the nagging lag

[GurtBFrobe]

 

Hello!! been getting a strage lag lately, been about a week since normal play.  I have been having the lag in all of the tastyspleen servers.  As per consoles advice, i ran a traceroute to get a feel for where the lag was coming from.

This tracert is to my internet provider, comcast.net:

Tracing route to www.comcast.net [63.240.76.72]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1    20 ms    60 ms    60 ms  73.75.80.1
2    43 ms    39 ms    98 ms  68.87.212.153
3    25 ms    31 ms    10 ms  68.87.212.22
4    72 ms   103 ms   343 ms  68.87.212.13
5    17 ms    56 ms    23 ms  12.127.33.45
6    94 ms    85 ms    77 ms  tbr1-p010202.sffca.ip.att.net [12.123.13.158]
7    78 ms    91 ms    84 ms  tbr3-temp.sffca.ip.att.net [12.122.1.46]
8   100 ms   100 ms   128 ms  tbr1-cl1.cgcil.ip.att.net [12.122.10.5]
9    75 ms   133 ms    85 ms  tbr1-cl14.n54ny.ip.att.net [12.122.10.1]
10    94 ms    89 ms    79 ms  ar1-p312.n54ny.ip.att.net [12.123.0.49]
11   145 ms    75 ms    86 ms  mdf1-gsr12-2-pos-7-0.nyc3.attens.net [12.122.255.162]
12    93 ms   125 ms    81 ms  63.240.64.102
13     *        *        *     Request timed out.
14     *        *        *     Request timed out.
15   106 ms    92 ms    97 ms  www.comcast.net [63.240.76.72]
Trace complete.

I also ran a trace to www.tastyspleen.net, since i couldn't get the trace to work with a TS server IP:

Tracing route to www.tastyspleen.net [67.19.248.74]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1    32 ms    32 ms    66 ms  73.75.80.1
2     7 ms     9 ms    46 ms  68.87.212.153
3    19 ms    11 ms     7 ms  68.87.212.17
4    22 ms    33 ms    56 ms  68.87.212.9
5    54 ms    15 ms    14 ms  12.117.240.9
6    46 ms    64 ms    48 ms  12.123.12.49
7    75 ms    74 ms    79 ms  tbr1-cl3.la2ca.ip.att.net [12.122.10.26]
8    53 ms    46 ms    54 ms  tbr1-cl20.dlstx.ip.att.net [12.122.10.49]
9    49 ms    69 ms    50 ms  gar1-p360.dlrtx.ip.att.net [12.123.196.101]
10    63 ms    62 ms    49 ms  12.119.136.14
11    99 ms    51 ms    54 ms  vl31.dsr02.dllstx3.theplanet.com [70.85.127.30]
12    55 ms    54 ms    54 ms  vl42.dsr02.dllstx4.theplanet.com [70.85.127.91]
13    49 ms    67 ms    59 ms  gi1-0-1.car13.dllstx4.theplanet.com [67.19.255.58]
14    71 ms   100 ms    48 ms  74.67-19-248.reverse.theplanet.com [67.19.248.74]

Trace complete.

Using a speed test on www.SPEAKEASY.net, I see that my average downstream pace is: 2915kbps, with 268kbps upstream

I have used a program called CABLENUT to tweak the registry settings to their optimal settings, but with every un-needed program turned off, I still have the lag, which can be quite horrible at times.

My system:
Dell Precision 370
Intel Pentium 4 3.0ghz
2x SATA 40gb hard drives
1.0gb SDRAMM
NVIDIA Quadro 128mb
Comcast cable internet, only running one computer.

Other than naggin the cable company to check the connection, what other options do I have?? Any advice is most welcome, sorry for the length here, and thanks ahead of time for checkin this out.  THANKS!!!!!! FROBE-K][L 

[GurtBFrobe]

Another thing I don't understand is why EGL reports my latency so high(lower right corner), while the server reports it so low.  Please keep in mind that I have tried to play with NOCHEAT, R1Q2, and my usual EGL with no avail:

 

[console]

Another thing I don't understand is why EGL reports my latency so high(lower right corner), while the server reports it so low.

Wow, that is odd.  What does your netgraph look like?  Any spikes there?

[GurtBFrobe]

AYE! I've never played with or understood the netgraph, but break it to me easy doc, am I gonna make it??:

[GurtBFrobe]

The server took a dive, just a second or two before the screenshot, so I think you can kinda get an idea of the graph.  THANKS MR. SOLE!

[naymlis]

Another thing I don't understand is why EGL reports my latency so high(lower right corner), while the server reports it so low.  Please keep in mind that I have tried to play with NOCHEAT, R1Q2, and my usual EGL with no avail

when my firewall is one my server browsers often tell me my ping is higher than it really is the first time i ping it.

[console]

I've never played with or understood the netgraph, but break it to me easy doc, am I gonna make it??:

  Holy hell you are one lagged mofo. 

