[MarkusThatch]

Like the good lovers guide but not. This is with COD special ops in mind particularly. After the ease of playing zombies this has come as a bit of a culture shock.

Basically I wondered if some of you kindly avforumers would be good enough to put together some sort of guide on how to minimise lag. Maybe incorporating a list of known ISP chokers? This is in response to some painful connection problems/lag whilst playing special ops. Any hints and tips would be gratefully received!

[joelk2]

Virgin Media (Non Cable) - i get lag alot when playing (if i can even connect at all)

it was fetching playlist last night for 2 hours until i finally gave up and returned to single player, this is common for me after 5pm.

[Jay]

Lag reall depends on who is hosting.

If you have a god host you'll have no lag.

Some of the games I played alst night were awful, people were ice skating past me

[MarkusThatch]

Be interested to know if sky throttle connections - I'm with them using one of their glorious netgear wireless routers (by your command Mr Murdoch).

Also, how did the connections for waw work in comparison to mw2? Apart from the odd floating dead zombie/dog I don't recall having connection problems on that.

[joelk2]

Originally Posted by MarkusThatch

Be interested to know if sky throttle connections - I'm with them using one of their glorious netgear wireless routers (by your command Mr Murdoch).

Also, how did the connections for waw work in comparison to mw2? Apart from the odd floating dead zombie/dog I don't recall having connection problems on that.

my cousin is with sky and we have both our ps3's connected to the supplied router with no issues or lag.

also i have a friend with sky who seems to be expieriencing no issues playing online.

[MarkusThatch]

Originally Posted by joelk2

my cousin is with sky and we have both our ps3's connected to the supplied router with no issues or lag.

also i have a friend with sky who seems to be expieriencing no issues playing online.

Cheers, the mystery deepens.

[AVreturn]

Originally Posted by joelk2

my cousin is with sky and we have both our ps3's connected to the supplied router with no issues or lag.

also i have a friend with sky who seems to be expieriencing no issues playing online.

Ding, can confirm I am with Sky, and most of the time 3-4 bars

[Craig8718]

I'm with Sky and don't seem to have many issues with them. From what I read Sky are one of the better ISP's for gaming and one of only a few that don't throttle your connection at peak times.

[ps3boy]

Connections and getting logged out / not joining games was really doing my head in a few weeks ago so I have done the following and everything seems to have become very stable -

Ping your ISP providers IP address with packets of data (there are a number of places online where you can find out how to do this from your pc/laptop). I found that on BT I couldnt send packets of data larger than 1472 in size yet the PS3 and my router frequently tried to send 1500 bytes, this was causing the 'connection timed out' problem on the PS3. Since changing the settings on my router/ps3 ive not had this problem.

I have put my PS3's IP address in to the DMZ on my router and I have allowed 'ping' on the router settings. I know this can be a security risk but 'ping' attacks are very unusual on home networks (I'm reliably told ).

Finaly (seems a bit obvious) if using wifi try moving the router so it is not blacked by anything, Ive found that if the router is behind the settee I may get 60% signal strength, if I move out in to the open I get 75% signal strength.

Seems to have worked fine for me, only had one game lagging in the last 2 days of play (and I think this may have been due to someone bending the rules so to speak) so I just quit the lobby and joined back in a-ok.

[HRL]

Can't beat a plain old wired ethernet connection. Whilst sometimes inconvenient at home, it eliminates a lot of potential problems with online gaming as Wifi by it's very nature can suffer from interference and signal loss.

I'm with Virgin and their 10Mb package. Ping is almost always <60ms.

Never noticed any throttling even after downloading 4-5Gb files.

[MarkusThatch]

Downloaded v1.04 - lag free gaming last night - hope it wasn't just a lucky night.

[rgoff31]

I've seen more lag in the game since the 1.03/1.04 patches have comeout. To me the host migrate thing doesn't seem to be as aggressive and swappping hosts as much as before. You can see who the host is because everyone is yellow/orange and the host is solid high green.

