online gaming and NTL

[spankyone]

After 4/5 months of high ping and packet loss on my 10meg feed i think i got answer from NTL tech support about what is causing it... and there is no fix for it at this stage :(

The other day i spent almost an hour talking to tech support and i the person i spoke to was very helpful looking into the cause of my problem. Only phoned them again casue i was annoyed at the fact that i start getting packet loss and ping spikes from about 11am everyday.

My ping spikes and loss are being caused by an overloaded network traffic in my area and there is nothing they can do to fix that, which sucks if you are a online gamer like me. I know of about 20 other people on NTL in the uk that play on the same servers as me that are effected in the same way and they are not happy about it aswell.

On another phone call to NTL i was told that they are collecting data on those who download using p2p and newsgroups for there dvd's and music 24/7 as they will be hit the hardest when NTL start to force capping on people.

The capping system is in place across the country but is not activated at this stage as they are using it to record data of people net habits.

There is no guaranty that capping will fix the packet loss and ping spikes aswell.

I am an unhappy NTL customer mainly because they increased the speeds of there net access when there network can not support it. Also i think anyone who wants to do gaming on line should not look at NTL as an isp that can provide a quality line that gaming online requires :(
my last choice now is to start looking at adsl packages from other isp's as im not going to give up gaming for the sake of staying with NTL.

Please feel free to post your comments and sry about the typo's and bad spelling etc.... but its 8:50 in the morning and i already got packet loss and ping probs :(

[AbyssUnderground]

Ive been online gaming since I got NTL and have never suffered from packet loss or high pings. Its because your area is overloaded thats causing the problem, not because NTL is bad quality.

[spankyone]

Ive been online gaming since I got NTL and have never suffered from packet loss or high pings. Its because your area is overloaded thats causing the problem, not because NTL is bad quality.

yep you are correct but with most areas like this.... NTL should fix the issue not pretend there is nothing wrong.

[zing_deleted]

i run moh server last night with 12 guys on it including me with no problems at all.Are you sure your not trying to access servers to far away

[Bill C]

i run moh server last night with 12 guys on it including me with no problems at all.Are you sure your not trying to access servers to far away.:tu:



And gee did it work well. Is it same again to night

[zing_deleted]

.:tu:



And gee did it work well. Is it same again to night

Yeah if the new server isnt up by then :)

[hammered]

I have constant problems with my online gaming. I'm big into BF2 at the moment, and it's doing my head in. Does'n't matter whick server I play on, I get terrible packet losses nearly all the time... I never get any problems with my P2P stuff, just online gaming. I am going to try two things though. I'm going to ask for a new modem (I have Terayon, so am not getting the most out of the connection), and then I'm also going to ask someone in TS to look at my segmentation. I know some people have been having problems with there U/L and re-segmentating this has solved no end of problems for them.

[Ignition]

Ive been online gaming since I got NTN and have never suffered from packet loss or high pings. Its because your area is overloaded thats causing the problem, not because NTL is bad quality.

Evidently in his area they are bad quality.

Not entirely sure what the defending is, it's fairly easy to imagine that his area is suffering one of the potential congestion issues on cable.

Would have thought by now people would realise that cable is very regional and just because your service is fine doesn't even mean your next door neighbour's service isn't congested.

[Carth]

yep, as Ignition said

I remember having a lousy connection, yet my mate 4 streets away had no problems at all :D

actually my connection (2 mb) is miss behaving again, has been for a while, but under the present circumstances I realise it won't suddenly get better overnight.
My online gaming has stopped for a while (I even spoke to the wife a couple of times last week :shocked: ) .... and I'm getting used to having to refresh pages to get them to load ;)

downloads are OK (no P2P or Torrents - just updates & game demos etc)

Definately not worth the hassle of changing ISP because sooner or later it will get sorted.

[MovedGoalPosts]

Changing ISP to ADSL may not bring the results you require. Unfortunately many of the ADSL ISPs can suffer connectivity congestion issues, just like cable.

[__spc__]

Just to add my 10 cents worth...

My PS2 is cabled to a WiFi repeater (running WDS mode, i.e. half 54Mbps bandwidth) which connects via WiFi to my gateway router, on the 1Mbps ntl connection.

Online-gamed last night for hours with Star Wars: Battlefront perfectly.

I also have a second PS2 ICS witha desktop that WiFis to the repeater - even that works great.

[Craig_e]

i'm having problems with my 1meg connection, blo*dy useless for Bf2 at the moment. Its been fine up until now, and i've been through the routine of resetting everything in site :mad:

[__spc__]

i'm having problems with my 1meg connection, blo*dy useless for Bf2 at the moment. Its been fine up until now, and i've been through the routine of resetting everything in site :mad:

Must be a server issue - my kid had trouble with BF2 on his PS2 (which ICS with a WiFi desktop). Our WLAN seemed fine, but he gave up on BF2 after too many disconnects.

[Craig_e]

Must be a server issue - my kid had trouble with BF2 on his PS2 (which ICS with a WiFi desktop). Our WLAN seemed fine, but he gave up on BF2 after too many disconnects.

yeah but its the same on most servers. Easier just to blame NTL.....it'll be their fault somewhere along the way ;)

[Cerberus]

Must be a server issue - my kid had trouble with BF2 on his PS2 (which ICS with a WiFi desktop). Our WLAN seemed fine, but he gave up on BF2 after too many disconnects.
I have a feeling that this issue may be caused by EA. Mine used to do this frequently when playing FIFA 05. I will also mention the fact that EA don't like private IP's for some strange reason. They prefer that you play with a public IP and connect by p2p. Unless this is ofcourse some nonsense which an EA techie spouted out, because he couldn't be bothered doing his job properly.

My BF2 pings have settled down over the past few days and I am now getting 40 - 60 ping on most UK & Euro servers. Maybe it is congestion. RTCW pings well too although that was quite bad for ping and packet loss lately. I hope you get this sorted because there is nothing more annoying than coming home from work and not being able to shoot the crap outta somebody because of high ping & packet loss.

[sav112]

yep, as Ignition said

I remember having a lousy connection, yet my mate 4 streets away had no problems at all :D

actually my connection (2 mb) is miss behaving again, has been for a while, but under the present circumstances I realise it won't suddenly get better overnight.
My online gaming has stopped for a while (I even spoke to the wife a couple of times last week :shocked: ) .... and I'm getting used to having to refresh pages to get them to load ;)

downloads are OK (no P2P or Torrents - just updates & game demos etc)

Definately not worth the hassle of changing ISP because sooner or later it will get sorted.


seem to be in the same boat mate 2mb but its not as solid as i would like, all i hope is that the guys at NTl are doing thee best.

