MWEB Gaming Feedback

[semaphore]

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.

err patch day is a good two weeks away still. The latency in wow the last few days was not only isolated to wow, but general browsing, general internet usage.

 

[BluStorm]

Patch day might have an impact (10,000 wow players downloading 4.45GB of patch), but make sure it's not your addons.

I have a lot of addons, and it does make a difference sometimes. One in particular - WoWHead Looter. If you perhaps are on a High Pop server, you may have a large amount of entries in AH, and perhaps that is causing it. I know I had issues just logging in with my characters, and my son just happened to suggest I disable WoWHead Looter... and instant login...

I see there was a recent update to the looter, which auto enabled itself again... just a suggestion.

 

[Methias]

Hi Will,

Just to add my voice to what Pooky said earlier. I seem similar behavior with League of Legends. I get pings (on good days) of around 230-260ms but it spikes a lot up to 800ms, but more often than not I see pings of 320-380ms, nothing else on the PC or network is accessing the internet. I dont know which servers Pooky is running on but I'm connecting to the european servers. It would be great if the pings could be lowered to the 230-260ms range not 90% of the days.

 

[Will@MWEB]

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.

Hi Murmaider

I understand fully what you're saying and I'm sure that we could improve the performance a little if we prioritized the traffic to ensure that all gaming ports were given the highest priority possible, unfortunately it simply isn't possible to provide the type of premium gaming experience you're asking for on a commercial ADSL product which is designed for mass consumption.

I realize that you're obviously a very serious player and I respect that 100% percent, but I do think that 350-400ms on an international MMORPG is a very decent experience for the average player and is certainly a better than anything which was available on a normal shaped account a year or two back.

 

[Will@MWEB]

In other news our network gurus informed me this morning that they have made a significant change to the traffic manager which could potentially have a positive impact on all 'uncategorized' traffic for MMO's in particular. So please get some play time in this weekend and let me know if you notice any difference

 

[7th day adventist church]

I realize that you're obviously a very serious player and I respect that 100% percent, but I do think that 350-400ms on an international MMORPG is a very decent experience for the average player and is certainly a better than anything which was available on a normal shaped account a year or two back.

This is like saying you understand that I am hungry, but you will only give me enough food to be able to not technically starve to death because I am not made of money.

I completely disagree with the fact that gaming traffic doesn't get prioritised. I mean even a 7pm-7am "after hours" prioritisation would be more than sufficient for everyone's needs. There's no reason with the low amount of traffic online gaming generates to keep it in a shaped category. When I'm not playing games, I download as much as I possibly can. When I play games, I pause my downloads, thereby lowering the impact of my footprint on your network, so any argument that gaming traffic is detrimental to the network is wrong.

I realise that is isn't your official stance, but I can only assume that is the train of thought at MWEB and every other ISP since it doesn't make any sense to me to shape said traffic.

 

[XennoX]

Its a bit hard to get some playtime in, when you're pinging www.mweb.co.za with 500ms+ response times, whereas it would usually be a 32ms response. . Add to the fact that general browsing is slow as hell.

http://i56.tinypic.com/2qwjxfm.png - This was taking at 23h45 or so last night. No downloads or uploads going.

Additionally the games I tend to play are Eve Online; Company of Heroes: Online and Pirates of the Burning Sea. Two (2) of them are MMORPG's whereas the other is an RTS with MMORPG elements. I also constantly dropped from the WAGE TeamSpeak 3 server last night due to said latencies.

I'm currently using the 4Mbps uncapped package.

 

[Lounger]

This is like saying you understand that I am hungry, but you will only give me enough food to be able to not technically starve to death because I am not made of money.

I completely disagree with the fact that gaming traffic doesn't get prioritised. I mean even a 7pm-7am "after hours" prioritisation would be more than sufficient for everyone's needs. There's no reason with the low amount of traffic online gaming generates to keep it in a shaped category. When I'm not playing games, I download as much as I possibly can. When I play games, I pause my downloads, thereby lowering the impact of my footprint on your network, so any argument that gaming traffic is detrimental to the network is wrong.

I realise that is isn't your official stance, but I can only assume that is the train of thought at MWEB and every other ISP since it doesn't make any sense to me to shape said traffic.

They said games are not shaped. Now I'm confused between de-prioritising and shaping?!>!

 

[XennoX]

They said games are not shaped. Now I'm confused between de-prioritising and shaping?!>!

As far as I know, prioritising and shaping are the same thing. Synonyms - if you will.

 

[Lounger]

Hi Murmaider

I understand fully what you're saying and I'm sure that we could improve the performance a little if we prioritized the traffic to ensure that all gaming ports were given the highest priority possible, unfortunately it simply isn't possible to provide the type of premium gaming experience you're asking for on a commercial ADSL product which is designed for mass consumption.

I realize that you're obviously a very serious player and I respect that 100% percent, but I do think that 350-400ms on an international MMORPG is a very decent experience for the average player and is certainly a better than anything which was available on a normal shaped account a year or two back.

