Lag?

[manonfire]

Smear dielectric grease all over the inside of your modem.

[Desertman]

Run a traceroute or even better a program called MTR (My Trace Route) It will show you where the packet loss and/or latency is being caused. If its something at your ISPs end (anything up the hop just after the first hand-off to another provider) you could call them and have them investigate. Of course most of the time this won't work because they'll try to find a way to remove blame from themselves.

GDB was unreachable for me about 30 minutes ago.

I ran a tracert, even during the hard lag spikes, multiple times over the last two days. Clean as a whistle (I was all, "I'm going to get you this time fucker!")....which is the part that really confuses me. It doesn't appear to be packet loss from everything I can tell. Just...delays....

Start to enter a new room, get the first line of the description.......fifteen seconds of lag.......everything jumps onto the screen that has happened in the last fifteen seconds....fifteen or twenty seconds of smooth play......repeat......

[slvrmoontiger]

Then it sounds like more of a performance issue/client problem. Are you running with logs enabled all the time? If so I would suggest checking your hard drive space and defragmenting the hard drive. Unless you have an SSD of course, then don't defrag. Might try to just do a general reboot of your computer, modem, router.

[Desertman]

Then it sounds like more of a performance issue/client problem. Are you running with logs enabled all the time? If so I would suggest checking your hard drive space and defragmenting the hard drive. Unless you have an SSD of course, then don't defrag. Might try to just do a general reboot of your computer, modem, router.

I have two PC's running that have the exact same problem. It also affects my access to the GDB even when I'm not logged into the game. So not a client problem or a PC problem.

I also observe it to happen to about four or five out of the ten players my character roams with at around the same times. So....I would guess it is an Armageddon-side thing, that or we are all running the same machines. (Extremely unlikely.)

[slvrmoontiger]

Right now seems to be a problem with Arm's provider:

Tracing route to ginka.armageddon.org [206.72.201.199]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  Wireless_Broadband_Router.home [192.168.1.1]
  2     8 ms     7 ms     8 ms  L100.WASHDC-VFTTP-61.verizon-gni.net [96.231.199.1]
  3     9 ms     6 ms     7 ms  G0-9-4-7.WASHDC-LCR-22.verizon-gni.net [130.81.104.180]
  4     7 ms     7 ms     8 ms  ae2-0.RES-BB-RTR2.verizon-gni.net [130.81.199.138]
  5     8 ms     8 ms     8 ms  0.ae2.BR3.IAD8.ALTER.NET [152.63.7.221]
  6     9 ms     7 ms     8 ms  204.255.168.226
  7    22 ms    22 ms    23 ms  207.88.14.170.ptr.us.xo.net [207.88.14.170]
  8    17 ms    23 ms    18 ms  ae0d0.mcr1.nyc-ny.us.xo.net [216.156.0.18]
  9    17 ms    15 ms    16 ms  207.239.51.86
10    15 ms    16 ms    16 ms  edge-10-teb2.us.as19318.net [66.45.224.182]
11     *        *        *     Request timed out.
12     *        *        *     Request timed out.
13     *        *        *     Request timed out.
14     *        *       18 ms  ginka.armageddon.org [206.72.201.199]

Trace complete.

[Desertman]

Seems to start for both the GDB and the game at around 9:30 central time. Then the game basically becomes unplayable for anything but tavern sitting. Trace route is still clean, even during the spikes. No other websites or games are affected. Seems to be Armageddon specific.

[racurtne]

I get this too. Dman. It's not just you.

[Desertman]

Please note this was not an issue until the last week or so to my knowledge. So whatever changed in the last week to two weeks is probably our culprit.

Is it possible that our "host" or whatever for www.armageddon.org is throttling us down during their peak times to save bandwidth or something? (I probably slaughtered that, but you know what I am saying.)

[Desertman]

Well, it's 9PM, let the lag begin again.

[RogueGunslinger]

Try connecting through a proxy.