[tubbles]

I have 2mb bb and up until recently (sunday 5th Feb 2006) everything run great well done ntl.:tu: since then had probs just with web pages. playing online Counterstrike source brill 19-24 latency (ping) great and responsive. come in here and someone in another thread said try newsgroups for fast download so got x-news newsreader and downloaded a load of crap but it was like greased lightning getting 230kb/s so i cant understand it. changed my network card in computer ( had to re prvision)still the same then went into a irc channel and someone suggested using a different browser (Firefox) free so great. installed and the pages fly now so i don't know if this is a internet explorer thing. if someone else could try and report in to let us know. in the irc they tried to explain packet loss and it went straight over my head but on the Dan Elwell speed test mine actually still has a 2% packet loss :confused: whatever that means. but hey at least now i can look up packet loss on google;). i can even look at ebuyer.com now and never could on internet explorer and here i was blaming good old NTL:D

[hammered]

Well I phoned CS this morning about it. The woman I spoke to on 1st line just went through all the usual crap, even though I told her that I knew what I was doing and computers were my job... In the end she put me through to 2nd line support, the guy there got me to do some more tracing. Guess what, not all that bad. But I did say to him that that's probably due to the fact that it's early morning so not many would be playing at this time (at least he did agree...) So, I've just finished another unsucessful gaming session, more freezes, more jerking around (no, not that type!!!). Gave up in the end. Just done some more trace routing and I've noticed that the pings aren't all that high through the NTL side, but as soon as it trys to hop to the outside world BANG, high TTL!!! So it looks like the problem was with the NTL connection at the final point just before it hits the gaming server. So back on the phone to CS, they refuse to believe what I am saying (now why doesn't that suprise me). So I've now mailed the 2nd line CS guy that I spoke to this morning with my latest traces...

Anyone care to give me the odds on him replying???

[stormrider]

You got the IP of the server you pinged handy, and maybe the tracert?
Could be worth a few people in a similar area doing the same and comparing results.

[deadite66]

just moved to adsl becouse of the packet loss problem in great yarmouth area.

[dan_uk1]

Hi I live about 20 miles or so away from you Hammered and I'm on the 2mb connection so if you tell me who you trace routed I'll happily do the same and you can then compare the results.

Dan

[hammered]

Hi I live about 20 miles or so away from you Hammered and I'm on the 2mb connection so if you tell me who you trace routed I'll happily do the same and you can then compare the results.

Dan

Give me your mail addy and I'll send you some tonight then...
:)

[cabletj210]

Being a an online gamer myself, mainly battlefield 2 some nights i can go from 10:30 to 2am without a single problem, other nights i can get disconnected from server every 5 mins because the cable modem drops the line.

EA does cause some disconnections because they are not compatible with all firewalls, turn off your firewall and gameplay maybe better.
I find turning off my firewall and turning on WinXP firewall does the trick.

However I get disconnected because my cable modem drops the line.

For you BF2 fans out there, if want to be part of a gaming community based on having fun join www.twistedplay.net (http://www.twistedplay.net), we also need to fill our ranked 64man bf 2 server.

[hammered]

EA does cause some disconnections because they are not compatible with all firewalls, turn off your firewall and gameplay maybe better.
I find turning off my firewall and turning on WinXP firewall does the trick.


This may work for you, however, it doesn't for me... My BF2 gaming was near enough perfect everytime up until a few weeks ago, it's got worse and worse as time has progressed. I've tried them all: Firewall or no firewall, router or no router I still get the same problems... And CS just aren't interested! :mad:

[tweetiepooh]

You can try 3d traceroute
http://www.d3tr.de/

I've left this running while I went out then came back to nice charts and tables showing times (max, min, avg, last) and packet loss for each stage in the trace. OK so sometime pings are reported lost at the "wrong" stage but it is indicitive.

Things are a lot better than they were with loss now sub 1% most of the time over many hours when it used to be up near 60%. Ping rates also much improved.

[cabletj210]

hmmm, and they want to launch 100 - lol

can you imagine the complaints they are going to get.

[Craig_e]

hmmm, and they want to launch 100 - lol

can you imagine the complaints they are going to get.
Thats the thing, why wont they concentrate on providing the current services and actually make them work properly?

Who would want 100meg and 25% packet loss or rediculus pings :mad:

[Rone]

This may work for you, however, it doesn't for me... My BF2 gaming was near enough perfect everytime up until a few weeks ago, it's got worse and worse as time has progressed. I've tried them all: Firewall or no firewall, router or no router I still get the same problems... And CS just aren't interested! :mad:

Of course they are'nt interested, as long as you can browse the internet, thats NTL's job done.

[meanstreakuk]

Hi people! First post here so go easy.

My setup is...

1) NTL 2mb

2) Ebuyer Extra Value 108MBPS 4 Port Wireless Cable/DSL Broadband Router 40 VPN Tunnels, UPNP with USB Print Server (802.11G+):

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2006/02/11.jpg

3) Belkin 802.11g Wireless PCI Adapter:

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2006/02/12.jpg

4) P4 2Ghz, 1GB RAM, GeForce 4 Ti4600 128MB, XP Pro

I am suffering from regular 'ping spikes'. For example, I will ping -t to www.ntlworld.co.uk (http://www.ntlworld.co.uk) and it will be OK most of the time (13-15ms), except that occasionally (every 30-40 seconds) one ping will shoot up to something like 1450ms. It is incredibly frustrating and, as you can imagine, is making online gaming incredibly difficult. The connection is absolutely fine apart from this and surfing the web is (obviously) not affected by this, so our lass is happy enough. I'm sick of having my mate lined up in my crosshairs in IL2 only for it to ping spike and in the second it's done it he's had time to escape.

Any of you gaming veterans know what might be causing the problem? I could move my PC downstairs and pluf it directly into the router to see if it's a wireless problem. The router and PC are around 8-10 meters apart (straight line) but the router is downstairs and across one room. The walls aren't particularly thick and I have either 'Very Good' or 'Excellent' connection.

Or, is this a common NTL issue? Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

[hammered]

Meanstreak,
Don't bother using ping to check your connection, that's only really used to determine that you can get to a specific location. Your best bet is to use tracert. This will show you just where the problem is happening as it will show you your route to where-ever it is that you are trying to get to...

[meanstreakuk]

I'm not sure it's a routing issue though as, like I said, the connection is absolutely fine most of the time. Every tracert I try looks OK, as it doesn't exhibit the 'spike' while I'm tracert'ing!

It only spikes every 30-40 seconds which is why only an extended ping catches it.

