High Ping Rate on New Broadband package
 

Just upgraded my broadband to a 10mb ntl package. I mainly use the PC for the boards and gaming (CS:S mainly).

However, when gaming my ping rate (latency) has shot up from 20-40 into the 100's. I keep getting kicked which I didn't before on the lower level of broadband. I can see no real improvement over the 2mb package, and if anything its worse with longer download times. Can anyone explain (simply) what is wrong and how the Mole can correct it? Any advice appreciated!

Have already defragged, removed unused programs, etc without any noticeable change.

Moley

PS My PC is Athlon 64 dual core, 3800 processor, 1Gb ram, 300Gb memory (with 250 available) , good Nvidia card, etc. No other programs running.

First check your speed http://promos.mcafee.com/speedometer/test_0150.asp be sure your gettign what you paid for, bad telephone cables can increase your ping, so can poor cables with alot of subscribers in the same area.

Thanks for that link, Bionicle.

Gave the result of approx 200 KbPS. Not being too technically minded, I'm not sure what that means.............

Moley:rodent:

Another spped test

Visually its a bit more simple to look at

http://specials.zdnet.co.uk/misc/band-test/:D

Strangely, this test shows my speed going off the top of the 'thermometer' - unless i've broken it!

So does that mean I need to do something to my PC to lower my latency?

All advice appreciated!

A very confused mole:rodent:

I had exactly the same problem (funnily enough in CS:S!) when my line went from 512K up to 2Mb.

I tried all sorts of stuff - dumped the QoS driver, fiddle with the MTU, other technical stuff - but it just carried on. General surfing was ok, but maxing it out when gaming just sucked.

In the end I went out and bought a new Linksys modem/router ... that fixed the problem! Turned out that the Netgear wasn't designed to work with anything more than 1/2 Mb, so it couldn't handle the higher rate.

Check the specs on your adsl box as you might have the same problem.

PS: Come and have a go at 83.142.52.155:28015 if you fancy a good pasting ;)

Fwiw I upgraded to the 10Mb package and experienced slowdowns and lack of reliability - I went back down to the 2Mb package the following month - it's much better!

I forgot to add that this was with a cable package - not ADSL.


[Edited on 2-4-2006 by twpd]

I think there might be a problem with the speed test at McAfee. It also shows me only having 200kbps.

The ZDNet test correctly showed that I have 2Mbps (~2000kbps)

Cheers Antonye - when's it get busy on that one? No players at the mo!

Out of my depth with the technical stuff - NTL fitted the box and cables, etc for me and it worked perfectly at the lower speed - its all very strange.

If you fancy giving the mole a bit of a kicking, try 85.25.2.73:27015 - dust only but fun!

Moley

It's usually busy all the time, so dunno why there's no one on there atm!

Usually 9-10pm most nights it will be full and there's usually a good crowd on there.

I'm jumping on shortly, so might see you on there.

mine came out at 40800 Kbps mine is either off the scale or something is wrong with the graphics on the page i have no idea whether thats good or not :puzzled:


Bionicles linky came out with this 252.24 Kbps
(31.53 KBps)

[Edited on 2-4-2006 by Nigel C]

Isn't it the upload as well as the download you need to watch out for?? I'd have thought it all well and good downloading fast, but if your let down by the info you're uploading is "slow" you'll still get a kickin???
I scored 1600 and 200kBs over a wireless network fed through a 2Mb NTL cable modem.

NTL have a policy of heavily throttling the uplink

on 10 Mb download, you only get 512Kb upload, which is fine for most people.

The amount of data shifted for gaming is pretty small, and huge bandwidth isn't always a benefit beyond a certain point.

Latency is the biggest issue, and this is usually down to distance (speed of light's a constant) and hardware (more devices add more latency). What your high ping times are showing is the effect of high latency between you and your host server. It may be an NTL issue, or it may be an issue outside NTL's network.

Best way to find out is to try to find another host server on the NTL network and see how that performs.

Also, if the 10Mb service is new in your area, you may find it takes a while to settle down as users are brought online and it's tuned. It took about a month for mine to settle as I was the first in the area to go on, now it's rock steady and latency is very low.

Thanks for all the advice - I am enlightened!

Moley