Let's ask again.

Games are shaped! Confirm/Deny please.

 

[7th day adventist church]

Let's ask again.

Games are shaped! Confirm/Deny please.

I've been in a similar conversation from a SAIX based ISP where they gave us an unshaped account to test with. Regardless of it being unshaped, our pings to WoW were in the 500-600 range when connected directly, and 250+-ms when going through a reverse-tunnel ssh host.

It seems that something being unshaped simply refers to the data not being hindered or limited in any way, however, it does seem apparent that certain types of traffic like http and ssh get a higher priority ala Quality of Service type prioritization.

This confuses me, since I don't understand why all traffic on an unshaped account doesn't get the same priority.

 

[Will@MWEB]

Ok this is directly from the FAQS I have been working on and is the most accurate description I can give you of how shaping works.

The traffic is divided into three broad categories, namely:

• High priority - this traffic is given priority on the network and applies to a the most commonly used traffic types such as HTTP, video streaming and email.
• Unshaped – this traffic is not shaped, but is also not given a priority, as such it is contended normally, but will give way in preference of high priority traffic.
• Shaped – this traffic is given a lower priority and will always give way to meet the demands of high priority and unshaped traffic – all types of Peer 2 Peer, file sharing (one-click-hosting) and binary newsgroup traffic are placed into this category.

Gaming traffic should primarily be in the middle band - not prioritized, but not shaped.

I think it's important that everyone gets a clear understanding of the idea of high priority traffic.

Shaping is not just about limiting the impact of Peer 2 Peer traffic on the network, it's also about ensuring quality of service for the most commonly used protocols, which is why you have the upper band of traffic which is given higher priority and this is something I simply cannot have done for gaming traffic right now, although it's possible that in the future we may have products that are more specifically tailored to meet the needs of more demanding gamers.

What I have been doing is and will continue to do is trying to ensure that there is no gaming traffic sitting in the shaped band and I if I'm correct in my understanding then the change I mentioned earlier is a significant step forward in terms of getting this right.

 

[Will@MWEB]

Its a bit hard to get some playtime in, when you're pinging www.mweb.co.za with 500ms+ response times, whereas it would usually be a 32ms response. . Add to the fact that general browsing is slow as hell.

http://i56.tinypic.com/2qwjxfm.png - This was taking at 23h45 or so last night. No downloads or uploads going.

Additionally the games I tend to play are Eve Online; Company of Heroes: Online and Pirates of the Burning Sea. Two (2) of them are MMORPG's whereas the other is an RTS with MMORPG elements. I also constantly dropped from the WAGE TeamSpeak 3 server last night due to said latencies.

I'm currently using the 4Mbps uncapped package.

XennoX that sounds like a more localized problem which is in urgent need of troubleshooting - please send a PM to MWEB Operations and the guys will get you talking to someone who can assist.

I played BC2 while on Teamspeak on a 384k shaped product on our network for several hours last night and only experienced one or two moments of that felt slightly laggy.

 

[BluStorm]

I understand fully what you're saying and I'm sure that we could improve the performance a little if we prioritized the traffic to ensure that all gaming ports were given the highest priority possible, unfortunately it simply isn't possible to provide the type of premium gaming experience you're asking for on a commercial ADSL product which is designed for mass consumption.

Let's have a look at my situation. I have 3 children (2x teenagers), each with their own machine, and my wife and I with a machine (gaming) and laptop (work) each. Now, my son, wife and I all play WoW. Now with the current 384 uncapped, as soon as my teenage daughter goes onto Facebook, bang goes our gaming latency. Say I go to unshaped, now there's no prioritisation, facebook and WoW get the same priority, but if I have a quiet moment, Facebook takes all the bandwidth, and WoW gets none (I stand to be corrected).

I would prefer that the games I play (WoW, SC2, Aion, etc), get all the bandwidth they need, WHEN they need it. Prioritising the gaming connections would enable this, more than regular unshaped would.

With exception of the patches that games roll-out, most of my http traffic is facebook and you tube, and normal browsing and they get priority over my Gaming... Not exactly ideal in most gamers cases. In terms of setup, I can understand it might take some doing, but once you have a set of configs in place, surely this sort of connection would be cheaper (to you) than a regular http prioritised account? I'm sure most of your users are "mass market", but I'm also sure you have a fair number of gamers. Surely creating a True Gaming account, would be beneficial to you (MWeb)? A Gaming account would likely mean less bandwidth usage in general, as gaming doesn't consume much in general.

Sorry, just don't understand why the two biggest consumer ISPs (Telkom and MWeb) cannot provide TRUE gaming packages.