[slvrmoontiger]

Seriously, if you are lagging and you don't see any latency or packet loss through ping or tracerouting to ginka then its NOT internet related. If it WAS then you would see it with those utilities. Routing through a proxy will only increase the problem, because if you take the route of free proxies most often times they are SLOW connections.

Now if your not seeing problems on the internet there's only two things left that could be causing it. Either something on the person's PC that's causing a performance issue OR something on Ginka that's causing a performance issue. At 9pm server time last time I was NOT lagging. If others in the same area as you were lagging then I would suggest sending in a bug showing all the utilities showing that the internet wasn't having problems. Show that you tried and had problems with logging running and not running so that your computer's hard drive is defragged. Show that you rebooted your computer and/or restarted your client and then have others do the same thing and send in bug reports as well. Its possible that something in the code in the specific area is running at a specific time that's causing a lag. But I would suspect that other's on the server even if they are in another part of the game would experience lag as well.

[Desertman]

Seriously, if you are lagging and you don't see any latency or packet loss through ping or tracerouting to ginka then its NOT internet related. If it WAS then you would see it with those utilities. Routing through a proxy will only increase the problem, because if you take the route of free proxies most often times they are SLOW connections.

Relax, the guy is just trying to help. Seriously.

Now if your not seeing problems on the internet there's only two things left that could be causing it. Either something on the person's PC that's causing a performance issue OR something on Ginka that's causing a performance issue.

My wife and I both play Armageddon. Two separate PC's obviously. Both of us experience this lag. Interestingly enough, we don't both experience it at the exact same time (though sometimes we do.) This rules out the possibility it is a machine issue. Because we both don't experience it at the same time, but we are both running through the same router and connection, this likely wipes out the possibility of a connection issue or router issue.

I also play with a large group of people. When in said large group, about half of the people in the group have confirmed they are experiencing the same lag as myself at the same times. The other half have zero lag. This again confirms this isn't a "Desertman's computer/connection" issue.

It is something larger.

I also experience GDB lag at the exact same time. So this isn't a game client issue. This has something to do with the server/host (not sure what term I'm shooting for here) that runs Armageddon as a whole. It affects both the game and the GDB at the same times.

No other games or websites I play/visit during these times are affected.

At 9pm server time last time I was NOT lagging. If others in the same area as you were lagging then I would suggest sending in a bug showing all the utilities showing that the internet wasn't having problems. Show that you tried and had problems with logging running and not running so that your computer's hard drive is defragged.

Taken care of above.

Show that you rebooted your computer and/or restarted your client and then have others do the same thing and send in bug reports as well.

Taken care of above.

It's possible that something in the code in the specific area is running at a specific time that's causing a lag. But I would suspect that other's on the server even if they are in another part of the game would experience lag as well.

I'm not sure about this. We do tend to play in roughly the same areas, but when we travel it doesn't seem to help it/make it worse. It just stays about the same.

[slvrmoontiger]

DessertMan - I suggest that you download and install MTR (My Trace Route) On your computer. This is a more accurate diagnostic tool for internet troubleshooting. It does a constant ping to each hop on a route and gives you the time for the ping as well as any packet loss for each ping. This runs continuously until stopped. There might be something small going on that's enough to cause lag, but not enough to cause it to appear on a traceroute or a normal ping. If that doesn't show anything then truly I don't know what's causing the problems. I would have staff further investigate and see if something is running in the code that's causing the lag.

[Desertman]

DessertMan - I suggest that you download and install MTR (My Trace Route) On your computer. This is a more accurate diagnostic tool for internet troubleshooting. It does a constant ping to each hop on a route and gives you the time for the ping as well as any packet loss for each ping. This runs continuously until stopped. There might be something small going on that's enough to cause lag, but not enough to cause it to appear on a traceroute or a normal ping. If that doesn't show anything then truly I don't know what's causing the problems. I would have staff further investigate and see if something is running in the code that's causing the lag.

Will do. Thanks.

[slvrmoontiger]

Let me know what you find out. I'll try to help out more if I can.

[Nyr]

But yeah, it seems to be affecting about 50% of the player base.

