Help with minimizing lag and crashes

[sirmorte]

Every so often I get a huge lag spike that I can ooly solve by disconnecting. This only seems to sometimes happen in space and NOT in space stations. Is there any modifications that you can recommend to minimize this?

I am using Windows 7. I have a high end Alienware Desktop with 8 Gigs of RaM and a very high end internet speed using Verizon Fios that gives 35 Megabites up and download. Yes, this is my real speed after testing it myself.

I also run Norton 360 weekly to eliminate any possible spyware and viruses. I am directly connected to the Fios internet modem. I never have any lag problems with any other web site.

My machine is only about three months old so it is very high-end. I have two NVidia Geforce 295 cards in this machine too.

For what it's worth, I clicked on the net 7 laucher and run the program in Windows XP mode since this was recommended on another thread.

Can you give me any other suggestions?

[Tienbau]

Every so often I get a huge lag spike that I can ooly solve by disconnecting. This only seems to sometimes happen in space and NOT in space stations. Is there any modifications that you can recommend to minimize this?

I am using Windows 7. I have a high end Alienware Desktop with 8 Gigs of RaM and a very high end internet speed using Verizon Fios that gives 35 Megabites up and download. Yes, this is my real speed after testing it myself.

I also run Norton 360 weekly to eliminate any possible spyware and viruses. I am directly connected to the Fios internet modem. I never have any lag problems with any other web site.

My machine is only about three months old so it is very high-end. I have two NVidia Geforce 295 cards in this machine too.

For what it's worth, I clicked on the net 7 laucher and run the program in Windows XP mode since this was recommended on another thread.

Can you give me any other suggestions?

there might be some new stuff coming in Net7Proxy that could help - I've seen the same thing happening every so often, I know why it's happening I just have to work out how to solve the problem. It happens in space mainly due to the high packet sending rate.

[bondct]

what is ur upload speed... that is really the measure of a service... sounds like you are bottle necking somewhere... probably on the send to server side? what network card are you using?

[sirmorte]

As I noted, my upload speed is between 20 MBS to 35 MBS. Yes, this is the upload speed.

Also Tienbau, I know where the net7 client is located since I have to click on it to get into the game. I don't have the net 7 proxy. What is that and how do I get it? If you ever find a solution to this vexing problem, would you post it here?

[C Del[IS]]

net7proxy is the black box that comes up when you click "Play" in the launcher, which in turn launches the client.

[Tienbau]

yep sometimes net7proxy loses sync with the server (due to a nasty packet transmission loss pattern), and the lag spike you see is the auto-recovery system in action. I'm hoping that with a slightly improved packet ordering algorithm the auto-recovery time will be greatly reduced.

[bondct]

As I noted, my upload speed is between 20 MBS to 35 MBS. Yes, this is the upload speed.

so you pay $100-150 a month for internet service for one computer... since you said you plug directly into your router...

and when you play enb that is all you are using your internet for is enb??? and your not running a server? dont take this the wrong way... im just curious...

I am also curious as to how much of that speed actually translates back and forth to the game (a dev question)... back in the day when I used to run game servers we used to control the client connections so everyone could have a piece...

oh you also didnt say what kind of netcard you have installed in your pc? if you are getting between 25-35 then what does your plan call for... I know verizon has a 25/25 and a 50/25 but they could have other plans...

oh and one thing you may want to try is to dial down your net cards output to the router... if your card is sending out data faster than your router can handle it that will cause high latency

Edited August 24, 2010 by Avani

[sirmorte]

so you pay $100-150 a month for internet service for one computer... since you said you plug directly into your router...

and when you play enb that is all you are using your internet for is enb??? and your not running a server? dont take this the wrong way... im just curious...

I am also curious as to how much of that speed actually translates back and forth to the game (a dev question)... back in the day when I used to run game servers we used to control the client connections so everyone could have a piece...

oh you also didnt say what kind of netcard you have installed in your pc? if you are getting between 25-35 then what does your plan call for... I know verizon has a255/25 and a 50/25 but they could have other plans...

oh and one thing you may want to try is to dial down your net cards output to the router... if your card is sending out data faster than your router can handle it that will cause high latency.