It will look something like:

15ms
14ms
15ms
15ms
15ms
13ms
14ms
1450ms <--- The spike
15ms
14ms
15ms
15ms
15ms
13ms
14ms

As you can imagine, online gaming (and it happens in every game I play, so it's not a gaming server issue - even happens when I connect direct IP to my mate who is on 1mb ADSL in the next village on)

[hammered]

meanstreak,
download the 3dcert app that's mentioned earlier on the post. That will run constantly and you'll be able to see just where the spike is. I've found that my problems are normally appearing on the hop out from within NTL's network.

[jtwn]

Hi people! First post here so go easy.

My setup is...

1) NTL 2mb

2) Ebuyer Extra Value 108MBPS 4 Port Wireless Cable/DSL Broadband Router 40 VPN Tunnels, UPNP with USB Print Server (802.11G+):

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2006/02/11.jpg

3) Belkin 802.11g Wireless PCI Adapter:

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2006/02/12.jpg

4) P4 2Ghz, 1GB RAM, GeForce 4 Ti4600 128MB, XP Pro

I am suffering from regular 'ping spikes'. For example, I will ping -t to www.ntlworld.co.uk (http://www.ntlworld.co.uk) and it will be OK most of the time (13-15ms), except that occasionally (every 30-40 seconds) one ping will shoot up to something like 1450ms. It is incredibly frustrating and, as you can imagine, is making online gaming incredibly difficult. The connection is absolutely fine apart from this and surfing the web is (obviously) not affected by this, so our lass is happy enough. I'm sick of having my mate lined up in my crosshairs in IL2 only for it to ping spike and in the second it's done it he's had time to escape.

Any of you gaming veterans know what might be causing the problem? I could move my PC downstairs and pluf it directly into the router to see if it's a wireless problem. The router and PC are around 8-10 meters apart (straight line) but the router is downstairs and across one room. The walls aren't particularly thick and I have either 'Very Good' or 'Excellent' connection.

Or, is this a common NTL issue? Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!



Yeah I know what this is and it isn't a problem with ntl. Its a problem surrounding the Belkin card, the RT2500 chip in particular (they have many different variants).

Go to Start>Run
Type services.msc
Stop and disable the 'Wireless Configuration' service.

Do realise that if you need to discover a new network (changed SSID) you will have to start it to find it.

I'll take credit for this, I found the solution ;) =)

[meanstreakuk]

I'll try that when I get home tonight - cheers bud!

I'll also give that 3D TraceRoute app a crack too - looks pretty cool.

Cheers folks!

[jtwn]

If it does work, sorry I forgot it does actually need to discover the wireless network first. I wrote a batch file -

@echo off
cd C:\WINDOWS\System32\
net stop "Wireless Configuration"
exit


and just put a shortcut to it in my startup folder. That is if it works in the first place.

[meanstreakuk]

Nice one!

Does WPA-PSK slow stuff down as well? I could probably have my network unsecured as I live in a village and know all my neighbours (and they wouldn't know the first thing about stealing bandwidth!)

Grr! It was simpler when was ADSL and lived in town 80ft from the exchange. Happy days...

[meanstreakuk]

Well slap me in the face with a cod, the man from Grimsby is a genius! After an extensive extended ping, it isn't spiking!

There wasn't a service called "Wireless Configuration" but rather one called "Wireless Zero Configuration", which is the one I stopped.

I CAN DOGFIGHT AGAIN!!! YES!!!

Thanks for your help jtwn.

[jtwn]

Hahaha cod, ahem :mad: :D

No problem. Guessing the name could vary with XP Home/2000 pro to XP pro (which I'm using).

[sav112]

I'm not sure it's a routing issue though as, like I said, the connection is absolutely fine most of the time. Every tracert I try looks OK, as it doesn't exhibit the 'spike' while I'm tracert'ing!

It only spikes every 30-40 seconds which is why only an extended ping catches it.

It will look something like:

15ms
14ms
15ms
15ms
15ms
13ms
14ms
1450ms <--- The spike
15ms
14ms
15ms
15ms
15ms
13ms
14ms

As you can imagine, online gaming (and it happens in every game I play, so it's not a gaming server issue - even happens when I connect direct IP to my mate who is on 1mb ADSL in the next village on)

I just started getting something like that!

Playing BF2 I even upgraded from 1M to 2M to see if it helped and I’ll be going back down as it made no difference.

Anyway the game sits nice as you like at 23ms etc than goes to 140ms and even 200ms then go back to normal. Strange one but very noticeable.

[hammered]

Sav, you've got the same problem as me, it's more than likely either saturation of the NTL network in your area. Another area that I think maybe a cause is the first hop out of NTL, from my tracerts that I've run. The first hop out always seems to be where the spike happens. Happens most days and at most times. at the moment I think it's a case of grin and bare it... It's better than it was with me, but I think most of my older problems were due to my old Terayon CM. My new NTL250 seems a lot more stable with the 10MB line, but my gaming problems still persist at a lower level then before... :rolleyes:

[Craig_e]

These are the results i'm getting from the 3dtracert program. The 1st hop is my router but i'm not sure what the second is? could it be my set-top box?

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/5180/trace37gt.jpg

[hammered]

Well, scrap what I said eariler, I was gaming last nightand... Yep, bad connection spikes happening all over the place.:mad:

I'm now going to run 3dtracert for a whole evening on my gaming PC and see what happens. I'll post the results up tomorrow...

[Planetgarb]

I have read this thread with interest as i also online game with ntl on command and conquor zero hour By EA. Just recently there has been quite a lot of disconects and i was wondering what the cause was but a few things have been highlighted.
One thing i was wondering is how do you ping something as my usual ping on cczh is about 109.
Im on 2gb bb so should this be better im in the NR31 area

Thanks

[hammered]

Im on 2gb bb so should this be better im in the NR31 area


:Yikes: CHRIST! how did you manage to get onto a 2GB service. How much does that cost per month... :D LOL...

