Lately (pretty much since season 1) I have been getting frequent "Server Not Responding" messages (either whilst on maps, or during loads screen whilst transferring maps) - which after a little while usually changes to "Disconnected from Server". At this point the game either hangs on that screen or fully DCs and takes me back to the login screen.
At busy/peak US times this happens a lot.
I rarely experience "lag" as such, in terms of stuttering or rubber banding during normal play but frequently I will experience "server not responding" messages appearing and then dissapearing a few seconds apart. When this starts happening I know I'm about to get fully disconnected.
I have not changed anything in my system set up. Re-setting my network card and router doesn't really make much difference.
I have an Intel Quad Core Q660 2.4Ghz
Windows 7 OS - 64 Bit
4 GB RAM
nVidia GTX 260 (216) Graphics Card
Virgin Cable 10meg broadband
Any ideas what I should try to look at in order to try and understand why this is happening?
Any tools that you can suggest that I can perhaps run and post results from that might help?
The game uses port 7000-7500
each time you zone to a new map a differnt port in that range is ransomly assigned.
Now Virgin Cable does do traffic shapping (all you have to do is do a search on virgin abd traffic shapping to see articles on it) so since the shapping is dynamic it could be affecting one or more of the ports in that range.
I would do a nettest during when you are not having problems then again during the time period when you have the problems and compare the results.
A good lag free connection should have Column 1 and 3 have values around 500 kb/sec (outgoing/incoming), column 2 has values around 20 kb/sec (transfer rate).
The game uses port 7000-7500
each time you zone to a new map a differnt port in that range is ransomly assigned.
Now Virgin Cable does do traffic shapping (all you have to do is do a search on virgin abd traffic shapping to see articles on it) so since the shapping is dynamic it could be affecting one or more of the ports in that range.
I would do a nettest during when you are not having problems then again during the time period when you have the problems and compare the results.
A good lag free connection should have Column 1 and 3 have values around 500 kb/sec (outgoing/incoming), column 2 has values around 20 kb/sec (transfer rate).
Cool - thanks, I'll try this when I get home.
I might post the results in case I do need help interpreting them!
Incidentally, I was aware that Virgin shaped traffic but I was under the impression that for "L" customers I this was only done in the event that you exceeded 3000mb in downloads between 10.00- 15.00 or 1500mb betwen 16.00- 21.00 - pretty high and I would very rarely exceed a limit like that. Don't download much anyway and the funny thing is this happens on days where I have not downloaded anything and couldn't possibly have exceeded their traffic shaping cap. In fact a lot of times STO will be the first thing I have done on my PC that day.
OK - ran the Nettest initally to see what it was following system startup
The first column averages values of 350 kb (all values between 300-400)
The middle column - all values between 11-15kb
Third column average values between 380-400kb
Do these seem low, and Is it likely this is the cause of my issues?
If so, any ideas on stuff that I could do to improve it or would I need to speak to Virgin?
Virgin also works agains bittorrent and because the game does sent a lot of small packets quickly it could be mistaken ast BT.
Your values look close enough to the good values that I don't think it is much of a problem. Was that taken at the time you have problems or when everything was working good.
If it is a random port being blocked by Virgin , you could do one of two things .
Try the proxy options in the launcher
2. Talk to Virgin and let them know of the port range (7000-7500) and the cryptic servers ip.
208.95.184.00 - 208.95.185.256
and ask if the ports are in their shapping scheme and see if they can give the packet prority or do an engineering test on your connection.
Comments
each time you zone to a new map a differnt port in that range is ransomly assigned.
Now Virgin Cable does do traffic shapping (all you have to do is do a search on virgin abd traffic shapping to see articles on it) so since the shapping is dynamic it could be affecting one or more of the ports in that range.
I would do a nettest during when you are not having problems then again during the time period when you have the problems and compare the results.
Nettest:
Go to http://files.champions-online.com/nettest.exe
Download this file and run it
A command prompt should appear running the test automatically
A good lag free connection should have Column 1 and 3 have values around 500 kb/sec (outgoing/incoming), column 2 has values around 20 kb/sec (transfer rate).
Cool - thanks, I'll try this when I get home.
I might post the results in case I do need help interpreting them!
Incidentally, I was aware that Virgin shaped traffic but I was under the impression that for "L" customers I this was only done in the event that you exceeded 3000mb in downloads between 10.00- 15.00 or 1500mb betwen 16.00- 21.00 - pretty high and I would very rarely exceed a limit like that. Don't download much anyway and the funny thing is this happens on days where I have not downloaded anything and couldn't possibly have exceeded their traffic shaping cap. In fact a lot of times STO will be the first thing I have done on my PC that day.
Anyway - will give this ago
The first column averages values of 350 kb (all values between 300-400)
The middle column - all values between 11-15kb
Third column average values between 380-400kb
Do these seem low, and Is it likely this is the cause of my issues?
If so, any ideas on stuff that I could do to improve it or would I need to speak to Virgin?
Your values look close enough to the good values that I don't think it is much of a problem. Was that taken at the time you have problems or when everything was working good.
If it is a random port being blocked by Virgin , you could do one of two things .
Try the proxy options in the launcher
2. Talk to Virgin and let them know of the port range (7000-7500) and the cryptic servers ip.
208.95.184.00 - 208.95.185.256
and ask if the ports are in their shapping scheme and see if they can give the packet prority or do an engineering test on your connection.