Disconnections During Game Play

[MrWizard2U]

I play an on-line multi player game and get disconnected quite frequently. The game is freelancer and supposed to be very light on bandwidth. Only a few kb during game play while i have a 2MB connection. During the disconnections other players do not experience any issues and I am at the same time able to open web pages in Internet Explorer.

I suspected the firewall and turned it off but am still experiencing the same issues. In my opinion there could be 2 possible reasons.

• The connection itself is unstable.
• Some other program is interfering spike hogging the bandwidth.

Could anyone please advise if there is any other possibility and how can i determine the cause of the problem.

 

[ComputerGuy55]

I have an idea you could try, I have never really encountered this problem before but I'd like to try and help anyways. If you have any Router configuration experience, then go into your router, and see if you have a "Game Mode" Or "NAT" settings, make sure it is open. This opens your router's ports for games, which is some cases could stop you from seeing certain games or people.

Only reason I see it being this is your router is blocking some things but not everything, so you don't get enough information, or it could be a Ping issue. Some game servers (Not saying it's justFreelancer, just, some servers in games) Have a setting where if you cross a certain ping, you are disconnected. (This is the spiking you talk about, if something takes all your bandwidth, you could have a high ping and disconnect from the server) If you find the game a little laggy while your in, try joining servers with pings under 150, I doubt this is the issue as you probably would have mentioned it.

One thing you could check is your Event Viewer and see if it tells you anything, being a Microsoft game they might have a code for it you can search up.

If you do not know how to go into the router settings, message me, and I will try and walk you through it, or for a faster way, add me to msn ( kchiddle@hotmail.com ) Also if you do not know where Event Viewer is located, follow this:

Start, Right click My Computer, Manage, Event Viewer.

Freelancer should have had an error under Application. Check there and update here.

 

[MrWizard2U]

Had a look in the router and game mode was allready on.

It could potentially be a ping issue. I play on one server only and when loging in the ping is allways between 36-41ms have never seen a value outside of the mentioned. In spite of this I do occasionaly get in game messages of a bad connection in form of a yellow icon warning or a red icon warning. When I get the red one it usualy lags and then disconnects after about 5-10 seconds.

In the event viewer I found a few errors. 8 of them to be exact. 5 said application error while 3 had Freelancer against them .

All Freelancer errors list category as "None" and event as "1000". Some of the other app errors had the same but some had other details.

What do I do with this?

 

[ComputerGuy55]

Helped Further Over MSN, Waitng For Reply.

 

[MrWizard2U]

During MSN discussion we identified a possible issue. The issue seems to have been due to multiple active LAN conections between PC and router.

The result seemed to be a confused PC. I unpluged and deactivated all but one connection. The result was that the game didnt get disconected all night. I will monitor for another couple days and report here on it.

 

[MrWizard2U]

Sorry not fixed, as bad as ever this morning. First had a hell of a time logging in then got disconnected about 5 or 6 times in half an hour.

Measured it and Internet speed is not 2MB as per spec but its not too far off so no issue there. Can't talk to the ISP. I don't speak polish and just can't get through to a technician that speaks English.

The problem is not consistent. Something spikes for a moment or for a minute at the most. I think I need some prog that will log Internet activity from to my PC so I can identify the culprit. Anybody know of such?

Any other ideas?

 

[ComputerGuy55]

Check the cord? Also, when calling the ISP, ask for French, usually the person speaking french has to know English too, just ask them to speak english.

 

[MrWizard2U]

Will change the cord when I get home tonight.

Beleive me I tried to communicate with them but Polish telcom is not very user friendly.

 

[MrWizard2U]

I isolated the problem.

Last week I found this little program called TCPView. Real time display of any program accessing the Internet. After a couple days of nothing unusual and the disconnections getting worse I unplugged the router and connected a single PC direct to the ADSL modem. Problem gone.

In the meanwhile I updated the firmware. At the end I had serious difficulties even connecting to the Internet via IE or accessing the router settings. I think it may have crapped out and it is time to get a new one.