MWEB Gaming Feedback

Ouch, sounds like there is very little hope. Thanks for the quick and informative response nonetheless. One final thing then, is there some method, maybe proxy settings or whatever the case may be, that I could try the results of my connection being routed with the JHB traffic instead of the CPT I imagine it is currently on? I thought maybe with a east coast route I might be able to get a better route to Asia by some chance, rather than the current trek across both the world's major oceans.

Thanks again for the info on the unshaped, clarifies the potential benefits I am going to see by upgrading to either. 10 meg its going to be.

It would be theoretically possible to have a proxy service in JHB which you could route through that would allow you to divert your traffic via our JHB network (bearing in mind that you would still pick up some additional latency on the north-south transit), but the scope for the use of a service like that really doesn't make it practical to implement and in any event I'm not sure you would see much difference in the routing to South Korea over that route.
 
I........... we do give gaming traffic a very high priority on the shaped products I don't think you will see a big difference............

What about PSN traffic? reason i am asking is that I experience fairly slow downloads via PS3>PSN and have a lot of spiking problems lately playing KZ3. I get frequent messages "host master not available" and as a result then get kicked out of the game.
 
We have checked this on a few occasions now and confirmed that traffic from the PS3 and other consoles is correctly classified as gaming traffic. Unfortunately we don't have any mechanism other than this to control the quality of the experience of console gamers, or provide content for them directly on the MWEB network, due to the fact that PSN and MS Live are closed environments. However if your experience has deteriorated significantly then I would suggest that we take a step back and look at the overall quality of your connection as there might be an underlying problem.
 
It would be theoretically possible to have a proxy service in JHB which you could route through that would allow you to divert your traffic via our JHB network (bearing in mind that you would still pick up some additional latency on the north-south transit), but the scope for the use of a service like that really doesn't make it practical to implement and in any event I'm not sure you would see much difference in the routing to South Korea over that route.

So there really is nothing like that in existence? I would have thought mweb techs would have a proxy like that set up if for nothing else, then at least for testing and comparison purposes. To be honest its not really the latency that is the problem, I can manage with 450-525 or so, even pvp, considering nobody on the server has perfect ping anyway, but the disconnects make it impossible. The connection seems to be very unstable beyond the US and Europe.
 
We have ways we can test, but no customer facing proxies no. You really just need to consider the simple geography of it though. South Korea is way up north and on the other side of China. The cable length from us to there, no matter which route you take is simply too far to expect any sort of stable gaming experience. Also the game you're talking about is a complete unknown from our point of view so I really couldn't comment on the stability of it's netcode, minimum ping requirements or anything of that nature.
 
We have ways we can test, but no customer facing proxies no. You really just need to consider the simple geography of it though. South Korea is way up north and on the other side of China. The cable length from us to there, no matter which route you take is simply too far to expect any sort of stable gaming experience. Also the game you're talking about is a complete unknown from our point of view so I really couldn't comment on the stability of it's netcode, minimum ping requirements or anything of that nature.

Fair enough, thanks for your time Will.
 
Just some feedback Will@Mweb, I raided last night, and everything was okay'ish. Turned off all addons except SpamAddonBlocker, was using BattlePing proxy, and talking now and then on Teamspeak. Combat log was also completely disabled, and had SpamAddonBlocker on. I did not DC, but sometimes my latency went up to 1300 - 1800 (world) , home was sitting at a cool 200ms. I wasn't able to give my best dps and I did die a couple of times because of lag, but hey, I didnt DC :D

Now I told you that story so I can tell you this: There is only 2 things left for me to check, my adsl line ( which I did check according to this guide: http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=46156 , more on that later) and the quality of the codec that our GM uses.

1. I used the guide i linked above and all looks fine except for my Upstream noise margin - which acording to my Telkom Mega 105W router, is sitting at 3. I have a US Noise margin of 3. The rest of the stats is outstanding (according to the guide), so I dont know why only my US Noise margin is crap. Is it normal for a 384k line? Should I speak to Telkom? Or wont this cause packets to be dropped when I upload data?