[Planetgarb]

Sorry its a 3am typo lol 2mb it should reed lol

[StuS]

3 9 ms 9 ms 9 ms lutn-t2cam1-a-v135.inet.ntl.com [62.252.67.101]
4 11 ms 9 ms 9 ms lutn-t2core-a-ge-wan61.inet.ntl.com [213.107.47.65]
5 10 ms 9 ms 9 ms pop-bb-a-so-201-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.188.185]
6 13 ms 11 ms 12 ms nth-bb-b-so-400-0.inet.ntl.com [213.105.172.13]
7 16 ms 15 ms 16 ms lee-bb-a-so-600-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.102]
8 19 ms 20 ms 19 ms pop-bb-b-so-100-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.238]
9 29 ms 29 ms 29 ms amst-ic-1-as0-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.188.94]
10 75 ms 75 ms 75 ms ams-ix-nkf-1.router.nl.demon.net [195.69.144.99]
11 75 ms 160 ms 77 ms tc1-core-2-ge-1-0-1-0.router.nl.demon.net[82.161.255.5]
12 75 ms 76 ms 80 ms sin-core-1-at-1-2-1-0.router.nl.demon.net [82.161.255.26]
13 104 ms 106 ms 103 ms games.router.nl.demon.net [195.11.247.144]

something's broken :(

[hammered]

Tried just routing my connection through my router and not through my server & router last night. Had an absolute knightmare!!! Spikes were as bad as they used to be with my Terayon... I'll test again over the weekend, but a direct connection to my modem instead. I really don't think that it's going to make any difference though... :banghead:

[Ignition]

3 9 ms 9 ms 9 ms lutn-t2cam1-a-v135.inet.ntl.com [62.252.67.101]
4 11 ms 9 ms 9 ms lutn-t2core-a-ge-wan61.inet.ntl.com [213.107.47.65]
5 10 ms 9 ms 9 ms pop-bb-a-so-201-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.188.185]
6 13 ms 11 ms 12 ms nth-bb-b-so-400-0.inet.ntl.com [213.105.172.13]
7 16 ms 15 ms 16 ms lee-bb-a-so-600-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.102]
8 19 ms 20 ms 19 ms pop-bb-b-so-100-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.238]
9 29 ms 29 ms 29 ms amst-ic-1-as0-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.188.94]
10 75 ms 75 ms 75 ms ams-ix-nkf-1.router.nl.demon.net [195.69.144.99]
11 75 ms 160 ms 77 ms tc1-core-2-ge-1-0-1-0.router.nl.demon.net[82.161.255.5]
12 75 ms 76 ms 80 ms sin-core-1-at-1-2-1-0.router.nl.demon.net [82.161.255.26]
13 104 ms 106 ms 103 ms games.router.nl.demon.net [195.11.247.144]

something's broken :(

Two things, the UK route is odd, Luton, Poplar-A, Northampton, Leeds, Poplar-B, second obviously there's an issue on AmsIX between ntl and Demon.

No idea whose port is congested though, that'll have to be tested by someone on ntl who has something else in AmsIX to ping, perhaps news-europe.giganews.com will have the answers?

http://www.giganews.com/performance.html reports my reverse traceroute from there as being 13 - 15ms.

These guys have 10Gbit ports at AmsIX so should be an EXCELLENT test of ntl's peering, theirs is somewhat unlikely to be in strife :)

[Chrysalis]

its the infamous 62.253.188.94, had no end of problems with that hop that made me move a server to different transit just to avoid it.

---------- Post added at 21:45 ---------- Previous post was at 21:40 ----------

haha ignition take a look at this.

when I first entered the traceroute page I was on the colc-2 proxy and route was this.

216-196-110-1.ams.giganews.com (216.196.110.1) 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms
2 amst-ic-1.inet.ntl.com (195.69.144.40) 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms
3 pop-bb-b-as0-0.inet.ntl.com (62.253.188.93) 8 ms 8 ms 8 ms
4 lee-bb-a-so-700-0.inet.ntl.com (62.253.185.237) 13 ms 15 ms 31 ms
5 nth-bb-b-so-000-0.inet.ntl.com (62.253.185.101) 17 ms 17 ms 19 ms
6 colc-t2core-b-pos31.inet.ntl.com (62.253.188.206) 19 ms 19 ms 20 ms
7 colc-cache-2.server.ntli.net (213.107.224.18) 19 ms 26 ms 19 ms

so I thought to myself I am going to use a leics proxy see if the routing changes and bam.

1 216-196-110-1.ams.giganews.com (216.196.110.1) 9 ms 0 ms 6 ms
2 216-196-108-122.ams.giganews.com (216.196.108.122) 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms
3 * * *
4 * * *
5 so-4-2.core2.Amsterdam1.Level3.net (212.73.240.181) 3 ms 0 ms 0 ms
6 ge-0-0-0.mp2.Amsterdam1.Level3.net (4.68.96.197) 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms
7 as-1-0.bbr2.London1.Level3.net (212.187.128.25) 8 ms 7 ms 7 ms
8 ae-0-52.gar2.London1.Level3.net (4.68.116.44) 7 ms ae-0-56.gar2.London1.Level3.net (4.68.116.172) 8 ms ae-0-52.gar2.London1.Level3.net (4.68.116.44) 7 ms
9 195.50.91.70 (195.50.91.70) 17 ms 13 ms 13 ms
10 nth-bb-b-so-400-0.inet.ntl.com (213.105.172.13) 13 ms 13 ms 15 ms
11 leic-t2core-b-so-000-0.inet.ntl.com (62.253.188.113) 14 ms 14 ms 14 ms
12 leic-sm-cat-v2.inet.ntl.com (82.3.32.61) 13 ms 15 ms 13 ms
13 leic-cache-7.server.ntli.net (82.3.32.77) 13 ms 13 ms 13 ms

---------- Post added at 21:47 ---------- Previous post was at 21:45 ----------

nottingham

1 216-196-110-1.ams.giganews.com (216.196.110.1) 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms
2 adm-b2-geth3-2.telia.net (213.248.73.1) 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms
3 adm-bb2-pos0-0-0.telia.net (213.248.64.189) 8 ms 0 ms 0 ms
4 ldn-bb2-pos7-2-0.telia.net (213.248.65.157) 8 ms 8 ms 8 ms
5 ldn-b2-pos11-1.telia.net (213.248.74.10) 8 ms 8 ms 8 ms
6 ntl-111210-ldn-b2.c.telia.net (213.248.100.38) 164 ms 145 ms *
7 bre-bb-b-as0-0.inet.ntl.com (62.253.188.122) 22 ms 24 ms 21 ms
8 bre-bb-a-ae0-0.inet.ntl.com (213.105.172.86) 21 ms 21 ms 42 ms
9 gfd-bb-b-so-700-0.inet.ntl.com (213.105.172.150) 16 ms 15 ms 16 ms
10 nth-bb-a-so-000-0.inet.ntl.com (62.253.185.97) 16 ms 15 ms 16 ms
11 nth-bb-b-ae0-0.inet.ntl.com (62.253.185.118) 16 ms 15 ms 16 ms
12 nott-t2core-b-pos31.inet.ntl.com (62.253.185.38) 17 ms 17 ms 17 ms
13 nott-cache-1.server.ntli.net (62.254.0.12) 17 ms 23 ms 17 ms

guildford

1 216-196-110-1.ams.giganews.com (216.196.110.1) 278 ms 1 ms 11 ms
2 adm-b2-geth3-2.telia.net (213.248.73.1) 1 ms 0 ms 0 ms
3 adm-bb2-pos0-0-0.telia.net (213.248.64.189) 0 ms 1 ms 0 ms
4 ldn-bb2-pos7-2-0.telia.net (213.248.65.157) 9 ms 8 ms 10 ms
5 ldn-b2-pos12-3.telia.net (213.248.64.74) 8 ms 9 ms 10 ms
6 * * ntl-111210-ldn-b2.c.telia.net (213.248.100.38) 139 ms
7 bre-bb-b-as0-0.inet.ntl.com (62.253.188.122) 23 ms 23 ms 24 ms
8 bre-bb-a-ae0-0.inet.ntl.com (213.105.172.86) 24 ms 24 ms 24 ms
9 gfd-bb-b-so-700-0.inet.ntl.com (213.105.172.150) 19 ms 18 ms 18 ms
10 glfd-t2core-b-pos31.inet.ntl.com (62.253.185.30) 18 ms 19 ms 19 ms
11 glfd-cache-3.server.ntli.net (62.252.0.6) 19 ms 17 ms 16 ms

crazy stuff all static routing I believe.

