MWEB Gaming Feedback

[Will@MWEB]

Thumbs-up to MWEB for taking this initiative!

I've seen a few of my fellow Quake Live mates (using MWEB uncapped or just MWEB) complaining of high latencies.

Could you guys include the Quake Live South African servers as well ?
(Will post IP addresses later on if required.)

Hi Mr Jax

I think perhaps I need to use your request as an example just to clarify what I do and don't have control over here:

The traffic manager works off an extensive database of traffic signatures which it uses to categorize and prioritize different types of network traffic.
What I'm primarily hoping to achieve with this thread is to identify if there are any specific games that our traffic manager is misidentifying and classing as something other than gaming traffic.

This unfortunately means that in terms of looking at specifically say South African Quake live servers, or in Xenophyl's example the daytime latency to a particular COD server it's entirely likely that there is very little that I can do about this right now as there are probably a number of other factors affecting this besides the traffic identification.

Our network engineers have also asked that I take a slightly different approach with this to assist them in looking at these issues so what I will need is from anyone who wishes to have gaming traffic checked going forward is the following:

Let me know what particular game you think might be problematic, which unfortunately I would have to say needs to be a more definite problem than "the ping to my favourite server is 30ms higher than on ISP x"
Let me know your customer details so that I can enable the testing from my side.
Let me know once I've confirmed testing is ready exactly what date and time you played on

This will allow us get a clear snapshot of the signatures being applied to the traffic in question to see if anything needs adjusting.

Thanks
Will

 

[Lounger]

Thanks for pointing that out semaphore, you're quite right and I wasn't intending to create the impression that the two issues are related - just responding to the comment about it being a resource hungry game.

@Lounger I would really like the opportunity to do some troubleshooting on what you're experiencing as this really isn't in keeping with the general feedback I've seen so far on BC2

Will, I left Mweb for this very reason. Unfortunately support's response was to claim that gaming was not prioritised (shaped) and that was how things were and I could purchase a more suitable account for more money if I wanted to play games that demanded a reasonable ping. My friends all say that nothing has changed. I see now Mweb claims that games are in actual fact not shaped, so I don't know if that was always the case. It was the consensus from tech support that they were indeed shaped.

Of course line speed is a determining factor, since a 4Meg line could quite easily achieve a sub-20ms ping in many games. I've seen far better.
However, pings on Mweb remain:
1. Highly erratic
2. Usually on the high side

 

[Xenophyl]

Hi Will

What about IS local servers such as warcraft and CS:S? Will this get looked into? I know this problem is widespread as I admin tournaments on the warcraft server, and lots of participants do not enter because of the high pings (when I ask them what ISP they are on, 1 guess which one they tell me).

 

[SirFooK'nG]

Hey Will.... whats the chances of MWEB getting involved in http://www.gameservers.com/blackops/ to try get us a COD BO server for SA???

 

[pmurgs]

After reading on these forums that mweb has made some changes to help with BC2 and their recent network upgrade in cape town, I decided to test them out today. I've been routing my BC2 traffic through webafrica instead of mweb, as BC2 during the week during office hours on mweb was often not a good experiance.

At 14:30 I played a round of BC2 with webafrica... all fine and good. Then I switched off my custom webafrica routing and tried with mweb. After five tries to get the BC2 server browser list of the local za servers from EA it finally gave me the list. Previous 4 times I got "lost connection to EA" in game message and had to login again to EA. So I selected a saix server and hopped on. Lasted about 3 minutes of playtime before I got kicked from the game with "lost connection to EA". Went back to webafrica... all fine and dandy.

Strangely... the pings from mweb to the master EA servers are not that much worse than webafrica. I wonder why mweb gives so many more disconnections/timeouts than a saix based account.

Webafrica (12 hops from my pc with tracert):
Reply from 159.153.235.12: bytes=32 time=295ms TTL=115
Reply from 159.153.235.12: bytes=32 time=252ms TTL=115
Reply from 159.153.235.12: bytes=32 time=266ms TTL=115
Reply from 159.153.235.12: bytes=32 time=249ms TTL=115

Mweb (20 hops from my pc with tracert):
Reply from 159.153.235.12: bytes=32 time=388ms TTL=108
Reply from 159.153.235.12: bytes=32 time=336ms TTL=108
Reply from 159.153.235.12: bytes=32 time=338ms TTL=108
Reply from 159.153.235.12: bytes=32 time=338ms TTL=108

Oh well, back to my webafrica routing for gaming.

 

[hungrybeaver]

I think two players doing Bad Company on a 384k might be pushing the envelope a little as the game is quite intense and on a full server there is a lot going on. Perhaps we can get some general feedback from other BC2 players if anyone else is doing this and what their experience is?

