Opinions wanted (Network/gaming issue)

[rechar]

Hello all, this is a problem i've been noticing since approx. March last year and has made a collection of games completely unplayable online (and with the current "omgwtfbbqnorefunds" approach of most retailers, a costly problem at that).

I first noticed it in Dawn of War 2, the problem quickly became the largest thread on their tech support forum, one of the things that stood out was how a vast majority of sufferers where all Virgin users with connection speeds offering little to no difference. After extensive testing from my end there were obvious symptoms...sudden large upload spikes, followed by horrific ping/packet loss for a period of time.

Eventually i gave up on DoW2, as it was unplayable. Then i got Demigod...and the exact same issue occured there. see the link for a video of the game, and the problem (shown with pingplotter/bwmonitor).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARIdeu5tK-0

I accidentally stumbled over The virgin media forums and heard a possibly similar problem was also occuring on Modern Warfare 2 now.

Engineers have been out and the connection is perfectly fine, tech support (for both the game developers, and virgin) offer no explanations.

So my question is...would anyone know exactly whats causing these problems? Virgin have sworn blind they don't do any sort of protocol blocking (all the games are p2p based and the issue seems to occur when playing with multiple people as opposed to single), yet so many sufferers are all Virgin users it just can't be a conicidence.

[colin25]

try this help..

it worked for me

http://www.seasonedgamers.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=21472

[Tarantella]

As to what VM's DPI and other monitoring technology is having on the latency and stability of p2p gaming platforms I couldn't say but heres a useful link :-


http://www.fendahl.org/blog/?p=7

[Bman]

First thing i would do is disconnect the router completely and plug the modem directly into your PC via network cable, if the problems go away then you know it's something to do with the router, if the problem is still there then it's something else. I've not played demigod online or DoW2 but i've had no problem with modern warfare 2 and i've not heard of anyone else on Virgin getting the same problems.

I did have a lot of trouble playing Company of Heroes online (when i used to be with BT internet) which i think uses the exact same online system as DoW2, i couldn't connect to 90% of games and that was the BT homehub causing the issue, nothing could be done to fix it and since the router is built into modem with BT, i couldn't disconnect the router and try it like that.

[die5el]

Have you forwarded your ports on your router ? try here if you dont know how http://www.portforward.com/routers.htm

[rechar]

Sorry, my bad. Forgot to mention that i link directly to the Modem. No router, firewalls etc.