Where are you pulling this number from?

We are happy to look into things affecting the connection to the game (we've moved servers with our provider before because of that, in fact), but we're not going to take your word for it that half of the player base is affected by something.  As before when issues have occurred, we need specific details about times, length of occurrence, traceroutes, etc.

[Desertman]

But yeah, it seems to be affecting about 50% of the player base.

Where are you pulling this number from?

We are happy to look into things affecting the connection to the game (we've moved servers with our provider before because of that, in fact), but we're not going to take your word for it that half of the player base is affected by something.  As before when issues have occurred, we need specific details about times, length of occurrence, traceroutes, etc.

I also play with a large group of people. When in said large group, about half of the people in the group have confirmed they are experiencing the same lag as myself at the same times.

Though to be fair, I could just be playing with a lot of the "laggers" by coincidence, I guess.

I have ran the trace routes repeatedly over the last few days and they all come back spotless. But I will run them again tonight if the lag persists and post the results here for you. (I just didn't post them before because they did come back clean every single time.)

I have watched the clock the last few nights and it starts to happen right around 9PM central time. Before that time, I have zero lag (along with the wife) and I notice zero lag among the group I play with. After this time, that changes.

The spurts of lag last for about fifteen to twenty seconds, then the game will run smoothly for about thirty seconds...rinse and repeat until you are forced to rage quit. After this time the GDB also loads extremely slowly, or not at all, or only partially, whereas before this time, it runs perfectly, all day long.

I usually give up at around 10:30, but I can confirm it happens up until that time anyways.

[slvrmoontiger]

I would suggest posting MTR results its more useful than traceroutes.

[Nyr]

I also play with a large group of people. When in said large group, about half of the people in the group have confirmed they are experiencing the same lag as myself at the same times.

Though to be fair, I could just be playing with a lot of the "laggers" by coincidence, I guess.

Or you could all be playing from the same area of the country, or you could all be routed through the same server that (at some point) is the bottleneck.  It's anecdotal and not very helpful for analyzing a larger issue.

I have ran the trace routes repeatedly over the last few days and they all come back spotless. But I will run them again tonight if the lag persists and post the results here for you. (I just didn't post them before because they did come back clean every single time.)

What do you mean by "spotless"?

[RogueGunslinger]

But yeah, it seems to be affecting about 50% of the player base.

Where are you pulling this number from?

We are happy to look into things affecting the connection to the game (we've moved servers with our provider before because of that, in fact), but we're not going to take your word for it that half of the player base is affected by something. 

I don't know about -HIS- word about it. But when I'm in-game and see this happen yes I'd say that yes, around half the people I'm playing with are complaining about lag, or getting dropped and reconnected. It's obviously a large portion of the playerbase that gets effected. I'm not sure if it's 50% maybe it's only 25% but god damn that's still a fuck-ton of players and it's happening to them all at the same time.

Considering we get this sort of issue every couple months, I'd say it's probably part of a larger problem.

[Desertman]

I also play with a large group of people. When in said large group, about half of the people in the group have confirmed they are experiencing the same lag as myself at the same times.

Though to be fair, I could just be playing with a lot of the "laggers" by coincidence, I guess.

Or you could all be playing from the same area of the country, or you could all be routed through the same server that (at some point) is the bottleneck.  It's anecdotal and not very helpful for analyzing a larger issue.

I have ran the trace routes repeatedly over the last few days and they all come back spotless. But I will run them again tonight if the lag persists and post the results here for you. (I just didn't post them before because they did come back clean every single time.)

What do you mean by "spotless"?

All of the hops on my trace route come back reflecting acceptable round trip times and none of them time out. They all reflect around 80 or below ms. (If this isn't actually good let me know. I assumed this was good based on what I've seen in the past.)

To amend my previous post, it happens to around 50% of the people I play with, for reasons I can not confirm unfortunately. I'm sorry that isn't more helpful.

[Nyr]

Data, please, not stories.  Thanks.  Enough of it and we can look at addressing whatever the problem might be.