I can understand that. But what I don't get is that it was great. As I said, its intermittent. Last night was pretty bad; our pings were above 900 at times (mostly hovering around 400-600) before I left. Once I had left, my flatmate had the usual ping we get - around 130. When it was good, both our pings would sit around 145.

Last night I tried on different servers within the SGS and iGame offerings but still no dice. Could it possibly be something to do with the 10mb upgrades?

 

[Will@MWEB]

@pmurgs

That doesn't sound good, but this is at least additional information which I didn't have before. My understanding was that some users had experienced slow login and accessing the server browser list in the past, but not that the actual game would drop due to losing a connection to an EA server.

Before the connection is lost does the game seem to perform ok?

 

[pmurgs]

The game seems to perform ok, but I'm guessing thats due to the game traffic being local and the "lost connection to EA" is an international traffic issue.

I've noticed, logging into EA always works. It's when you retrieve the server browser list from EA (I assume when mwebs network traffic is very heavy) this times out and you have to login to EA again. I've also noticed when I struggle to get the server browser list, thats when I experience random "lost connection to EA" kicks from game once I've actually managed to get in to a game. Usually if the server browser list responds reasonably first time then I can expect no "lost connection to EA" during the game. I'm guessing that periodically while playing, BC2 has a quick chat to the EA master server and if this times out, you get kicked from game. I have never experienced this problem in the evening or on weekends, only during the week during office hours when using mweb (4mb uncapped).

To combat this I route my packets for 159.153.235.0/24 through a webafrica prepaid international account. Since I started doing that, I haven't had the "lost connection to EA" kick or trouble getting the BC2 server browser list.

 

[Will@MWEB]

Completely agree with your thinking there.

I haven't had the luxury of trying to play BC2 during office hours before , which is obviously why I haven't experienced what you're describing myself. I will do some further digging from my side and see if I can come up with a way to improve this. If you PM me your MWEB login name I can also turn on some tracking from my side as described above, that way if you can give me the exact dates and times you were playing I can try and see what the traffic manager is doing to your connection.

 

[Will@MWEB]

I can understand that. But what I don't get is that it was great. As I said, its intermittent. Last night was pretty bad; our pings were above 900 at times (mostly hovering around 400-600) before I left. Once I had left, my flatmate had the usual ping we get - around 130. When it was good, both our pings would sit around 145.

Last night I tried on different servers within the SGS and iGame offerings but still no dice. Could it possibly be something to do with the 10mb upgrades?

I'd like to do some troubleshooting on your whole connection before I pass any judgement on this - can you PM you details to MWEB Operations and ask them to do some extensive troubleshooting to see if there are any issues with your line, or upstream congestion?

 

[Will@MWEB]

Hey Will.... whats the chances of MWEB getting involved in http://www.gameservers.com/blackops/ to try get us a COD BO server for SA???

Our Gamezone is in the process of undergoing a face lift and I'm told that we have exciting plans for gamers, but no-one will tell me anything specific because they know I don't do well at keeping secrets

 

[HJF]

Hi Will,

Thanks for all the feedback MWEB is giving, it's great. I have a quick question.

I am one of very few people I'm sure who play World of Warcraft on the US servers. I recently went back to them because the pings have really gotten a lot better and my old characters I really love are there The pings I generally get is around 500ms during the day and it sometimes spikes to over 800ms but not for long. At night it normally starts around 450ms and then a bit later, lets say around 10PM, it drops to about 350ms. Most of the time I play it's under 400ms. Back in the day we raided Black Temple with pings over 800ms and usually around 950ms-1200ms so these pings I get now are fantastic.

So here is the question. Is the traffic to US servers shaped right now? I'm quite chuffed getting less than 400ms but would love it if 280-300ms was possible.

Thanks!

 

[Sash]

Current Issues Under Discussion

• General Performance Lord of the Rings Online - Wireshark Capture submitted to networks team, awaiting feedback

Do you have any feedback on LOTRO?

 

[Will@MWEB]

Hi Will,

Thanks for all the feedback MWEB is giving, it's great. I have a quick question.

I am one of very few people I'm sure who play World of Warcraft on the US servers. I recently went back to them because the pings have really gotten a lot better and my old characters I really love are there The pings I generally get is around 500ms during the day and it sometimes spikes to over 800ms but not for long. At night it normally starts around 450ms and then a bit later, lets say around 10PM, it drops to about 350ms. Most of the time I play it's under 400ms. Back in the day we raided Black Temple with pings over 800ms and usually around 950ms-1200ms so these pings I get now are fantastic.

So here is the question. Is the traffic to US servers shaped right now? I'm quite chuffed getting less than 400ms but would love it if 280-300ms was possible.

Thanks!

Thanks for the feedback HJF.