------------------------------------------------
Okay, I see that you have explained some of what I complain about, but I still do not understand how you cannot make provision on the network for gaming, OVER HTTP, eMail and Video Streaming. The latter being a higher bandwidth user than gaming. With all the complaints of high usage etc, surely promoting something (even though it's only about 5-10% of your user base) that makes high-bandwidth apps, lower priroity, more practical? I use on average about 30GB of bandwidth a month on my Uncapped 384, so I use a fair amount of bandwidth, but in all honesty, my priority is gaming, so I wouldn't be phased if downloads and such were slower.

/vent

 

[Murmaider]

Hi Murmaider

I understand fully what you're saying and I'm sure that we could improve the performance a little if we prioritized the traffic to ensure that all gaming ports were given the highest priority possible, unfortunately it simply isn't possible to provide the type of premium gaming experience you're asking for on a commercial ADSL product which is designed for mass consumption.

I realize that you're obviously a very serious player and I respect that 100% percent, but I do think that 350-400ms on an international MMORPG is a very decent experience for the average player and is certainly a better than anything which was available on a normal shaped account a year or two back.

Hi Will,

Please understand that 350ms-400ms is not the norm, but rather this is "at best". Normal latencies have a far wider bracket which is from 350ms - 750ms and with lag spikes it feels like 3000ms.
It's the lag spikes which cause the majority of the issues. If the traffic merely hovered around 375ms consistantly then yes for the casual gamer it might be fine, but when one minute you have 400ms and the next you have a 900ms spike and then 650ms while it recovers and then back to 400ms.... it makes a relaxing game rather frustrating, the only way I can describe it is that it's like trying to play a game of tennis while running around in syrup.

These spikes do seem to fall in line with what you have mentioned regarding "unshaped, contended traffic". Is there no way to possible make the latencies more stable or consistant?

My point still remains that TCP seems to be prioritised over UDP traffic and reverse ssh tunnels over prioritised ports is still the only solution to resolve lag spikes and to break into the 200ms+ bracket.


EDIT:
Will, could MWEB not create a gaming specific package which just runs off a different traffic class.
This traffic class being:
Gaming : high priority,
Web / email / etc : Unshaped
everything else shaped.

This would be a great service. I understand you would be thinking "yah right, but then if we prioritise the gaming ports then people could use bittorrent on those ports". This would be half right, except for the fact that from what I can make out, 90% of all online games use UDP traffic for game data with a TCP session. Torrents are TCP traffic, so this should be easily overcome.

 

[semaphore]

Hi Murmaider

I understand fully what you're saying and I'm sure that we could improve the performance a little if we prioritized the traffic to ensure that all gaming ports were given the highest priority possible, unfortunately it simply isn't possible to provide the type of premium gaming experience you're asking for on a commercial ADSL product which is designed for mass consumption.

I realize that you're obviously a very serious player and I respect that 100% percent, but I do think that 350-400ms on an international MMORPG is a very decent experience for the average player and is certainly a better than anything which was available on a normal shaped account a year or two back.

The norm you say? Lets see i get 260ms on my axxess express+ account. If i use a proxy i get 190ms-200ms. Any serious MMO player would not settle for those figures you give.

 

[Will@MWEB]

@Blustorm

Good vent and I have to say WoW as a family activity sounds like a great idea

Unfortunately if you had to come over to my house and my older son and I fired up an FPS while my wife was busy on Facebook and sucked all the bandwidth out of the room she would be less than impressed.

It really is a question of quality of service at a traffic level and catering to the needs of the majority.

I think your concept of a product tailored specifically for gamers, which puts gaming traffic at the top of the list and gives it the best possible experience is a great idea and no-one will be happier than me if this is something that we do introduce at some point in the future, but I can't make any commitments to you at this point as to if and when this might happen.

 

[7th day adventist church]

Unfortunately if you had to come over to my house and my older son and I fired up an FPS while my wife was busy on Facebook and sucked all the bandwidth out of the room she would be less than impressed.

Will I really hope you were being sarcastic here because the idea of an online game using so much bandwidth that one cannot browse websites is rubbish.

 

[semaphore]

Game traffic is so minimal, the only time i start using 80MB / hour is when im doing a raid with 24 other people and have vent running with people screaming like banchee's. Then i see a decent usuage, otherwise with my average daily quest runs and quests, i use about 15mb an hour. With other multiplayer games its mostly likely even less. And i hardly see how gamers are going to cause the network to break. When you have people refreshing facebook every 3seconds

 

[Will@MWEB]

Will I really hope you were being sarcastic here because the idea of an online game using so much bandwidth that one cannot browse websites is rubbish.

No actually I was trying to illustrate a point in terms of what might happen if the roles were reversed and gaming traffic was given higher priority than http and other protocols on a network wide scale.

Gents please, I understand that you're all very serious gamers and I am honestly doing everything that I can to try and address your needs and change the things I do have the power to change to improve the experience for you.

In return all I ask is that you please try to keep your eye on the bigger picture and understand that you are not the only customers on the network. What we change for you can have an impact on everyone, even if you perceive that change to be small at the individual level it may have a much larger effect when applied to a network hosting several hundred thousand users.

Thanks
Will