High packet loss and latency when gaming

Hi there,

I'm starting to look into a problem which is now really starting to cheese me off.

I have two pc's, both of which play Lord of the Rings Online. They seem to suffer periods of high ( 50% ) packet loss and >1000ms ping. This is making the game pretty much unplayable. Here's the facts, and perhaps someone might be able to point me in the right direction. I'm also gonna contact PN's tech support.

Both Pc's use a wireless connection. One pc is Vista, the other is xp.
I was having the problem while on option 2. Moving to the Pro service made no difference.
I'm using the BT 2Wire router that PN supplied.
The problem seems to occur mostly when both pc's are being played.
I'm not certain if this problem only occurs at peak usage times, as that is the only time that both Pc's are used.
My connection is pretty stable:-

DSL Line (Wire Pair): Line 1 (inner pair)
Protocol: G.DMT Annex A
Downstream Rate: 5952 kbps
Upstream Rate: 448 kbps
Channel: Interleaved
Current Noise Margin: 15.0 dB (Downstream), 25.0 db (Upstream)
Current Attenuation: 29.6 dB (Downstream), 18.0 db (Upstream)
Current Output Power: 19.8 dB (Downstream), 12.1 db (Upstream)
DSLAM Vendor Information: Country: {0xB5} Vendor: {TSTC} Specific: {0x04}
PVC Info: 0/38


Since Reset Current 24-Hour Interval Current 15-Minute Interval Time Since Last Event
ATM Cell Header Errors: 182 0 0 1 day 14:33:48
ATM Loss of Cell Delineation: 0 0 0 0:00:00
DSL Link Retrains: 3 0 0 1 day 14:33:47
DSL Training Errors: 163 53 0 1:37:36
DSL Training Timeouts: 0 0 0 0:00:00
DSL Loss of Framing Failures: 5 0 0 1 day 14:33:48
DSL Loss of Signal Failures: 5 0 0 1 day 14:33:48
DSL Loss of Power Failures: 0 0 0 0:00:00
DSL Loss of Margin Failures: 5 0 0 1 day 14:33:48
DSL Cumulative Errored Seconds: 10 0 0 1 day 14:33:48
DSL Severely Errored Seconds: 5 0 0 1 day 14:33:48
DSL Corrected Blocks: 820 9 2 0:01:40
DSL Uncorrected Blocks: 181 0 0 1 day 14:33:48
ISP Connection Establishment: 4 4 4 80:45:33

Any advice would help me from pulling my hair out.

gegs

Can you post the ip addr of the server you play and I'll do a trcert from a none PN connection.

Hi,

a good quick test is to ping www.bbc.co.uk when you are getting high pings to the servers. That way you can see if it is a general across the board issue or just for the game you are trying to play.

Another test is to do a traceroute to the servers. This will show where the slowdown occurs. It could be anything from Plusnet traffic management kicking in to the server being in the US, the server being under powered or the server being at the end of a poor network link. Try and find a UK server and see how you get on with that.

Have you go the name or the IP address of the server ?

>It could be anything from Plusnet traffic management kicking in to the server being in the US, the server being under.............

Not a gamer at all but the OP is on the Pro product so as I understand it traffic management should not be an issue when gaming.

It could still be;
"10GB usage allowance (add extra if you need to)"

Maybe they haven't added extra?.

What did support say to you ?

The OP says he has no problem when only one PC is in use. So it would more likely be a bandwidth problem than a traffic management issue. Some time ago Mr Wild acknowledged here that the allocated per user bandwidth for gaming could cause slowdowns when two or more gamers were sharing the same connection. In theory this should not impact upon Pro customers but PN have acknowledged that they are struggling to keep up with iPlayer traffic so it would be no surprise to discover that secret restrictions are being imposed across all traffic types and all users.

Simon

Note to self read posts properly !

There is currently an issue with the network at Plusnet. They had a problem affecting central(s) and the network is currently rebalancing its self. There are full details on the web site.

Network capacity problems since 11 Mar, interesting.

In reply to:

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In theory this should not impact upon Pro customers but PN have acknowledged that they are struggling to keep up with iPlayer traffic...

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Could you point me in the direction of something from PNT that says that? I've read the blogs that Dave has written on the community site,which said they've seen a jump in the amount of iPlayer traffic, but hadn't said they were "struggling"?

In reply to:

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...so it would be no surprise to discover that secret restrictions are being imposed across all traffic types and all users.

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Again, any proof? Surely conjecture like this isn't helpful to anyone? If there's been posts that I might have missed that have said this, point me in the right direction, but I'd imagine that facts are more helpful than fiction?