The netgraph is just a simple bar chart.  It's just a very wide bar chart.   If you're playing at, say, 1280x960 screen resolution, your netgraph will be a bar chart with 1280 vertical "bars".  Each "bar" is one pixel wide (and up to N pixels tall, where N is the maximum height of the graph.)  So it's like a really wide bar chart seen from far enough away that you don't really see individual bars so much as the ebbs and flows of the gestalt of all these bars next to each other.  Well, that's probably a smidge too fruity - but, here's the deal:

Each "bar" (green vertical line, one pixel wide) is drawn with a height in pixels corresponding to the ping time (latency) of the last round-trip packet from the client to the server and back.(*)  So the taller the green line, the more lagged that packet was.

ANYWAY for all intents and purposes, each "bar" in your netgraph bar graph represents how much latency was measured in that particular packet/communication between the client and the server.  The higher your ping, the more latency, the more "green" you see in your netgraph.  Lag spikes show up as literal green spikes in your net graph.

So if your netgraph looks like recently mowed astroturf, just a thin line of green, you've got a low, steady ping.  If it's all shaggy and spikey like in your screenshot, somebody has, to grossly overextend an analogy, planted some japanese grass in your ping garden: you have lots of lag and it's spikey and uneven.

One GOOD thing in all this, in your screen shot, is there are no red lines in your netgraph.  Red lines are quake's way of drawing what would have been a green line that was so high it went to infinity: packetloss.  A packet was sent out for which no response was received, and quake gives up, shows it as a full-height red line, and goes on with the game.  So at LEAST you've got a clean connection without packetloss... but your latency is out of control.

One clue might be what you observed earlier - that the server thinks you have a low ping, but your client sees a high ping.  That's still peculiar to me, but it may mean the lag is occurring only in one direction: packets from the server to you are lagging; or packets from you to the server are lagging.

Some things to try at this point would be to leave your netgraph on, and experiment with different cl_maxfps and rate settings.  Lowering cl_maxfps means you send less data per second to the server.  Lowering rate means the server sends less data per second to you.

Try experimenting with lowering rate and cl_maxfps, and see whether you may find any settings where your netgraph starts to calm down and resemble more that freshly mowed astroturf that represents the Zen of low, steady ping.

It may be that changing neither rate nor cl_maxfps affects your bumpy netgraph, but if so, we will have learned something either way about the problem.

(Note: if you lower your rate far enough, you'll likely start to see some yellow lines in the netgraph... Yellow lines mean the server choked back on some data it would have liked to have sent you about bullets flying and such, because a low rate setting prevented it from saying all there was to say about the game to your client.  So it cautions you with yellow lines that you may be missing some eye candy.)

Good luck,




(*)(Tech note: that's how a traditional ping works; netgraph pings are independent of your cl_maxfps speed, so I'd need to read the code to know the precise behind-the-scenes details of how q2 measures it. But anyway, the height of the "bar" represents lag between client and server.)

[inhuman]

so here i was playing bong h2o who was using frobes computer. at first i thought it was a speed hack then after chasing him further, i realized it was his lag that was totally making him look speedy.

certainly one of the weirdest encounters ever. my apologies to bong for my accusations.

[Mr._X]

The awesome comment  about the k][l members is courtesy of me, and don't you forget it!

[GurtBFrobe]

thank you very much for the info guys!!!!!!!!! You guys ROCK!!!  Anywho.. I will try later on to experiment with the rate and max fps.  Typically my game spikes to about 500fps, but runs rather smooth between 150 and 300fps.  I'll try to bring it down to say 100, and drop the rate a bit.  I have tried playing with the rate a little, starting at 10,000, then lifting it up and dropping it down, but I didn't really see a difference.  I will definately leave the netgraph on for abit, since i seem to understand it more.  Perhaps it is the game that is messing me up, and maybe I tweaked one to many settings. 

Thanks a lot Console and  naymlis, i'll try your suggestions immediately.  No problem on our end Inhuman, simple mis-understanding!!! and thanks for the lovely coments Mr. X, while i can't really play to my best right now, I do enjo the occasional tangle with you!!

THANKS!!! FROBE 

[GurtBFrobe]

well it seems to have gotten alittle better, check this one out:

[console]

Typically my game spikes to about 500fps, but runs rather smooth between 150 and 300fps.  I'll try to bring it down to say 100, and drop the rate a bit.

Haha. jeezus..   Unless you're running r1q2 with cl_async 1, your client is going to be pushing more and more data out your cable/DSL modem to the server, the higher your fps.  (300 fps implies 300 packets sent by your client to the server per second... this could potentially easily overwhelm your modem's upload bandwidth.)

I'd recommed dropping your cl_maxfps down to 30, only as a diagnostic step.  If it helps your netgraph, keep raising your cl_maxfps until you find the threshold where the lag begins. Just a thought...

Regards,