[AMP1984]

I am with sky and don't have many issues with lag. The only time it's slightly laggy is in peak hours between 5pm - 9pm. Any other time of the day is 3-4 bars on every game

[The Fuggler]

Sky here too - no problems last night during the middle of the evening.

[bubs999]

Originally Posted by HRL

Can't beat a plain old wired ethernet connection. Whilst sometimes inconvenient at home, it eliminates a lot of potential problems with online gaming as Wifi by it's very nature can suffer from interference and signal loss.

I'm with Virgin and their 10Mb package. Ping is almost always <60ms.

Never noticed any throttling even after downloading 4-5Gb files.

If its Virgin Cable, then there is lots of throttling with them (They call it Subscriber Management).

Times are from 1000hrs to 1500hrs and 1600hrs to 2100hrs. If you download or upload over the limit set, then your connection is cut by 75% for 5hrs

I'm on the 10mb package and don't get much lag, if I do then I just find a new game.

[johnhol]

I'm with o2 on the Non Access package - sync rate around 13mb....Only lag i see is the littlw urchins with them lag things i just read about. I would recommend o2 to most people as they don't restrict connection speeds....though depends whether you can geta decent speed with them

[Henborg]

LOL quote from BT's Web Site on the Speed of my B Band.

"For the most accurate results we strongly advise you to use your telephone number, if available.

Based on your postcode we can confirm your area supports the UK's most complete broadband package, BT Total Broadband. We estimate your maximum connection speed to be 0.256Mbps (Megabits per second), this is the fastest speed your line can support"

If i gun you down you should be ashamed lol

[Geeders]

I generally don't have a problem with lag, unless I am hosting. I'm on o2 and get speeds around 2.3mb (happy with this as I could only get 0.5mb with AOL) and a ping of around 50ms. My NAT type is open and I have the PS3 in DMZ.

If I'm in a laggy game and choose to quit the 'host migration' always pops up . I presume this means I was the host, but I thought the host would experience zero lag - or have I got this wrong?

How can you tell who the host is? I notice some dogtags against peoples name as wasn't sure if thais shows who's hosting.

[Tall_Paul]

Virgin 10mb down/0.5mb up here, wired connection to the router. I had a decent session last night and the games I played from 6pm to 9pm were perfect, pretty much 100% lag free, I was a few kills away from the nuke in one match.

However, from 10pm onwards (until 2/3am) things got steadily worse as the yanks came online, stupid amounts of lag in some games

One thing I've noticed though is that after about 9/10pm I'm getting chosen as the host in about 75% of games, even those with lots of americans in them, and doing a speed check around that time my connection (so long as I haven't hit the throttling limit ) is rock solid at the full 10mb/0.5mb and between 14-40ms of ping. If I'm not host then all the guys I play with from here have 2 bars and are unloading full clips into people, whereas if I'm host then everyone has 3/4 bars and we have a good game, and of course it's good for me too, nothing better than being the host for some non laggy kills )

[joelk2]

well im totally confused now.

no end of problems with lag and hours sat waiting to connect to a game. Put it down to virgin as i had the same problems on most games i tried i.e cod4, WAW.

borrowed the xbox version off my mrs bro and it ran fine.

went and bought myself a copy on xbox and i havent had a laggy game/wait to connect since. can also play cod4 online with no problems.

why is the ps3 causing me so many problems?

[Golf_turbo]

Why when I get killed on the killcam does it not even show me firing and like 15ft away from the wall, when in actual fact I'm hugging the wall and shooting for a good 1 second at the blkoe who killed me?!

[feaviolp]

Originally Posted by Golf_turbo

Why when I get killed on the killcam does it not even show me firing and like 15ft away from the wall, when in actual fact I'm hugging the wall and shooting for a good 1 second at the blkoe who killed me?!

Probably lag mate. Does it happen all the time or just on laggy games? See the Lag thread for people's comments on lag, expecially gits using some home-made box to purposely introduce lag so they can kill people without them seeing them coming

EDIT: Lag thread here: The COD laggers guide

[ps3boy]

Originally Posted by joelk2

well im totally confused now.

no end of problems with lag and hours sat waiting to connect to a game. Put it down to virgin as i had the same problems on most games i tried i.e cod4, WAW.

borrowed the xbox version off my mrs bro and it ran fine.

went and bought myself a copy on xbox and i havent had a laggy game/wait to connect since. can also play cod4 online with no problems.

why is the ps3 causing me so many problems?

