PDA

View Full Version : Bandwidth Choke Playing HL2:deathmatch, BF 2142, and LastChaos?


Gargamel
June 22nd, 2007, 03:46 AM
background on the problem, problem has been occurring on and off every 4 months or so and lasts for about 2 weeks each time, ISP is Comcast :curse:.

the computer is on a wired network with one other computer through a router, and while playing battlefield i will frequently lock up in game with a "your connection has been interrupted" message or whatnot. Sometimes I will get disconnected, sometimes i wont. When playing HL2:deathmatch I never get disconnected, but i will lag up real bad. I had one person tell me that they were watching me float in the air, not moving at all.

Weird thing is sometimes my teamspeak will still function even in the lag, i will almost always be able to hear people over teamspeak even in lag (sometimes i cant), sometimes they can even hear me talking back. same goes for the in game voip in both games (although i am never able to talk back when i lag up i can hear them sometimes) In all the time i have not been disconnected from teamspeak once

I have played both of these games for a while without trouble, this started about 2-3 days ago and comes and goes, in its worst i cant stay connected to bf2142 for more then 2 minutes, at best i don't have a problem for about 10 minutes.

since then i downloaded this game last chaos, a mmorpg with a 56k minimum connection req. i still have the problem

It is not a frame-lockup in any game. I never drop below 60 frames.

i have an Abit AW9D-MAX MB with dual GB LAN, i have tried both ports and have seen no improvement

Programs running -
BF2142 or HL2:deathmatch
iTunes
Teamspeak
Teamspeak overlay
Asus Smartdoctor
Abit uGuru
Fraps
Steam (only with HL2)
a couple others in the background too, nothing that should be chewing up bandwidth

I have tried just running just BF2142 and Teamspeak (no overlay none of the other programs) and that did nothing, i had the same exact symptoms

Edit: i have also tried without teamspeak and it has made no noticeable change in bf2142 or HL2:deathmatch (i have not tried with any other games).

I have done some bandwidth tests on cnet.com with only teamspeak running apart from the test browser and connection speed had a high of 4000Kb/s and a low of 95Kb/s with an average speed of about 1400 Kb/s

Problems with the web browser, most of the time i just need to call on the site i wanted more then once if it had trouble the first time

I have tried playing Last Chaos in window mode and running the windows task manager to monitor the LAN usage. it showed a cyclical Internet usage for the game, in which the bandwidth used would rise for a second then drop into a valley where i would remain for a bit then peak again etc, the max usage the game ever hit was like .05% for the 100Kbps cable i am using, I'm still getting disconnected. heres the kicker, I also tried running the web browser while running the game in window mode. i can surf the web (with the same web browser problems described above) and while surfing my LAN usage would jump to .5% yes 10x what the game would use. so the browser can function in a limited fashion, at 10x the speed as the game in which i could loose a connection 2 times in a minute and would never even come close to.

Heres a vague idea of all of the equipment i and my dad have had on this network that have still had the problem with, (every computation has not been tried)
5-6video games
2 different operating systems
3 CPUs
2 different motherboards
3 motherboards total
2 modems
2 routers
countless hard drives
3+ different cables (from the router to the Ethernet cards)
4 different Ethernet cards (including onboard)
2 ISP's Comcast and adelphia (both were cable, and Comcast bought adelphia so i think its the same cables' etc, i don't know what they have changed)

Ok heres my diagnosis i live in a +25 year old house old cables = signal loss right?, furthermore the cable in my house is split in two places before it gets to the modem, once by a two way splitter in my basement one side of which now leads to a dead end, the other end leads to a three way splitter, this splits the signal to both the TV and the modem, the last lead on this splitter is also a dead end. this means that the router has 1/6 the signal right? I also remember that my dad cut the cables and put the coaxial ends on himself when he installed the modem, which means possible further signal loss as it took him several tries to get the TV to come in again at all.

To other ends i have also tried hooking up the cable that had only been split once directly to the modem and it improved nothing, also probably 2 months ago that second splitter was not installed at all, the first splitter went right to the TV and the modem. we were still having the problem then.

P.S-the reason i put the bit at the splitters at the bottom is because i didn't want you to read that alone and say that was my problem, I'm not exactly sure it is because of some of the other weird stuff such as the browser using more bandwidth and the problem coming ang going, i wanted to make sure you knew everything, sorry to inconvenient you if you think that that is the cause.

sorry for the dupe thread, I'm hoping since this forum may have been where the thread belonged all along it will get some more exposure, admin, if you are going to lock one of these threads make it the other one, or move the other one here plz.

I'm so lost.................................. plz help

Archangel122184
June 22nd, 2007, 06:06 PM
That is one of the most thorough descriptions I have ever seen.

Lets get the easy answer out of the way first. This is definitely a packet loss problem from your end. This can been seen in your description of your problem between Battlefield (which uses TCP) and Half-Life (which uses UDP). UDP doesn't require packet acknowledgment so when your connection starts to mess up the other players only see you lag but BF will time out.

Finding out what is causing this may not be easy... there is a number of factors you have to look at:
-Bad network card
-Bad router
-Bad modem
-Bad cabling (from pc to router and from router to modem, and modem to ISP)

Some questions to guide you.
Do you have any problems with local network operations (i.e. LAN file transfers)?
Have you recently changed any the drivers/software on your computer?
Have you recently changed the hardware or position of your computer?
Have there been any severe storms in the area recently?

Gargamel
June 23rd, 2007, 06:49 AM
ok, fixed it.

but i would like to say that if you had read the whole post you would have seen that i have had the problem with more then one ethernet card, modum, set of cabling, router.

The issuse ended up fixing itself when i eliminated one of the cable splitters, whether that was the cause or not i duno.

z1p
June 24th, 2007, 04:56 PM
AA - Thanks for taking the time to help out on this.

-z1p