What do you mean by "spotless"?

All of the hops on my trace route come back reflecting acceptable round trip times and none of them time out. They all reflect around 80 or below ms. (If this isn't actually good let me know. I assumed this was good based on what I've seen in the past.)

Post them anyway when there are problems.  The point is not to find out if you're timing out somewhere--the point is to have data points from many people so that we can determine where the problem lies.

[Desertman]

Data, please, not stories.  Thanks.  Enough of it and we can look at addressing whatever the problem might be.

What do you mean by "spotless"?

All of the hops on my trace route come back reflecting acceptable round trip times and none of them time out. They all reflect around 80 or below ms. (If this isn't actually good let me know. I assumed this was good based on what I've seen in the past.)

Post them anyway when there are problems.  The point is not to find out if you're timing out somewhere--the point is to have data points from many people so that we can determine where the problem lies.

Yerp, I will take care of it tonight. I plan to run my trace route and post results for before and after 9pm when it generally starts so you guys can make comparisons, or whatever. (I'm assuming that might be helpful?)

[RogueGunslinger]

Not having any problem with lag when others say they are this time.

Tracing route to armageddon.org [206.72.201.199]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

 1     2 ms     2 ms     2 ms  192.168.0.1
 2    30 ms    81 ms   153 ms  phnx-dsl-gw69.phnx.qwest.net [67.40.227.69]
 3    27 ms    26 ms    27 ms  phnx-agw1.inet.qwest.net [75.160.238.33]
 4    40 ms    39 ms    39 ms  los-brdr-01.inet.qwest.net [67.14.102.30]
 5    58 ms    38 ms    40 ms  63.146.26.150
 6   106 ms   134 ms   107 ms  207.88.14.217.ptr.us.xo.net [207.88.14.217]
 7   112 ms   107 ms   107 ms  vb15.rar3.dallas-tx.us.xo.net [207.88.12.45]
 8   108 ms   109 ms   116 ms  te-4-0-0.rar3.atlanta-ga.us.xo.net [207.88.12.1]
 9   108 ms   106 ms   107 ms  te-11-0-0.rar3.washington-dc.us.xo.net [207.88.2.10]
10   104 ms   104 ms   105 ms  ae0d0.mcr1.newark-nj.us.xo.net [216.156.0.22]
11   104 ms   148 ms   102 ms  ae1d0.mcr1.nyc-ny.us.xo.net [216.156.1.9]
12   106 ms   104 ms   110 ms  207.239.51.86
13   106 ms   105 ms   105 ms  edge-10-teb2.us.as19318.net [66.45.224.182]
14   104 ms   104 ms   109 ms  openvz28.interserver.net [199.231.184.130]
15   104 ms   104 ms   104 ms  ginka.armageddon.org [206.72.201.199]

[Nyr]

Brief story time to explain why the individual data is necessary: I do this sort of thing at work.  Networking and server engineering is not my area of expertise though I do have a crappy cert there (they'll let anyone that passes that test get one).  I've got an issue now where a whole group of people claim there is a networking/server-related problem.  When passed to me, there were no data points to review.  Just "intermittent problem" that "affects some people."  Collecting that data was difficult as it got artificially inflated (people like to make their problem appear bigger than it is so that those who can look at it assume it is bigger than it is).  We'd check back with some individual people and they'd say "I never had the problem".  Well, there is a problem, obviously, but I can't use data that isn't accurate as it would make me overlook a commonality that would otherwise exist (in other words, it can't be THIS answer because Bobby Joe has the problem and his machine is this make/model). 

So...I can't work based on your word about other people, I have to have actual data from them to point to.

What would be helpful to know?

When next you experience this problem, detail:

When it starts
When it ends
How bad is it?
can you get to other websites with no problem?
traceroute or MTR info

What if you aren't experiencing the problem?  If you see that others are posting that they are having an issue (and it's more than just one or two people), do the same thing as them--demonstrate your ability to function by providing traceroute/MTR info.  There may be something different there that would indicate the culprit.

From there we can figure out what's up.