[ToiletGamer]

Im not sure what all of this stuff means but I too have been having problems with lag in Online games. So ill just post this for you to check out. I live in the Grantham, Lincolnshire Area. NG31



news.giganews.com

1 gw-vlan201.dca.giganews.com (216.196.98.1) 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms
2 216.196.96.122 (216.196.96.122) 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms
3 ash-bb1-geth7-3-1-0.telia.net (213.248.88.81) 1 ms ash-bb1-geth6-3-3-0.telia.net (213.248.89.1) 1 ms ash-bb1-geth7-3-1-0.telia.net (213.248.88.81) 0 ms
4 nyk-bb1-pos7-1-0.telia.net (213.248.80.70) 6 ms nyk-bb2-pos0-3-0.telia.net (213.248.80.137) 6 ms 7 ms
5 ldn-bb1-pos7-1-0.telia.net (213.248.65.89) 75 ms ldn-bb1-link.telia.net (213.248.65.97) 74 ms ldn-bb1-pos7-1-0.telia.net (213.248.65.89) 75 ms
6 ldn-b2-pos12-3.telia.net (213.248.64.74) 76 ms ldn-b2-pos11-2.telia.net (213.248.64.78) 110 ms 111 ms
7 ntl-111210-ldn-b2.c.telia.net (213.248.100.38) 244 ms * 209 ms
8 bre-bb-b-as0-0.inet.ntl.com (62.253.188.122) 210 ms 102 ms 135 ms
9 * bre-bb-a-ae0-0.inet.ntl.com (213.105.172.86) 109 ms 136 ms
10 gfd-bb-b-so-700-0.inet.ntl.com (213.105.172.150) 108 ms 111 ms 111 ms
11 nth-bb-a-so-000-0.inet.ntl.com (62.253.185.97) 152 ms 152 ms 117 ms
12 nth-bb-b-ae0-0.inet.ntl.com (62.253.185.118) 151 ms 179 ms 150 ms
13 nott-t2core-b-pos51.inet.ntl.com (62.253.188.38) 150 ms 115 ms 150 ms
14 nott-cache-15.server.ntli.net (62.254.0.59) 147 ms 118 ms 148 ms

news-europe.giganews.com

1 216-196-110-1.ams.giganews.com (216.196.110.1) 64 ms 9 ms 0 ms
2 adm-b2-geth3-2.telia.net (213.248.73.1) 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms
3 adm-bb1-pos0-0-0.telia.net (213.248.64.185) 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms
4 ldn-bb1-pos7-0-0.telia.net (213.248.65.149) 8 ms 10 ms 8 ms
5 ldn-b2-pos11-2.telia.net (213.248.64.78) 46 ms 42 ms 45 ms
6 * * *
7 bre-bb-b-as0-0.inet.ntl.com (62.253.188.122) 128 ms 86 ms 85 ms
8 bre-bb-a-ae0-0.inet.ntl.com (213.105.172.86) 87 ms 87 ms 87 ms
9 gfd-bb-b-so-700-0.inet.ntl.com (213.105.172.150) 84 ms 82 ms 82 ms
10 nth-bb-a-so-000-0.inet.ntl.com (62.253.185.97) 83 ms 82 ms 82 ms
11 nth-bb-b-ae0-0.inet.ntl.com (62.253.185.118) 82 ms 82 ms 83 ms
12 nott-t2core-b-pos31.inet.ntl.com (62.253.185.38) 86 ms 88 ms 89 ms
13 nott-cache-15.server.ntli.net (62.254.0.59) 88 ms 86 ms 87 ms

[Chrysalis]

it means that depending on where you live the route to other isp's can be entirely different. So you may have a good ubr like a friend in a different city but if ntl route you over lower quality transit then tough luck, most of the time this may not have a noticeable affect but in some cases it may cause problems and people will be scratching heads over it because their mate on ntl is fine so it must be their computer.

[hammered]

Thing is Chrysalis, when-ever you contact NTL over any sort of gaming/latency issue, they will blame your system straight away! As soon as you tell them that you have anything plugged into cable before your computer, that's where the fault is, nowhere else. I've contacted NTL several times over this and each time all they have said is that the problem is with me running a firewall and router on the connection... :banghead:

I've even once demanded that they straight away put me through to a 3rd line person in the UK, so that I can get someone there to look at this. But they refuse to do this... :mad:
I know it's not the person in the callcenter's fault, but you get so frustrated when you know what the problem is but the callcenter insist on going through all the crap that you know isn't going to make a difference, even after you've told them that you know what you're talking about...

[Chrysalis]

Thats down to them sticking people in tech support who arent tech savvy but instead chosen on customer relation skills, so when its something outside the scope of their script they become lost. I have never got anywhere with tech support when it comes down to pings traceroutes etc. they just dont know what I am talking about instead I email the peering contact.

[[PTG] ]-[00T]

I have been playing BF2 for quite a while now and have lately found that the ping spike is getting totally ridiculous.
My PC is pretty much brand new - and I run a series of anti-malware and spyware utilities before I do anything else.
As my clan tend to play at 8pm (a busy time for ntl users by all accounts), I lag sooo much that it is near impossible to be of any use to my clan.

I have contacted the 'customer services' people and I got a email response suggesting I reduce my network card settings to 10Mbit and Half Duplex - Having spoken to a few of the PC buffs in my clan they were adamanet that it SHOULD run best on 100Mbit and FULL-duplex. as that allows the info packets to go both ways at once - the kind of thing that would be handy in online gaming.
I was also told that using P2P programs WHILST playing online would affect my performance (as if I would be stupid enough to do this).

