Wow + high ms.

[#1]

Hi,
I’ve had my broadband connection for a number of years now and through out all this time I have also played the game, world of warcraft, also through out this time I have played with a ms of between 200-250ms. Recently I have seen this number start to become a lot rarer to achieve and the norm is more like 300ms, even at offpeak times of 3am 200-250ms is just about possible. So I started asking other members of my guild who are in the UK what there ms was and most said they got between 70-120 even during peak times. This has lead me to start wondering what’s going wrong with my ms. I used to think it was more to do with the network outside the UK and the server I connect to’s load and that 200-250ms was good, now after talking with others I feel like I’m getting sub-par performance.
This has brought me to the point of considering switching to a different ISP that a friend has with a much lower ms. But like I said at the start, I’ve been with plusnet for many years now and force9 before that and would like to know first if there is a possible ISP fix that can be done to get a lower ms?  I don’t want to leave but I can’t continue playing at these ms.
Any help appreciated.

[#2]

Turning off interleaving can lower ping times but it depends on the quality of your line.

[#3]

I doubt that interleaving will help much on a 200ms ping, there's probably something else afoot causing it to go so high.
Can you provide a tracert to the server please?

[#4]

If you're on XP, see this post
Also, as Ben says - it would be useful to see a tracert to the login servers (eu.login.worldofwarcraft.com), and your realm server (see post 6 of the above thread)
Cheers
B.

[#5]

I know it's not the perfect solution, but this does help lower my ping in game. Maybe give it a try and see if it knocks yours down a bit as a temporary solution.
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info13581-LeatrixLatencyFix.html

[#6]

Hey, Thanks for the replies.
I’ve tried to do a tracert to the login servers but eu.login.worldofwarcraft.com gives me: Unable to resolve target system name eu.login.worldofwarcraft.com.
I entered: netstat -n -p tcp -b | more
And got this:
  Proto  Local Address          Foreign Address        State
  TCP    10.0.0.101:49222      213.248.127.130:1119  ESTABLISHED
[WoW.exe]
  TCP    10.0.0.101:49224      213.248.123.178:1119  ESTABLISHED
[WoW.exe]
  TCP    10.0.0.101:49407      209.85.227.100:80      TIME_WAIT
  TCP    127.0.0.1:49160        127.0.0.1:49161        ESTABLISHED
[firefox.exe]
  TCP    127.0.0.1:49161        127.0.0.1:49160        ESTABLISHED
[firefox.exe]
  TCP    127.0.0.1:49162        127.0.0.1:49163        ESTABLISHED
[firefox.exe]
  TCP    127.0.0.1:49163        127.0.0.1:49162        ESTABLISHED
[firefox.exe]
Nothing ended in 3742. I was logged in and playing on the server and had an ms of 256 at the time.
Here is a tracert to both the wow.exe addresses:

Tracing route to 213-248-127-178.customer.teliacarrier.com [213.248.127.178]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  10.0.0.1
  2    37 ms    35 ms    36 ms  lo0-central1.ptn-ag02.plus.net [195.166.128.205]
  3    35 ms    36 ms    34 ms  gi2-7-211.ptn-gw01.plus.net [84.92.5.137]
  4  171 ms  203 ms  207 ms  te2-2.thn-gw1.plus.net [212.159.1.54]
  5    35 ms    34 ms    35 ms  te2-3.thn-gw2.plus.net [212.159.1.58]
  6    35 ms    36 ms    34 ms  te-3-4.car5.London1.Level3.net [217.163.45.181]
  7    36 ms    35 ms    35 ms  ae-12-51.car2.London1.Level3.net [4.69.139.67]
  8    35 ms    36 ms    36 ms  telia-level3-ge.London1.Level3.net [4.68.111.182]
  9    36 ms    36 ms    38 ms  ldn-bb2-link.telia.net [80.91.254.21]
10    55 ms    45 ms    42 ms  prs-bb1-link.telia.net [80.91.254.209]
11    52 ms    51 ms    52 ms  ffm-bb1-link.telia.net [80.91.254.204]
12    52 ms    53 ms    54 ms  ffm-b10-link.telia.net [80.91.251.126]
13    *        *        *    Request timed out.
14    *        *        *    Request timed out.
15    *        *        *    Request timed out.
16    *        *        *    Request timed out.