No, I don't pay $100-$150 per month for just internet. I use Fios Bundle ,which is telephone, internet for whole house and TV.I pay about $220/mo for all of that,which includes two phone lines and 5 TVs.

I do use multiple computers with a wireless router. However, the computer that I play EnB with is directly wired into the router. I don't know what kind of net card that I have. However, Verizon set up the whole system. Thus, I assume that their 35MBS for both download and upload could be handled by the net card, although as I said, I think my computer is directly wired into the router.Be advised though, I am a complete idiot regarding computers. When I was growing up, we used slide rules. Computers were main frames only.

[C Del[IS]]

I am also curious as to how much of that speed actually translates back and forth to the game (a dev question)... back in the day when I used to run game servers we used to control the client connections so everyone could have a piece...

Internet speed is practically irrelevant to EnB, assuming you at least have broadband of some sort. The only time you might see lag due to your bandwidth is if you're running on dial-up and you happen to be in a raid or something where your client needs data on every ship in sight, which could be a handful. EnB should perform the same over 386k DSL and over 50 mbps fiber in most circumstances.

[sirmorte]

I have noticed that that this this lag becomes more frequent when I am warping or going to sector gates. I don't get it that much in stations or simply fighting mobs. Maybe this information will help you in fixing this vexing problem.

I also do have a raid 0 orientation. I am wondering if that is a cause of the problem.Although the raid 0 should result in faster hard drive actions.

[bondct]

well if you have a new alienware pc... then you probably have a xeno or 2100 net card... so it was just my thought that perhaps your net card was sending data to your router faster than the router could forward it out... causing a bottleneck and making you more susceptible to the problem your experiencing... it was just a thought... and on those cards you can control manually the up and down speeds through software... I am assuming that warping would create greater sync issues as the client tries to see everything your passing...

cdel what i meant about enb was and Im a little rusty on this... was that back in the day if you didnt control the max rate that a client could connect to the server at... then people close to the server with broadband would get an amazing connection and people further from the server (and especially those on dialup) would get whats leftover and always be about 2 seconds behind you in game time... so in combat 2 seconds behind is death...

so my thought was that if enb controlled the max rate... so to speak... then it wouldnt matter if you had a 5 mbps connection or a 50 mbps connect... cuz the game is onlg gonna give you what its set at the max to give out... and Im sure enb must do this... I was just wondering what the rate was...

Edited August 24, 2010 by Avani

[sirmorte]

Avani, I know you spoke english in your post,but I didn't understand much other than Alienware PC. So what do you recommend? Please be specific.

[Tienbau]

hopefully it's just a temporary line problem between you and the server. I know most people aren't experiencing lag like this, I'm further away than you are most likely and it's very rare that I see the proxy catch-up happening (maybe once every other week or so).

When I look at the server packet re-transmits, it's always the same few people getting echoes, drop-outs and out-of-order packets.

Something is causing your PC to drop packets, and even the re-transmits aren't getting through. You say your PC is directly connected to the modem but you also have a router. Perhaps that is the problem - try connecting your PC to the router instead of direct - it's worth a try. Also check what the other people on the LAN are doing - if they have bittorrent running 24/7 sneak in and switch on the download/upload caps.

Under normal circumstances the connection to the server even from 2/3rds of the way round the planet (the route from Aus crosses from the southern hemisphere over the Pacific, the US and the Atlantic) is rock solid. If you're in the states it ought to be even better.

[sirmorte]

hopefully it's just a temporary line problem between you and the server. I know most people aren't experiencing lag like this, I'm further away than you are most likely and it's very rare that I see the proxy catch-up happening (maybe once every other week or so).

When I look at the server packet re-transmits, it's always the same few people getting echoes, drop-outs and out-of-order packets.

Something is causing your PC to drop packets, and even the re-transmits aren't getting through. You say your PC is directly connected to the modem but you also have a router. Perhaps that is the problem - try connecting your PC to the router instead of direct - it's worth a try. Also check what the other people on the LAN are doing - if they have bittorrent running 24/7 sneak in and switch on the download/upload caps.

Under normal circumstances the connection to the server even from 2/3rds of the way round the planet (the route from Aus crosses from the southern hemisphere over the Pacific, the US and the Atlantic) is rock solid. If you're in the states it ought to be even better.

