Internet gaming and downloading

[Guest]

Hi, im new to this newsgroup but i thought its not specifically a game
related problem and maybe be able to be fixed by some windows settings. I
have a 1 mb internet connection with 256 kb upload and have two computers
sharing the internet connection. The computer i use is accessing the internet
across the network. I frequently play internet games but whenever someone
else in my family uses the internet on the other computer whether it be
downloading demos, music, or simply browsing the internet i get lag spikes.
The ping with be stable at 40-50 for like 0.9 secs then shoot upto 200-300
for 0.1 secs, and starts over. Is there anyway to stop this by say dedicating
a portion of the upload and download bandwidth to gaming and if so how could
i go about doing this? Any suggestion/solution of how i can sort this out
will be much appreciated.
Mark

 

[Vagabond Software]

Hi, im new to this newsgroup but i thought its not specifically a game
related problem and maybe be able to be fixed by some windows settings. I
have a 1 mb internet connection with 256 kb upload and have two computers
sharing the internet connection. The computer i use is accessing the internet
across the network. I frequently play internet games but whenever someone
else in my family uses the internet on the other computer whether it be
downloading demos, music, or simply browsing the internet i get lag spikes.
The ping with be stable at 40-50 for like 0.9 secs then shoot upto 200-300
for 0.1 secs, and starts over. Is there anyway to stop this by say dedicating
a portion of the upload and download bandwidth to gaming and if so how could
i go about doing this? Any suggestion/solution of how i can sort this out
will be much appreciated.
Mark

How are you "sharing" the connection? Are you sharing the connection through andother computer using Windows Internet Connection Sharing or are your sharing the connection through a routing device such as a Linksys broadband router?

carl

 

[Guest]

Its being shared through internet connection sharing, as the modem is
connected directly into the other computer and then shared over the network
by a seperate router.

 

[Vagabond Software]

Its being shared through internet connection sharing, as the modem is
connected directly into the other computer and then shared over the network
by a seperate router.

Well... I think the usage on the ICS is taxing system resources, such as the CPU and the Network Card, and impacting your network latency.

My advice would be to disable Internet Connection Sharing on that computer, connect the broadband modem directly to the Router (make sure it is a Router and not a Hub), then attach each computer to an available LAN port on the Router or to a Hub attached to the Router. If the "separate router" you're referring to is actually a hub, then my advice would still be buy a cheap router and use that solution.

Alternatively (and more expensively), you could try purchasing a server class network interface card that offloads much of the overhead from the CPU. However, depending on exactly how ICS works, the gains from a more powerful NIC may be minimal and they are quite expensive.

carl

 

[Guest]

How can i go about telling the difference between a hub and router?

 

[Vagabond Software]

How can i go about telling the difference between a hub and router?

Tell me the make and model (or other distinguishing descriptions) of the device in question and I'll let you know or you can search on the Internet. Six years working for 3Com oughta count for something.

carl

 

[Guest]

After further investigation, it is just a hub. Is there anyway of making this
work without having to buy extra hardware, or is that going to be the only
way around this?
Are there any tests or settings i can check to see if this is where the
problem lies? Or are there other problems you can think of that it maybe?

Just thought id keep it going a little longer, any help is much appreciated,
Mark

 

[Vagabond Software]

After further investigation, it is just a hub. Is there anyway of making this
work without having to buy extra hardware, or is that going to be the only
way around this?
Are there any tests or settings i can check to see if this is where the
problem lies? Or are there other problems you can think of that it maybe?

Just thought id keep it going a little longer, any help is much appreciated,
Mark

Well, there are a couple of things you could do with your game or latency monitor open.

First, startup a full-system virus scan on the ICS computer and watch your latency. If the latency jumps, then the CPU/Memory is bogging down the ICS machine. If your latency does not jump, you can end the virus scan on the ICS machine.

Next, begin downloading a large file to the ICS machine, such as a game demo or something. If your latency takes a serious hit, then it could be a number of things on the ICS machine, including a cheap NIC.

Again, I can only recommend a cheap router:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...lance&s=electronics&n=3028501&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

This one is $30 after your $10 rebate!

carl

 

[Guest]

Instead of a virus scan i checked with a defrag, but that made no difference
to my latency, but i know for sure that whenever downloads are going on the
ICS computer then the ping spkes at regular intervals. Is there any other
tests that i can try to narrow down this issue? Id like to confirm atleast to
a certain degree before buying a router since i haven't had much luck with
networks in the past

Ps. Thanks for your quick and helpful replies, i hope to get to the bottom
of this soon

 

[Vagabond Software]

Instead of a virus scan i checked with a defrag, but that made no difference
to my latency, but i know for sure that whenever downloads are going on the
ICS computer then the ping spkes at regular intervals. Is there any other
tests that i can try to narrow down this issue? Id like to confirm atleast to
a certain degree before buying a router since i haven't had much luck with
networks in the past

Ps. Thanks for your quick and helpful replies, i hope to get to the bottom
of this soon

Well, we can try to narrow it down to (or eliminate) the NIC as the problem. Open your game or latency monitor.

First, open a command prompt on the ICS machine and type:

ping -t 172.20.148.50

You'll get a "Destination net unreachable" error, but that's ok. Just let the ping test run. If your latency meter climbs up, even a little, and stays near the new elevated level, then you can safely blame the NIC or the ICS configuration.

If the ping test has no impact on your latency, then direct the ICS computer to the WIndows Update site, select Custom Install and begin downloading one of the Optional updates, such as the .NET Framework. It really doesn't matter as we're just engaging BITS, but you might as well get something useful. Once the download begins, watch your latency meter. If it moves up, then you can safely blame the NIC or the ICS configuration.

carl

 

[Guest]

Well i tried both, the ping test on the CIS computer didn't affect the
latency ingame and the surprisingly the microsoft updates downloading on the
ICS computer also did not affect the ingame latency. What does this mean?
Could it have something to do with upload? Alot of the time when i get the
lag spikes its normally when my brother is on kazaa bittorrent or uploading
to his friends over MSN.