As an ex WoW Player I'd have to agree that there is definitely nothing wrong with those numbers - I certainly wouldn't have minded tanking the weekly Kara cash-dashes with a 400ms ping

I just ran some command line pings to a few of the US based servers and got very much the same numbers you're reporting, which means that shaping is definitely not having an impact on your ping. It's possible that automatic updates might get shaped, but other than that I would say it sounds as though the traffic manager is treating your WoW packets very gently

Also just to clarify the point I made earlier there is no discrimination between US and EU traffic it all has the same signature.

Play nice and remember when in doubt - add more Dots!

 

[Kosmik]

The game seems to perform ok, but I'm guessing thats due to the game traffic being local and the "lost connection to EA" is an international traffic issue.

I've noticed, logging into EA always works. It's when you retrieve the server browser list from EA (I assume when mwebs network traffic is very heavy) this times out and you have to login to EA again. I've also noticed when I struggle to get the server browser list, thats when I experience random "lost connection to EA" kicks from game once I've actually managed to get in to a game. Usually if the server browser list responds reasonably first time then I can expect no "lost connection to EA" during the game. I'm guessing that periodically while playing, BC2 has a quick chat to the EA master server and if this times out, you get kicked from game. I have never experienced this problem in the evening or on weekends, only during the week during office hours when using mweb (4mb uncapped).

To combat this I route my packets for 159.153.235.0/24 through a webafrica prepaid international account. Since I started doing that, I haven't had the "lost connection to EA" kick or trouble getting the BC2 server browser list.

@Will, this sounds exactly like the issue I raised earlier in the month with regards to when the account was heavily p2p shaped.

 

[Sillicur]

Hey guys, i have been having a huge problem with mweb playing WoW on the EU servers for the last week about.

i have a dslmweb.co.za uncapped 384 account, i have also tried using just mweb.co.za with no apparently latency change.

My issue is that when i log in, maybe post on the AH or whatever, the ping just keeps going UP and UP. till about 20k then i dc. I have been with mweb since they launched their uncapped deals with no issues, now suddenly its unplayable. I have tested a friends telkomsa.net account and then its 300ms as usual, no issues so that would rule out my router/pc i assume.

I basically bought the mweb account for wow/browsing and a bit of series downloading. I have only used 13gig this month, whereas in the past i have done 50gig and had no problems so i wouldnt think it is throttling related. Please could an mweb admin help me or respond to this post, dont have money for a 2nd account and wow is the thing i do on the internet 80% of the time.

Thanks in advance
Wessel

PS: WoW cataclysm is coming out in a month so im starting to panic

 

[SirFooK'nG]

Our Gamezone is in the process of undergoing a face lift and I'm told that we have exciting plans for gamers, but no-one will tell me anything specific because they know I don't do well at keeping secrets

It would be awesome if they can swing it.... this Server issue for Black Ops is a major concern for all SA Call of Duty fans! At least SA is on the short list of other locations....

 

[Murmaider]

Thanks for the feedback HJF.

As an ex WoW Player I'd have to agree that there is definitely nothing wrong with those numbers - I certainly wouldn't have minded tanking the weekly Kara cash-dashes with a 400ms ping

I just ran some command line pings to a few of the US based servers and got very much the same numbers you're reporting, which means that shaping is definitely not having an impact on your ping. It's possible that automatic updates might get shaped, but other than that I would say it sounds as though the traffic manager is treating your WoW packets very gently

Also just to clarify the point I made earlier there is no discrimination between US and EU traffic it all has the same signature.

Play nice and remember when in doubt - add more Dots!

Hi Will,

The problem I have found is not the pings to the wow servers (as this is ICMP Traffic) but rather a problem with latency in the game. The login to the World Servers is done over TCP and then you have an established TCP session, but the game itself uses mostly UDP traffic for all interactions with the game. So a simple ICMP ping to the servers is not a true reflection of actual UDP latency.

Normally on Mweb to the EU servers in france, if you connect with wow normally, you can get 350ms - 450ms on a _good_ day.
BUT, if you create a reverse ssh tunnel to a server / vps in france (or europe) which is running on a prioritised port (like port 80). You can tunnel wow through this and can easily get 215ms - 290ms.

I would assume this is because TCP has a higher priority over UDP traffic on the network. All this is achieving is forcing users, like myself to force wow through a TCP tunnel overseas to gain a higher priority on the traffic and then the UDP breakout from the server overseas goes unshaped to the EU wow servers.

While you might feel that 400ms is _ok_ for raiding, in reality it's not. The impact of this type of latency is far worse when attempting to PVP.

 

[TigerTael]

Sorry for being off topic here,

TigerTael ... you're not the same dood from ZANet are you? ... Adjuzt? If it's you, then I've missed you almost as much as Altaaf's cookies!

If this makes no sense, disregard that. <_<

Hey man, yes, it's me.

I'm still alive and kicking! Hit me up or something.

 

[J0n0]

To the wow players struggling with latency the last few days or so... Just remember that patch day is coming. So it's the usual slowdown.