Tienbau, thanks for the insight. Yes, I tried playing the game on my laptop that has a wireless connection and found NO lag. This is bazarre since usually games don't play as well on the labtop as on my desktop. Thus, you may have a point.

Any chance that the developers will correct these pocket drop outs? Otherwise, I guess I will play the game on my Dell laptop.

[Tienbau]

Tienbau, thanks for the insight. Yes, I tried playing the game on my laptop that has a wireless connection and found NO lag. This is bazarre since usually games don't play as well on the labtop as on my desktop. Thus, you may have a point.

Any chance that the developers will correct these pocket drop outs? Otherwise, I guess I will play the game on my Dell laptop.

I don't think it's something we can do anything about. There's something weird on your main PC causing packets to drop. Without having access to it, and the time to debug what the problem is there's not a lot I can do.

[prometheusnl]

Hi 2 things.

When i was managing the server we did some tests about usage for one player to have a prognosis on how many players we could host on a 100 MBit line.

For different actions there where the following results.

You download from the server Per player this amount:

For flying around warping in a sector not doing much 0 to 1 KB/s in bursts every couple of seconds.

When fighting alone with a group of mobbies around 2.5KB/s This includes you the spawn your scan range and missles pl's beams everything that's handled by the server.

For group combat 6 players all grouped together the spawn and everything in their scan range. The scan share of JE and all that good stuff about 10kb/s Constant transmission.

When changing a sector from one to another there's a Blip of one or 2 seconds of 10kb/s. This due to a file needing to be copied over that's 14KB.

All sizes mentioned above in Kilobytes Per Second.

You Upload to the server the following.

Position reports and some odds and sods Never reaching above 1KB/s thoughout the game.

This will tell you what a Kilobyte actually is.

To make it easy.

A 56K 6 Modem will get a top speed if your line was good of about 7.5 KB/s

A ISDN modem will get a top speed of 11 KB/s single line. Doulbe line will reach 22KB/s

A 1 Mbit internet ADSL connection Will reach at top speed 128KB/s

An averige simple broadband connection would be 5 Mbits Download en 1 Mbits upload

This would give you 640KB/s Download and 128KB/s Upload

Now on to your problem there might be some packet sniffing scanning software either on your computer or on your network hardwarde that checks the contence of packets as they come to you though the internet. This could label some packets sent by our server as Malicious or just takes to long to scan them.

Or you have the large packet option on in the client and your ISP doesn't support large package sizes.

Regards PrometheusNL

[bondct]

Avani, I know you spoke english in your post,but I didn't understand much other than Alienware PC. So what do you recommend? Please be specific.

unless you got the standard network card... alienware pc's come with a "killer" (brand name) network card... I am not an expert on these cards... but they are like mini computers with 400mhz processors in them and 128mb ram (heh more powerful than the pc I started playing enb with in live)... they bypass windows normal networking stack and do the whole thing themseleves freeing up system resources... you should also have a dashboard software tool that you can monitor and control what the card does...

what I am suggesting is that your card is sending data faster than the router can transmit causing your high latency... if you reduce the upload speed of your network card using the dashboard tool maybe that would improve your connection to the server...

the reason your laptop plays the game fine even on wireless is that your laptop is so much more powerful resource wise than enb requires... your alienware is so overwhelmingly powerful in comparision to what resources that enb needs that it doesnt even know its turned on, the lights in your case use more power than enb

another suggestion just for kicks... go out and grab a $10 network card and toss it in your pc and connect to that when you play enb... or if you want I can send you one free...

------------------------------

on a side note... I wonder what game the network card thinks its playing... i'm gonna go out on a limb here... the killer card is supposed to detect what game your playing and allocate resources accordingly... so are you playing earth and beyond(client.exe)... or are you playing Net7Proxy.exe?

Edited August 25, 2010 by Avani

[sirmorte]

Avani, When I got the Alienware, I didn't take the Killer option. Maybe I should have. My card was the basic network adapter card and Broadband Netlink Gigabyte Ethernet.. I am also using the DW1525 WLan PCLe card and As for using the dashboard tool. How do I do that? Where would it be found? I did a search for "dashboard" and found nothing. I don't see any tool labeled dashboard. For the record, I also just patched my networking card based on what was said in this thread. It helped a bit,but I still get the extreme lag at times that forces me to log out.

