Pings & packet Loss

[chrome]

hi all, i read a lot about pings and packet loss but i do not know what they are. i'm on a 20meg connection and only get around 10meg on a good day. could someone please tell me how to test these so i can post the results to get some help. thanks all

[darkrage]

ping is the time it takes for a response from a server in miliseconds and packet loss are the packets of data you send not arriving at the destination its governed by percentage.

for ping - if you ping a server and you get 24ping that is better than pinging a server that has 120ping (for gaming that is) usually the lower the ping the better but sometimes a higher ping that is stable can be better than a fluctuating ping.

for packet loss - if you have 0% packet loss gaming would be nice an smooth but if you have 15% packet loss you will see other players warping or when you fire your weapon nothin happens due to tha packets missing.

hope you understand if not google both and you will get lamens terms for both.

ok to test them open command prompt under windows its in your accessories list in start/programs/accessories then once it is open - in the window type:-

ping yahoo.co.uk (then press enter)

you should get somethin like this appear shortly after

Reply from 217.146.186.221: bytes=32 time=52ms TTL=53
Reply from 217.146.186.221: bytes=32 time=40ms TTL=51
Reply from 217.146.186.221: bytes=32 time=41ms TTL=51
Reply from 217.146.186.221: bytes=32 time=51ms TTL=53

Ping statistics for 217.146.186.221:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 40ms, Maximum = 52ms, Average = 46ms

for testing packet loss you can either type:-

tracert yahoo.co.uk (press enter)

you will then get somethin like this

Tracing route to yahoo.co.uk [217.146.186.221]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 * *

im behind a router so my tracert doesnt work unless i open the port.

or you could type:-

ping -n 100 -l 1000 microsoft.com

this will give you

100 Echo Request messages, each of which has a Data field of 1000 bytes

by doing 100 or 1000 requests you will get a clearer picture of how your connection is performing more chance for the packet loss to show up.

when doing the tracert command this will show you where your problems lies along the route to the server you have been pinging.

now i really hope you understood that.

if not go here (http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/ping.mspx?mfr=true) and have a read.

hope this helps you - if anyone else has more input for him pls post im tired and have missed loads of stuff out.

[chrome]

many thanks i'll post results later, is there any info i should leave off results for secuirty reasons

[AmAtoL]

Just as an exercise try downloading pingplotter, connect to The British Empire Battlefield 2142 server on 85.236.101.55 and watch those babies jump.
Severe ping fluctuations and bad packet loss for all to see.
You can get a better connection to a game server in Finland :/

[SapperGB]

Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 10, Lost = 0 (0.0%)
Round Trip Times: Minimum = 11ms, Maximum = 240ms, Average = 56ms

[AmAtoL]

If that was for me, then you can see straightaway that a ping of 240 is not that good to the UK. Certainly hopeless for gaming when mixed in with pings of 11.
If you set pingplotter off on 1 second updates to that TBE server then you will see the loss and poor pings.
Keep your eye on these :- 212.250.14.114 & 195.72.129.14

Watch it for a minute or so.