I live in Portsmouth - a very densely populated city and so trying to play before 2am is a total joke.:mad:
(I don't use a router, cause I don't need one)
But the ping spike remains at all times of the day and night, its just the spike stays under 200 late at night.
Am now looking at switching ISP cause this lot don't really seem to care that they can't provide a decent service for anyone who uses their pc for anything more than checking their emails.
I have recently found it spiking on other games too. COD2 now sits at around 150, and even CS was running over 100 today.
I have sorted every possible problem at my end - it seems that the service in my area is dive-bombing :(
Oh well, another unsatisfied customer to be added to the list.:rolleyes:

Soz:
service: 2mb although I noticed recently it says 'up to 2mb' pff
PC: AMD Athlon 3500+
2GB RAM
etc
etc

[hammered]

[PTG] ]-[00T
I'm exactly the same as you mate. I play BF2 regulary as well. Although BF2 does tend to have a slight lag, which I know that dice & EA are supposed to be look at in the new 1.21 patch.:rolleyes:

But, yes it is completely unusable at times. I was OK last night for a short time, but then my normal lags started, and it started to get to be a pain again...
There is this thread and another going on about this issue, but from the looks of things us gamers are going to be in for a long wait, as it looks like NTL aren't going to do anything regarding the gaming issues for... well we don't even know if they will look into it. :mad:
If you're a hard-core gamer, I reckon you ought to look into moving to ADSL. You might be lucky and be quite close to an exchange so that you can get a decent speed. I can't do that as I'm slap-bang in between two exchanges and I've been told that the max speed on ADSL I can get is 1mb... :(
If I could get more I think I'd be off like a shot, just so that I can game properly...

[[PTG] ]-[00T]

Hi mate,
I'm not sure about where the nearest exchange is or what kind of bandwidth is available to me where I am located. I'll look into it.
I don't claim to be a "hardcore" gamer - but I am on most nights playing BF2 - I must say I didn't have much of a problem last night - I had to wait until around 2am before it settled down mind.
Just as well [PTG] has a US Division :)

Still a bit of a pain though - You wonder sometimes what our monthly subscription fees are actually for. Becoz it's sure as hell not improving the service.:confused:
Same old story to be honest mate. Crossing fingers the new patch - which should be out pretty soon (to fix the problems with 1.2patch) will sort out the lag issues too.

If you haven't run these lag tweaks for BF2 I suggest you do:
http://bf2lag.b0x.com/top5tips.html

I found that these did make a bit of a difference. Hope they make your BF2 experience a bit better.:D

[hammered]

No I haven't tried them, Thanx for the tips mate...
I'll try and give it a go either tonight or tomorrow...
If you need to find out details about your exchanges, goto

http://samknows.com

On there just enter your postcode (or if you can get a neighbour phone number who's on BT even better). Then this site will tell you what speed you should be able to get...:D

Good luck!!!

[[PTG] ]-[00T]

Thx for your suggestion Hammered.
I have found that Bulldog can provide 8mb service and a £5 saving on top :D
I would reccommend anyone hoping to use broadband for anything other than checking your email - which can be done with dial-up, or even your mobile phone - to switch NOW!!!
Perhaps ntl will get it through their empty heads that they can't charge a fortune for a substandard service.

£24.99 for 2mb or £19.50 for 8mb - hmmm, that's a tough one!!

Oh and no probs on the tips
Check out www.clanPTG.com (http://www.clanPTG.com) good community of players always willing to help out fellow gamers

[hammered]

Be careful though, that 8MB is only if you are within 1km of the exchange (I think)... It's all distance orientated, the further away from the exchange the less speed you'll get. Contact Bullbog to find out just what speeds you can expect... With me, it's not worth it as I've found out that the maximum speed I can expect from ADSL is onyl 1mb...

[zing_deleted]

]-[00T']Thx for your suggestion Hammered.
I have found that Bulldog can provide 8mb service and a £5 saving on top :D
I would reccommend anyone hoping to use broadband for anything other than checking your email - which can be done with dial-up, or even your mobile phone - to switch NOW!!!
Perhaps ntl will get it through their empty heads that they can't charge a fortune for a substandard service.

£24.99 for 2mb or £19.50 for 8mb - hmmm, that's a tough one!!

Oh and no probs on the tips
Check out www.clanPTG.com (http://www.clanPTG.com) good community of players always willing to help out fellow gamers

Hve you missed this thread??? http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=43768 Bulldog is on its way out of here

[[PTG] ]-[00T]

Being completely new to this forum, yes...yes I did miss that thread.
Thanks for posting it though dude and saving me a lot of wasted time and energy.
I'll guess I'll try that link you provided now then Hammered :rolleyes:

---------- Post added at 12:45 ---------- Previous post was at 12:30 ----------

HA HA!! Having checked out that site I have found that there is one less than a mile from my current address.:D
Living in a ridiculously busy city DOES have it's advantages after all.
BT Wholesale ADSL/SDSL informationADSL status:EnabledADSL enable date:31 Mar 2000 ADSL prereg:0 (+0 duplicates)SDSL status:EnabledSDSL enable date:14 Feb 2005ADSL Max status:RFS date setADSL Max enable date:31 Mar 2006 (Tentative)

This is the availability at my address
https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2007/10/14.gifYou can receive 2Mbps ADSLhttps://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2007/10/14.gifYou can receive 1Mbps ADSLhttps://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2007/10/14.gifYou can receive 512Kbps ADSLhttps://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2007/10/14.gifYou can receive 256Kbps ADSL

So ADSL max should be coming soon and I can currently get 2mb. Cool

[[PTG] ]-[00T]

Having not been able to change my isp (cos I'm moving soon-ish and I'll wait til then) I just got out of a clan match - having been disconnected twice during the game, 2 other connections problems and a ping spiking from 30 to 250+ (surprise surprise - we lost which is why i am so angry but thats because I cant play this game with a fps of 2, understandably , i'm sure you'd agree.

ntl, you suck!! I mean really suck!!!:mad:

I've never known such incomptence in all my life - how can anybody seriously give you an award for best isp with a straight face??:Yikes:

[Redwolf]

Hello All,

I've been reading through this thread with interest. I started getting connection issues with NTL about 3 weeks ago like a lot of you. I play FarCry online and also CoD. I've got a trace route to the server I play on here:-

Tracing route to 80.68.46.150 over a maximum of 30 hops



1 22 ms 5 ms 5 ms 10.99.128.1

2 6 ms 5 ms 14 ms lutn-t2cam1-a-v122.inet.ntl.com [Ip Removed cos it's redwolfs Download Failed (1) ]

3 19 ms 6 ms 19 ms lutn-t2core-a-ge-wan64.inet.ntl.com [213.107.47.89]

4 14 ms 6 ms 7 ms pop-bb-a-so-200-0.inet.ntl.com [213.105.174.61]

5 7 ms 20 ms 8 ms nth-bb-b-so-400-0.inet.ntl.com [213.105.172.13]

6 14 ms 8 ms 8 ms nth-bb-a-ae0-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.117]

7 9 ms 28 ms 11 ms gfd-bb-b-so-400-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.98]

8 12 ms 26 ms 23 ms redb-ic-1-as0-0.inet.ntl.com [213.105.174.138]

9 11 ms 12 ms 18 ms rt1.xantara.net [217.79.160.63]

10 19 ms 11 ms 12 ms sw2.mer.xantara.net [80.68.47.212]

11 * * * Request timed out.

