Latency frustration

[Tim3822]

Ok guys, I'll be quite honest I don't really know a great deal about networking. I understand some of the basics, but the finer details elude me. Frankly a lot of the networking jargon like DNS etc might as well be black magic .

I'm very much into my online gaming, where my latency and packet loss issues have made things immensely frustrating and at times flat out unplayable. I'm using PingPlotter 5 free, since I'm a cheapskate and don't want to fork out for the full version of the software .

My ISP is BT, I live in quite a rural area of the UK so my bandwidth is limited to between 5-8Mbps and upload is a pitiful 0.360Kbps. I've called BT several times, they found an "issue" and sent an engineer out quite some time ago who had a poke around and we hoped that would be that. Sadly things are still the same.

My gaming PC is connected to our BT HomeHub 4 via a passthrough adapter which is plugged into the main router via enthernet and onwards into the houses master socket. On average when the line is stable everything is fairly decent with pings ranging between 30-60ms which is quite respectable. However it can just randomly start spiking quite severely and fluctuating very rapidly.

I'm hoping that someone who understands this stuff better than I can be of help here, as I don't know how to get this issue sorted with BT being shall we say... uncooperative. I've attached some ping logs so hopefully you guys can see what I'm trying to describe.





Although the tracert is focused on the EU WoT server at the moment. Issues are visible in all my games, Overwatch, War Thunder... so it's not just a specific game server that I'm having issues with. Should also note that it's just myself and my parents in the household, with their wi-fi enabled devices disconnected from the LAN. AFAIK no suspicious devices listed on the network map visible through ESET smart security.

Happy to answer any questions you might have and appreciate any replies in advanced!

(EDIT: This kind of illustrates my problem... no active usage, just at desktop and I got a sudden and severe ping spike)

View attachment 83666

 

[Tim3822]

So uploaded the wrong image, couldn't edit because it "contained spam like elements"? Waited a few minutes and now I can't edit it... sigh.

 

[DelJo63]

Find a game site you like and get the URL domain portion.

• for a url like https:/www.techspot.com/community/topics/...
• the domain is www.techspot.com

now get a command prompt window and enter that as PING domain-name
You get a simple set of timings to that site.

Now test the entire path from you to the site with TRACERT /d domain-name
you see the timings for every system between you and the site

However, that's just a single packet - - what happens to multiple packets - - is there any consistency?
use PATHPING domain-name >myPath.txt
and it will take about 3 minutes to complete

Open the results with NOTEPAD myPath.txt, copy everything and post the results as your follow-up

 

[Tim3822]

Hey thanks for the quick reply, love the F8F Bearcat in your pic btw .

Ok, so I did as you asked. Here is the results of the pathping:

Tracing route to eu.wargaming.net [92.223.22.86]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
0 Tim-PC.home [192.168.1.205]
1 BThomehub.home [192.168.1.254]
2 217.41.191.58
3 217.47.41.161
4 213.1.69.110
5 31.55.164.103
6 213.120.182.69
7 31.55.164.109
8 109.159.248.201
9 core2-te0-2-5-0.ealing.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.248.130]
10 peer1-xe4-0-1.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net [213.121.193.148]
11 195.66.237.19
12 * * *
Computing statistics for 275 seconds...
Source to Here This Node/Link
Hop RTT Lost/Sent = Pct Lost/Sent = Pct Address
0 Tim-PC.home [192.168.1.205]
0/ 100 = 0% |
1 3ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% BThomehub.home [192.168.1.254]
0/ 100 = 0% |
2 29ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 217.41.191.58
0/ 100 = 0% |
3 --- 100/ 100 =100% 100/ 100 =100% 217.47.41.161
0/ 100 = 0% |
4 35ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 213.1.69.110
0/ 100 = 0% |
5 32ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 31.55.164.103
0/ 100 = 0% |
6 --- 100/ 100 =100% 100/ 100 =100% 213.120.182.69
0/ 100 = 0% |
7 34ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 31.55.164.109
0/ 100 = 0% |
8 33ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 109.159.248.201
0/ 100 = 0% |
9 38ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% core2-te0-2-5-0.ealing.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.248.130]
0/ 100 = 0% |
10 38ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% peer1-xe4-0-1.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net [213.121.193.148]
0/ 100 = 0% |
11 39ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 195.66.237.19

Trace complete.

Following this, I also have the ping and tracert results. Also have an image I print screened from pingplotter at the same time I did these tests:


Hope this helps.

 

[DelJo63]

Reliability:

• 1 3ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% says
• zero losses, 100% success

That's what we need :grin:

Consistency:

• C:\Users\Tim>ping eu.wargaming.net
  
  Pinging eu.wargaming.net [92.223.22.86] with 32 bytes of data:
  Reply from 92.223.22.86: bytes=32 time=53ms TTL=47
  Reply from 92.223.22.86: bytes=32 time=53ms TTL=47
  Reply from 92.223.22.86: bytes=32 time=123ms TTL=47
  Reply from 92.223.22.86: bytes=32 time=187ms TTL=47

Not great. We would 'like' times within 10% of the first number ( 48 >= 53 <= 58 ) but you're way outside that.

Inter-node times:

• 3 29 ms 29 ms 28 ms 217.47.41.161
  4 34 ms 38 ms 33 ms 213.1.69.110
  5 405 ms 378 ms 36 ms 31.55.164.103

Other systems appear to be overloaded but you can't impact that per set.

Logon as admin or RUNAS /USER:ADMINISTRATOR CMD (enter the password)
Now change the MTU with:

• To set an MTU of 1492
  netsh interface ipv4 set subinterface "Local Area Connection" mtu=1492 store=persistent
  netsh interface ipv4 set subinterface "Wireless Network Connection" mtu=1492 store=persistent
• 
  
• Verify it with
• netsh interface ipv4 show subinterface "Local Area Connection"
• netsh interface ipv4 show subinterface "Wireless Network Connection"

This will stop packet fragmentation, thereby also avoid packet reassembly, and improve router reliability - - sometimes even performance.

Also I note:

• 0 Tim-PC.home [192.168.1.205]
• 1 BThomehub.home [192.168.1.254]

Your router is at the top-end of the range and your PC is near it too - - it's ok, just unusual -- how many systems are on that router?

 

[Tim3822]

Hi, so it's just my gaming PC and when they're connected my Macbook Pro and my dads laptop via wifi. We have three smartphones and an ipad in the household too, but obviously they aren't connected for a lot of the time. Me personally I dont use the wifi much unless I'm streaming since the 4G I get is much better than the landline lol.

I've set the MTU to 1492 and confirmed it in command prompt, however for the wireless network connection the command wouldn't work, however I'm putting that down to the fact my PC is not wireless enabled?

I've noticed an immediate change in latency since the MTU was altered... overall latency has risen slightly varying between 70-90ms. Much higher than previously, although I'm going to test overall reliability by playing a quick game in War Thunder.

 

[DelJo63]

Consider time-of-day and other users coming online at the same time. MTU does not increase latency.
Likely your game server load is increasing (but you can't tell from where you're connected).

 

[Tim3822]

So just to clarify, I think it might have been my router or ISP adjusting for the new settings everything is back to regular ping now. Holding between 30-50ms quite nicely. Will see if this lasts.

Thanks very much for your help (y). If I encounter any issues in the next 24hrs or so I'll post again and hopefully you'll be able to shine some light on it.

Thanks again!