My brother and I started playing the free trial of LOTRO (he still lives with my parents' place, I'm off at college). We both have good systems that can play the game on maxed settings. Everything works fine for me. But the game is laggy for him. We both use Vista BTW (i think he has business edition). 1) Obviously my first suggestion was to turn down the graphics. He set everything on low, but still lag. 2) So I told him to do an internet speed test. He as 2.0 Mbps DSL, speed tests show his download speed at 1.5-2.0 Mbps regularly. Min system requirements say 56K (although I wouldn't want to try that) 3) He recently reformatted so I doubt virus/spyware is an issue. I had him reset the router and modem, and even try bypassing the router and connecting his PC straight to the modem while also disabling the windows firewall. None of this helped. The lag is not so bad that its unplayable, but it takes the fun out of playing. I also think I had him upgrade his video card drivers but ill have to check on that. Any ideas of other things to check/try? Thanks for your help. -Sammo1999
Are you using wireless? I have many issues with lag while playing games but general internet use is fine, I suspect my issue is packet loss by the wireless
He hasn't really played any other games online lately, but last summer we both played quake wars on that internet connection with out issues. He is on gigabit ethernet, not wired. Upload speed is about 256 kbps. He says its most laggy when loading a new area, so that suggests internet down speed, but 2.0 Mbps has to be enough for any game, doesn't it? -Sammo1999
Some immediate questions.... Who is the ISP? How far away from the exchange is he? Also, if he has a 2MB connection it is very unlikley he will ever hit the full 2MB on a speedtest, so what speedtest do you use to get those figures? Does he use a router? Are the ports opened for the game correctly? Some suggestions :- Check the ports are opened correctly. Download and run http://www.superantispyware.com (free, very good) I like this speedtest http://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk Check nothing untoward is running in the background without him knowing. Do a traceroute to the game servers to see if he is hitting any obvious spikes somewhere on route.
ISP is frontiernet and is basically the only one available in the area. Exchange is .5 miles away but the distance will only effect speed right? so distance doesn't matter aslong as the speed is there which it is. speedtest.net and speakeasy.net/speedtest show between 1.5 and 2.0 Mbps regularly as I said in the first post. Again like i said in the first post he does use a router, but we tried without it and that didn't improve anything so that should also rule out port forwarding. The modem is not configurable. -Sammo1999
What ping does speedtest.net show? Does anyone else on the same connection have any streaming/torrents running at the same time?
Assuming it has it, can you check the in game FPS values and latency to the server? (WoW has these but not sure if that does....)
Frontiernet are by all reports a terrible ISP for packet loss and speed. Not sure what you mean by only one available in your area? I'm from the UK, I'm assuming in the US they can be the only one in the area? Guess we are lucky in the UK on that front. Distance always matters. Yes, it mainly effects speed, but also contributes to data loss over long distance. Half a mile is not bad though. Try several speedtesters, not just ones that give you awsome results to get a hopefully better overview of the reality. Download a large file and check what download speed you get. I doubt it is the router, but always mention it in all these type of posts for others who read it so they do check it. In your case, I would say it is the ISP, or a spike on the route to the game server. Try the suggestions to get rid of any possible spyware, and check the route used to game server, but a change of ISP would probably serve you better. Here is one (of many) sites giving very bad reviews on your ISP. http://www.viewpoints.com/FrontierNet--150541-reviews
1.5 to 2.0 mbps is normal for a 2 mbps line. At peak hours i get 1.5, but in the early hours of the morning i can get 206kbps (this is the best time to download a large demo). "My brother and I started playing the free trial of LOTRO (he still lives with my parents' place, I'm off at college). " Looks like your just in a better location to the server than he is or you have better internet at college.
Not to brag but this site might help Not to brag or anything but here's my speed as of a little while ago. I have a 20/2 connection with turbo boost. Speed test statistics --------------------- Download speed: 6372240 bps Upload speed: 1766160 bps Download quality of service: 90 % Upload quality of service: 97 % Download test type: socket Upload test type: socket Maximum TCP delay: 70 ms Average download pause: 4 ms Minimum round trip time to server: 68 ms Average round trip time to server: 69 ms Estimated download bandwidth: 36800000bps <<<---Not bad eh? Route concurrency: 5.775049 Download TCP forced idle: 79 % Maximum route speed: 7710000bps Detailed analysis : http://174.34.146.20/myspeed/db/report?id=976 You can find the test at http://www.ispgeeks.com just click on the diagnostics tools tab and you will see this test called TCP Speed Test and several others including one thats good for voip or ventrillo. After you run your TCP test check the Route Performance and see where the bottleneck is. I think you can even have the results emailed to your ISP. Good Luck!
I'm on wireless atm and everything is as laggy as hell. Makes most FPSs almost completely unplayable. That said sometimes its fine for a week or two.
[offtopic] Do enlighten me what turbo boost is...?! [/offtopic] Does your brother have any ambient programs that might be eating bandwidth...uploading is normally the culprit...