12 11 ms 13 ms 12 ms 80.68.46.150

Trace complete.

Can anyone see an obvious answer within this trace route as to the cause of my problems or is just saturation of the network as previously stated in this thread. NTL technical support are useless, I've been on the phone to India for about 4 hours in total trying to resolve this issue, they also managed to upgrade me to 10mb:mad: I got a new modem out of them though but that didn't help. I'm connected directly to the modem from my PC. When I test my speed on NTL's speed test page it varies wildly:dunce:

Thanks in advance for any help

Kind Regards

John

[carlingman]

Hello All,

I've been reading through this thread with interest. I started getting connection issues with NTL about 3 weeks ago like a lot of you. I play FarCry online and also CoD. I've got a trace route to the server I play on here:-

Tracing route to 80.68.46.150 over a maximum of 30 hops



1 22 ms 5 ms 5 ms 10.99.128.1

2 6 ms 5 ms 14 ms lutn-t2cam1-a-v122.inet.ntl.com [Ip Removed cos it's redwolfs http://22ndsas.info/forums/images/smiles/armata_PDT_12.gif ]

3 19 ms 6 ms 19 ms lutn-t2core-a-ge-wan64.inet.ntl.com [213.107.47.89]

4 14 ms 6 ms 7 ms pop-bb-a-so-200-0.inet.ntl.com [213.105.174.61]

5 7 ms 20 ms 8 ms nth-bb-b-so-400-0.inet.ntl.com [213.105.172.13]

6 14 ms 8 ms 8 ms nth-bb-a-ae0-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.117]

7 9 ms 28 ms 11 ms gfd-bb-b-so-400-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.98]

8 12 ms 26 ms 23 ms redb-ic-1-as0-0.inet.ntl.com [213.105.174.138]

9 11 ms 12 ms 18 ms rt1.xantara.net [217.79.160.63]

10 19 ms 11 ms 12 ms sw2.mer.xantara.net [80.68.47.212]

11 * * * Request timed out.

12 11 ms 13 ms 12 ms 80.68.46.150

Trace complete.

Can anyone see an obvious answer within this trace route as to the cause of my problems or is just saturation of the network as previously stated in this thread. NTL technical support are useless, I've been on the phone to India for about 4 hours in total trying to resolve this issue, they also managed to upgrade me to 10mb:mad: I got a new modem out of them though but that didn't help. I'm connected directly to the modem from my PC. When I test my speed on NTL's speed test page it varies wildly:dunce:

Thanks in advance for any help

Kind Regards

John

Hi John,

Firstly :welcome: to Cable Forum.

No doubt someone with more knowledge will be along shortly but at first glance the trace rt appears fine until it leaves the NTL Network.

I am hoping NTL did not suggest upgrading to 10mb will cure your gaming issues :dunce:

:D

[Redwolf]

Well from what I've read the ping times are fine and the request time out is only because the server I was pinging is protected. I'm just at a loss because it's made gaming totally unplayable from me for 3 weeks now.

I tried switching to BT Broadband and they messed around so much then told me they had to downgrade my line 1mb I told them shove it:D

Thanks for the welcome by the way:tu:

[[PTG] ]-[00T]

Hi mate - I have no idea about pc's tbh.
All i know is when I am playing BF2 my ping starts at around 30 - and spikes to 250+!!!!

What is the upload for the 2mb connection?? anybody know?? I tried to find it on the ntl webpages but there about as useful as a rubber hammer. thx

[jtwn]

Rubber Hammers are actually useful; they are called mallets ;)

Upload is 200k on 2mb.

[[PTG] ]-[00T]

In my minds eye I was thinking more of a floppy rubber chicken, but a hammer.....nevermind.:rolleyes:

Thx for the prompt response mate.:p:

[Redwolf]

The strange thing for me is that my ping in-game is usually 15 or even 8 on our home server, never do I see it spike, I don't get any packet loss according to the game and yet I still lag like crazy:mad:

[[PTG] ]-[00T]

lol the first thing the lads in my clan said when I was getting lag was "is your isp ntl??"

So it seems we are not alone mate.
Even with the ping spike, which seems to go on until about 11pm I can play pretty well, but during match time around 8pm, I'm lagging so bad I am shooting a guy - then all of a sudden I am facing the other way shooting at nothing. I promptly get killed and very p*ssed off.:mad:
we lost our match tonight cos I lagged out and drove 3 of us into the river while I was trying to cross a bridge - they were not amused. Suffice to say I was livid.
I'm going to move to sweden 30mb download:D

[Redwolf]

I've just performed the test on giganews with following results:-

news.giganews.com

1 gw-vlan201.dca.giganews.com (216.196.98.1) 177 ms 1 ms 14 ms
2 ge1-25.fr1.iad.llnw.net (69.28.156.173) 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms
3 pop1-ash-G2-2-0.atdn.net (66.185.139.109) 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms
4 bb1-ash-P0-0.atdn.net (66.185.144.192) 0 ms 1 ms 0 ms
MPLS Label=34 CoS=0 TTL=127 S=0
5 bb1-vie-P11-0.atdn.net (66.185.152.99) 153 ms 198 ms 1 ms
MPLS Label=233 CoS=0 TTL=127 S=0
6 bb1-prs-S1-2-0.atdn.net (66.185.152.42) 81 ms 81 ms 81 ms
MPLS Label=103968 CoS=0 TTL=127 S=0
7 bb2-log-S1-2-0.atdn.net (66.185.152.59) 83 ms 80 ms 80 ms
MPLS Label=100032 CoS=0 TTL=127 S=0
8 pop2-log-S1-0-0.atdn.net (66.185.134.115) 80 ms 80 ms 79 ms
9 NTL.atdn.net (66.185.140.26) 84 ms 84 ms 84 ms
10 gb-lth-c-r2-pos00.inet.ntl.com (80.1.209.222) 84 ms 84 ms 84 ms
11 gb-ldk-c-r1-pos150.inet.ntl.com (80.1.209.121) 84 ms 84 ms 86 ms
12 pop-ic-1-ge-030-0.inet.ntl.com (62.253.184.253) 89 ms 84 ms 84 ms
13 pop-bb-a-ge-120-0.inet.ntl.com (62.253.184.242) 84 ms 109 ms 84 ms
14 lutn-t2core-a-pos71.inet.ntl.com (213.105.174.62) 85 ms 86 ms 85 ms
15 lutn-cache-12.server.ntli.net (62.252.64.33) 86 ms 86 ms 87 ms