2. Our GM has the codec quality set at: Speex Ultra High Band. I take it that is the best quality he can set it to? If he lowers it to something in the middle would that ease my burdens?

Again, thanks for all the help MyBB guys and Will@Mweb!! Hope to hear from you guys soon.
 
Just some feedback Will@Mweb, I raided last night, and everything was okay'ish. Turned off all addons except SpamAddonBlocker, was using BattlePing proxy, and talking now and then on Teamspeak. Combat log was also completely disabled, and had SpamAddonBlocker on. I did not DC, but sometimes my latency went up to 1300 - 1800 (world) , home was sitting at a cool 200ms. I wasn't able to give my best dps and I did die a couple of times because of lag, but hey, I didnt DC :D

Now I told you that story so I can tell you this: There is only 2 things left for me to check, my adsl line ( which I did check according to this guide: http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=46156 , more on that later) and the quality of the codec that our GM uses.

1. I used the guide i linked above and all looks fine except for my Upstream noise margin - which acording to my Telkom Mega 105W router, is sitting at 3. I have a US Noise margin of 3. The rest of the stats is outstanding (according to the guide), so I dont know why only my US Noise margin is crap. Is it normal for a 384k line? Should I speak to Telkom? Or wont this cause packets to be dropped when I upload data?

2. Our GM has the codec quality set at: Speex Ultra High Band. I take it that is the best quality he can set it to? If he lowers it to something in the middle would that ease my burdens?

Again, thanks for all the help MyBB guys and Will@Mweb!! Hope to hear from you guys soon.

Hi Beanbag

Glad to see that you're making some headway.

That Noise margin value is definitely a concern. A value of anything below 9 could start to be problematic. My SNR guru here tells me that that particular problem is often associated with poor quality local leads or microfilters. I would say before you go down the Telkom fault route make sure that you have a microfilter installed on every active telephone jack that your line terminates on and that there are is no damage / loose connections on your phone leads.

Dropping the Codec quality on your voice chat would also definitely take some of the pressure off, particularly if you have a very chatty raid leader - "That's a -50 DKP, because you didn't know what the @#$@# to do!" :D
 
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The line plugs directly into the router, no filters whatsoever. Will replace the lead that goes from the wall jack as a test tonight. Will also check the actual wall box itself for any loose connections. If that doesn't work, then I will call Telkom. And we are not that chatty on Teamspeak, but i will ask the GM to change it.
 
Do you have a handset connected on the line as well? If so that needs to have a microfilter on it.
 
My raiding was fine last night but did hit a d/c a few times (Ascendant Council and Cho'gall).
 
Hmm just hit a massive lag spike on Cho'Gall 25 (and not at the second phase either).

Disconnected, vent was spluttering out and when i relogged it had planted me halfway through a floor in an inn with my UI disabled. It sat like that for about 30 seconds then went to loading screen and zapped me back to SW. There the lag (in a non populated area) was climbing steadily from 1600ms to 5500ms.

I guess Patience unplugged teh mainframez to vacum =(

Edit: Switched to my Axxess Lite and getting stable latencies (389ms).
 
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Very strange goings on tonight...

About 5 minutes ago, line dropped and wouldn't reconnect (stuck on Initiate LCP).

Obviously couldn't log on with MWEB, Axxess or Afrihost...

Now it's back and fine. Anyone else in Southern Suburbs (Claremont / Kenilworth) having issues tonight?
 
Hi Steven

There was some Telkom planned maintenance last night on an ESR in New Doornfontein, which bizarrely enough had our DSLAMS on the affected list. I had some odd lag moments earlier in the evening as well and lost connectivity at around 22h30.
 
Very strange goings on tonight...

About 5 minutes ago, line dropped and wouldn't reconnect (stuck on Initiate LCP).

Obviously couldn't log on with MWEB, Axxess or Afrihost...

Now it's back and fine. Anyone else in Southern Suburbs (Claremont / Kenilworth) having issues tonight?

This affected me as well. Not on Mweb.
 
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