure its not on our end, but looking at that pathping, its almost surely caused by the hop immediately after your router.  The fact that the connection is not able to reestablish itself after the timeout on that hop is a clear indication that something is wrong.  If that hop is your modem it may be possible that it is having issues and may need to be replaced by your ISP(they will usually do so quickly and for free).  I had a similar problem a year or 2 back and it would cause ventrilo to have 2-10 second lag times.

[gmping]

<cite>TSR-DanielH wrote:</cite><blockquote>GMping,We're currently running some tests on the account just to make sure its not on our end, but looking at that pathping, its almost surely caused by the hop immediately after your router.  The fact that the connection is not able to reestablish itself after the timeout on that hop is a clear indication that something is wrong.  If that hop is your modem it may be possible that it is having issues and may need to be replaced by your ISP(they will usually do so quickly and for free).  I had a similar problem a year or 2 back and it would cause ventrilo to have 2-10 second lag times.</blockquote>I tried my account after the fixes you said were put in place... it seems to have improved a bit but still lag spiking with packet loss, high ping, high bps, and 0 fps. I tried EQ2 on laptop via a wireless connection (my other 2 computers are wired) and I had zero lag problems.  This is very interesting and I will test further as the week progresses.I am limited in my test time due to family visiting till the end of the week. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />My planned tests include:       Wiring the laptop connection and see if I get spikes.    Trying a new cable modem.    Trying a new router.Thanks again for your support thus far!

[gmping]

Well I ran several more tests on my computers to try and pinpoint the issue.  Initially I felt that it was a connection issue as I was lagging on multiple computers.However, I now feel that is more likely a graphics engine issue.My tests included:    Connecting without a router (no firewall either) = no changes    Connecting with a different router = no changes    Connecting with a different cable modem = no changes    Running on Vista 64 SP1 vs XP pro SP3 = no changes    Retro'ing to XP pro SP2 = no changes    Installing new chipset drivers from Nvidia (nforce 680sli) = no changes    Installing new graphics card drivers from Nvidia  = no changes       <span style="color: #00ff00;">I actually BSOD now on occasion or get the ever popular application ran out of memory crash having since installing new drivers.</span>    Running on a lower graphics setting (Extreme Q to High Q) = <span style="color: #ffff00;">reduced lag spikes and packet loss</span>    Setting Everquest2 proccess to high priority = no changes    Setting Everquest2 process affinity to Core 0 or Core 1 = no changes    Changing Virtual Memory cache from 2-4gig to 4-8gig = no changesThese tests were not run:    Applying for a new IP from my ISP   Wiping old drivers before upgrading to new driversI think I am able to explain my request time outs from my tracert's and that is my router firewall is set to not send back reply packets as it can clog traffic flow and make the system more susceptible to DNS attack.As you can see from the tests the only thing that really made any changes were the graphic settings.  Why was I able to run on Extreme Q a couple months ago and not now? Who knows.It may have something to do with the low mem fixes that were enabled recently.  If that's the case it runs outside of the CS realm and more into the programming realm.I currently assume that my problems stem from the fact that EQ2 runs only on a single core of a multi-core CPU and doesn't rely on the GPU as much as other graphics intense applications do.Running Extreme Quality on a 2.4ghz C2E single core and 1900x1200 is most likely making my CPU scream in agony and most likely the root cause of my FPS issues.Anywho... I can play the game if I turn my graphics way down in graphics intense environments and then back up to extreme in not so busy places.I guess I'll keep doing this until SOE decides to recode and support multi-core processing and heck maybe even DX 10 while they're at it. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />  One can only hope.  In game support of anti-aliasing would be nice too.  Too much work trying to force the GPU to AA EQ2.Thanks again to the CS reps and all who posted and PM'd me to help with my problem.  Though I think it can only be solved with a graphics engine rewrite.See ya in game! (I'll be the one with auto-run into a wall then going link dead)   <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />

[Jesdyr]

<cite>gmping wrote:</cite><blockquote>Well I ran several more tests on my computers to try and pinpoint the issue.  Initially I felt that it was a connection issue as I was lagging on multiple computers.However, I now feel that is more likely a graphics engine issue.****I think I am able to explain my request time outs from my tracert's and that is my router firewall is set to not send back reply packets as it can clog traffic flow and make the system more susceptible to DNS attack.****It may have something to do with the low mem fixes that were enabled recently.  If that's the case it runs outside of the CS realm and more into the programming realm.</blockquote>Yes ... Yes ... and most likely. I have been seeing this on 2 out of 3 computers that were fine up untill about the same time. I use to have a PC that would do this and it went away after increasing the RAM from 512MB to 1GB. That computer has been replaced and the current ones have more mem. My main has 3.5GB and has this problem. I am kinda of shocked that no one pointed out that hop 2 had ping replies turned off. If there was actually 100% packet loss on a hop, you would get 0 traffic beyond that hop.