Promethiusnl notes, "Now on to your problem there might be some packet sniffing scanning software either on your computer or on your network hardwarde that checks the contence of packets as they come to you though the internet. This could label some packets sent by our server as Malicious or just takes to long to scan them.

Or you have the large packet option on in the client and your ISP doesn't support large package sizes"

Response: How would I know if I have some kind of packet sniffing or scanning software? I am using Verizon.Verizon Fios allows for almost any speed. Also, I am clicking on the Net 7 client that gets me into the game and not the original EnB client. The game plays well on my laptop that is wirelessly connected, where my deskop, that is wired directly into the router, has big lag problems.

I would gladly pay for someone to diagnose and improve what is going on. I am curious myself about it.

I guess I can live playing EnB on my laptop,but it is strange that my high end Alienware desktop has these problems.

[Guest morte]

I am still getting this lag problem on my desktop. Any other suggestions? Also, how do I access Dashboard that Avani kindly suggested?

[Phorlaug[IS]]

Too many variables.

First I'd wouldn't play the game on an Windows 7 machine in XP mode,

Especially if your Router, Modem, LAN card, ISP and anything else that

may be specifically meant For Windows 7.

I had a simular issue at work someone got a Giga Bit LAN card that

wasn't compatible with Windows 2000.

Second, as Avani said there maybe a Bottle neck, If your packet size

is larger and / or travels faster than any one of the Slowest piece

of equipment, communication with the server may stop or LAG because

of an Unexpected Packet loss or fragment.

Third, Check that old CAT5 cable maybe it needs replacing.

(may not be that because your issue is specific space based.

I'd Play the game on.

Windows 7 (Not In XP MODE).

Make sure everything from your PC to your ISP is as near the

same speed as possible.(Giga bit LAN Card, Router, Modem, CAT6 cables etc etc)

IMO, it doesn't matter what speed your at just that they are all running

at the same speed.

I've got 3 PCs running the game while the wife gets streaming Netflix from

a PC with a Wireless G card, with no issues. I host LAN parties and hope to

in the future.

Or you have the large packet option on in the client and your ISP doesn't support large package sizes.

Regards PrometheusNL

Yep that too.

Phorlaug..

Edited September 7, 2010 by Phorlaug

[C Del[IS]]

Too many variables.

First I'd wouldn't play the game on an Windows 7 machine in XP mode,

We're talking about "Compatibility Mode" for Windows XP, not the full-on XP mode (The free Windows XP virtual machine provided optionally by Microsoft). Compatibility mode is good, XP mode is bad. I'm actually fairly certain that you can't run this game, or any 3D game, at all using "XP Mode".

[Tienbau]

When changing a sector from one to another there's a Blip of one or 2 seconds of 10kb/s. This due to a file needing to be copied over that's 14KB.

hehe, yeah I remember that too! I've got the map cached now so it's just stored locally, and when we update it we just patch the file. The blip for sector change is a lot less than it used to be, but it's still the point at which most problems are caused.

I do see, with the same few people, large numbers of packet re-requests. I've planned out how I can alleviate this and if I've got it right - and I think it's the right idea as it's very similar to existing R-UDP systems ("Reliable"-UDP) - then it might help.

But as Prom said it might be the case that something on your PC is rejecting certain packets, considering them to be potentially hostile, thus creating a lot of lag problems. Once I've got the new system up and running if you'd be prepared to run a debug build of Net7Proxy and mail me the results I may be able to improve things a little for you and others experiencing the same issue.

[sirmorte]

Thanks Tienbau, I would gladly be willing to run a debug build. However, you will either have to give me instructions on how to do this.You can email me when this is ready or call me or post this info here.

[Tienbau]

thanks Morte, I'll also be asking the people with the most consistent packet drop-outs too. It will be very easy to send the packet logs; if you can cut&paste and send post messages that's all it takes.

[sirmorte]

Tienbau, Just for the record, I am using Win 7 on my desktop. I have tried various compatibility setting such as Vista, Windows XP, etc, all to no avail. I have also tried with the pocket optimation both checked and unchecked, all to no avail.