Would need to know if youve changed on your PS3 anything from 'standard PS3' settings and if your getting a "connection timed out" message at anypoint?

It is trial an error to some extent and different routers seem to affect the set-up and getting it setup stable, I have 2 routers and the PS3 won't even connect to one of them (it is an old one though)!

Just trying to help cos this was driving me mad with COD4 until I solved my issues

[Golf_turbo]

Originally Posted by feaviolp

Probably lag mate. Does it happen all the time or just on laggy games? See the Lag thread for people's comments on lag, expecially gits using some home-made box to purposely introduce lag so they can kill people without them seeing them coming

Thanks, I'll check it out. So I take it that's not normal.

Recently I would say half my games I'm on one red bar

[Golf_turbo]

Originally Posted by feaviolp

Probably lag mate. Does it happen all the time or just on laggy games? See the Lag thread for people's comments on lag, expecially gits using some home-made box to purposely introduce lag so they can kill people without them seeing them coming

EDIT: Lag thread here: The COD laggers guide

Stange though, used to be fine. LAst week I had FOUR PS3's connect and we were all playing online, perfectly. Plus my PC and a few laptops in the house.

I'm gonna try go hard wired n turn off the WiFi

[feaviolp]

Originally Posted by Golf_turbo

Thanks, I'll check it out. So I take it that's not normal.

Recently I would say half my games I'm on one red bar

From what I've read, the thing to look out for is the signal for everyone. So if one person (the host) is green and everyone else is red then it's likely the host is cheating so leave and find another game .

[Hillskill]

Golf_Turbo, I have merged your thread into this "Laggers Guide" thread as its all relevant info

[Golf_turbo]

Originally Posted by feaviolp

From what I've read, the thing to look out for is the signal for everyone. So if one person (the host) is green and everyone else is red then it's likely the host is cheating so leave and find another game .

To be honest, what I have seen his everyone green, except me?!

Maybe my bro is using one haha!

[joelk2]

Originally Posted by ps3boy

Would need to know if youve changed on your PS3 anything from 'standard PS3' settings and if your getting a "connection timed out" message at anypoint?

Just trying to help cos this was driving me mad with COD4 until I solved my issues

Every now n then i get the timed out error.

PS3 is in DMZ (have tried just forwarding COD4 ports also, have changed all settings to reflect a static ip address (have tried auto setup) and ps3 is wired into router(have also tried wireless).

i only have issues from 5pm onwards. tried it a few times when i go home for lunch from work and last friday i had the day off work and it worked fine until 5pm.

[ps3boy]

Since I did the following Ive never had a connection timed out issue -

Ping the your service provide (you'll need to find their IP address usualy in your routers settings) with packets of data slowly decreasing the size until you don't get a 'needs defragmenting' message passed back. - you need to do this on a PC connected to your network using a DOS prompt.

GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR MTU TESTING

Use the following command at the Operating System prompt:

• ping -f -l 1024 <IP Address>

Explanation of parameters: The switch "- f" (minus sign followed by lowercase F) indicates do not fragment. The second switch "-l" (minus sign followed by lowercase L) is for size, and the number following it indicates the packet size you will be sending. Some operating systems and TCP/IP stacks allow additional parameters, for example, "-n <number>", which indicates how many times the ping is sent. (above is pinging a packet size of 1024)

If this PING passes successfully you will get a reply from the IP address specified. If the packet was too large you will get.the message:

"Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set"

You should reduce the packet size until you are successfully connecting. Then, use this successful size when specifying an MTU value on the PS3 / and the your router.

Example mine was trying to send 1500 MTU (value) to BT and when I 'pinged' BT the largest they would accept without fragmentation was 1472 MTU (value). Problem with fragmentation is that although putting fragmented files back together is ok for surfing the net etc. it's not quick enough to put back together for gaming online. (thats how I understand it ).