news-europe.giganews.com

1 216-196-110-1.ams.giganews.com (216.196.110.1) 175 ms 0 ms 5 ms
2 * * *
3 so-0-0-0.lon11.ip.tiscali.net (213.200.80.41) 5 ms so-0-0-1-0.lon11.ip.tiscali.net (213.200.81.217) 6 ms so-0-0-0.lon11.ip.tiscali.net (213.200.80.41) 5 ms
4 * * *
5 pop-bb-b-so-500-0.inet.ntl.com (62.253.184.5) 6 ms 7 ms 6 ms
6 lee-bb-a-so-700-0.inet.ntl.com (62.253.185.237) 12 ms 60 ms 12 ms
7 nth-bb-b-so-000-0.inet.ntl.com (62.253.185.101) 15 ms 16 ms 15 ms
8 lutn-t2core-b-pos31.inet.ntl.com (62.253.188.190) 17 ms 16 ms 19 ms
9 lutn-cache-12.server.ntli.net (62.252.64.33) 17 ms 19 ms 16 ms

What does it all mean:dunce:

[jtwn]

]-[00T']lol the first thing the lads in my clan said when I was getting lag was "is your isp ntl??"

Maybe because they are the single biggest ISP.

[hammered]

Well, I have to say...

Hat's off to NTL... My gaming problem is now sorted... :)

---------- Post added at 11:44 ---------- Previous post was at 11:43 ----------

Yes, that's right it's sorted...








I just don't bother anymore... :mad: :mad: :mad:

[Rone]

Maybe because they are the single biggest ISP.


And also one of the worst, atm. :(

[[PTG] ]-[00T]

And also one of the worst, atm. :(

Exactly - gaming = lag.
is the answer i got.
What was your gaming problem and how did they fix it Hammered??

[EASyLIFE]

Hi all, this is my first post here so be kind ;)

Im a World Of Warcraft player and i play the game using NTL stand alone cable directly to my PC.
Im only on the 2Mb service and for over a year it has served me well, im from the Manchester area close to Baguley in Wythenshaw btw.

Recently starting on Wednesday 8th of March i have been having latency issues in WoW were normally it has been fine for many months.
Where latency is usually 50-200ms it has started to sky rocket from anywhere ranging between 1000ms up to 8000ms+ making the game unplayable.
After reading many problems with latency and dissconnecting issues by other World of Warcraft players from the UK also using NTL i started to look around and that's how i ended up here.

I have tried everything i can think of (wich admittedly isnt much) , ran many trace routes, tried many different network settings, tried connecting at different times of the day, checked my modem, tried different network cards, reconnected everything etc.
Always the same result, whenever i am surrounded by other players or engaged in large battles my latency starts to sky rocket to 1000ms+.
I get "freeze lag" and players run around in a circle or off into the distance etc
When im on my own far from other players my latency is fine around the 50-200ms mark.
I know other players on the same server as me who use BT ADSL and they have no problems at all.

Anyways...

After reading most of this mammoth thread seems im not alone.
Is it that NTL have problems atm and there's nothing i can do except wait for them to resolve it?
I was hoping the NTL network optomisation maintainence work this morning (12am - 6am Friday 17th) would of resolved the issue as my area is one of the area's listed but unfortunatly it did not.
I dont know what to do anymore, having tried all i can think of i still cannot play the game like i used to be able to for getting close to 2 weeks and im starting to look at BT ADSL as a better option :(

[Rone]

I gave up my clan gaming nights because of this same thing some time ago, as adsl is coming i might give it a go again. ;)

[TimJBart]

I've been trying to play counterstrike over the past few weeks but it is near impossible because of the lag I am now getting on ntl.

I'll walk around the map happy as larry, but then as soon as I try to shoot anyone, I freeze for a few seconds, then when I unfreeze I've already been killed.

Sad to hear that this is an ntl problem which they can't do anything about. It's infurating!

[Nedkelly]

Have you tried ping ploter its very easy to understand and it shows you where the packet loss is .A friend of mine uses it when he gaming and he can see where his lag is just an idea :tu:

[TimJBart]

Have you tried ping ploter its very easy to understand and it shows you where the packet loss is .A friend of mine uses it when he gaming and he can see where his lag is just an idea :tu:

Thanks I'll give it a go!

---------- Post added at 00:30 ---------- Previous post was at 00:01 ----------

ok what is this graph telling me?

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2006/12/23.png

[Ben Taylor]

What I don't understand is why NTL provide an up to 10mb service which everyone is obviously going to use for mass music leeching, and then they can't fix congestion issues for people using it for legal purposes such as gaming? What further annoys me is that NTL won't do anything about it!

Why don't they just bin the 10mb service for now, it would make a lot of people a lot happier. In all honesty i would be happy with a 100% stable 4mb service.

[Uncle Peter]

I've been trying to play counterstrike over the past few weeks but it is near impossible because of the lag I am now getting on ntl.

I'll walk around the map happy as larry, but then as soon as I try to shoot anyone, I freeze for a few seconds, then when I unfreeze I've already been killed.

Sad to hear that this is an ntl problem which they can't do anything about. It's infurating!

Does this happen when you're hosting your own game, when you're connected to someone else's server or both?

[TimJBart]

Does this happen when you're hosting your own game, when you're connected to someone else's server or both?

No I only only play on professionally hosted servers. Don't host my own game.

[Uncle Peter]

No I only only play on professionally hosted servers. Don't host my own game.

Are you using a router? can you get snmp or logged stats of your bandwidth usage from the router during a gaming session? You could also do this on your PC using an application like Net Meter.

The reason I mentioned this is in case you are hitting some kind of traffic management cap but tbh I don't think CS puts that much overhead on your connection.

[TimJBart]

Yes I am using a router. I'll give net meter a try, but all it will show me is a steady stream of data going in and out, then a 1 second pause approx every minute with no data transfer.

[Uncle Peter]

Yes I am using a router. I'll give net meter a try, but all it will show me is a steady stream of data going in and out, then a 1 second pause approx every minute with no data transfer.

Hmm I can see on your ping plot graph that some of those average responses look a bit on the high side but I can't quite make out what those packet loss figures are. Have you tried the same with a direct connection to the modem?

[TimJBart]

no I am in a different room to the router, and I have lent my huge cable to someone. I want to try by plugging straight into the cable box so at least I will know 100% that it is my ntl, and not my router.