Tracing route to 213-248-127-130.customer.teliacarrier.com [213.248.127.130]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  10.0.0.1
  2    36 ms    36 ms    36 ms  lo0-central1.ptn-ag02.plus.net [195.166.128.205]
  3  205 ms  229 ms  207 ms  gi2-7-211.ptn-gw01.plus.net [84.92.5.137]
  4  158 ms    36 ms    35 ms  te2-2.thn-gw1.plus.net [212.159.1.54]
  5    34 ms    35 ms    35 ms  te2-3.thn-gw2.plus.net [212.159.1.58]
  6    35 ms    35 ms    35 ms  te-3-4.car5.London1.Level3.net [217.163.45.181]
  7    35 ms    36 ms    35 ms  ae-12-51.car2.London1.Level3.net [4.69.139.67]
  8    36 ms    36 ms    35 ms  telia-level3-ge.London1.Level3.net [4.68.111.182]
  9    36 ms    36 ms    36 ms  ldn-bb1-link.telia.net [80.91.250.234]
10    41 ms    43 ms    43 ms  prs-bb1-link.telia.net [80.91.247.254]
11    51 ms    53 ms    51 ms  ffm-bb1-link.telia.net [80.91.246.204]
12    52 ms    51 ms    72 ms  ffm-b10-link.telia.net [80.91.251.248]
13    *        *        *    Request timed out.
14    *        *        *    Request timed out.
15    *        *        *    Request timed out.
16    *        *        *    Request timed out.

I have tried the latency fix’s already and while they did shave off a few ms I was still getting 160-230ms at times. I also read a couple blue posts on the wow forums that this does not lower your actual ms, it simply sends data more often then is needed which to me does not sound like it actually fixes lag issues just over compensates for it which in game has the effect of making your ms drop but only in number displayed not in actual ms lowered.
The way it was explained to me was you send 1 car down a road at 60mph it takes 10 secs to get to the end of the road. Fixing the problem means the car takes 8 secs or 6 secs to get to the end of the road. What this latency fix does is it simply sends 2 cars at 60mph in the same 10 secs making it seem like 2 cars travelled the distance in 5 secs each when in fact it still took them both 10 secs. Tho I could have had it explained to me wrong, let me know if this is the case.
For a quick search the best I could find to not do the latency fix was this link:
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=2252327125&sid=1&sid=1#3
Also I’m on Win7 not XP. But I’ve had the problem throughout the years on Windows 2000, XP and now Win7 spanning a number of computers, I’m on a wired connection too.

[#7]

You're showing sub-40ms pings whilst on our network (ignoring the spurious high gateway ping which has been covered in other threads) so this isn't something on our / your side, more like a contended server.

[#8]

Contended server?
You mean the server the realm runs on that i connect to has lots of people and that gives me high ms?

[#9]

I don’t understand how server contention could affect my connection but not my guild mates. If the server can give them a latency of 100ms or less then surely it can give me the same?
This evening I also went round a friends house, he is on a different ISP to me and I connected my laptop to his router and I connected to my wow server at a latency I had never seen before, it was 80-90ms the whole time.
I don’t understand how server contention would affect me and not him.
I've also tried connecting to different realms some with high population and some with low population.
The high latency does not always correspond to the high population servers. Couple of servers i tried which were low population gave me 300ms latency. Some of the high population servers gave me 170ms latency. I have not found a single server i can connect to that gives me a latency of less then 160ms. What i see my guild mates getting and what i managed to connect at, at my friends house this evening makes me think that there has to be an issue somewhere on my internet connection. If it’s not a problem with Plusnet or my end, how exactly do I get this problem resolved as at the moment the game is not really playable?

[#10]

I don't play WoW so I don't know anything about their server setup. However, from your response it suggests that your guild mates play on the same server? Are they all in the UK? Are they all a similar geographic distance to the server? If not then you can't compare their pings. I do note your comments about testing from your friend's house though.
Try pinging the BBC (with whom we peer directly), you should find pings in the 40-50ms range. This is the time taken for the connection to go all the way from your router to a short 'distance' off our network. We have no control over the pings off our network.
I think it would be best for us to try a Wireshark capture to make sure we're prioritising the traffic correctly as this is the only thing that might show up a problem on our side. Please run the test then attach the results to a ticket so we can investigate for you.

[#11]

Pinging bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.138] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=34ms TTL=120
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=35ms TTL=120
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=35ms TTL=120
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=34ms TTL=120
Ping statistics for 212.58.224.138:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 34ms, Maximum = 35ms, Average = 34ms
I only asked friends that are in the UK as I realised else where would not matter. 4 of them are in or around London. 2 are in Wales, 1 is in Manchester and 2 others are within 30 and 2 miles of me. They all play on the same server as me. They all have a much better latency then me by an average of at least 100ms. The best was 69ms and the worst was 122. At this point i would be delighted to achieve even the 122ms
A suggestion was made to me that it could be my exchange, bad wiring coming into the house or bad wiring in the house. The question i have is, if it was a problem like that would it not affect other things like for example the above ping to the bbc?
The wireshark data says if i'm reading it right that the data is on the right priority and the bbc ping looks good to.

[#12]

Yeah, it's not a general speed / internal wiring problem as this would affect pings to the BBC. Our Networks Team now have your Wireshark capture and will update you as soon as possible.

[#13]

My ticket has been updated and I’ve been informed that the traffic already was and still is being given priority.
I take it this means what you have already suggested. The problem is not originating on your network and so there is nothing you can do to fix the problem?
If so, any guesses as to what is and how I go about rectifying this problem? I can’t believe a latency of 200-250ms is even remotely what I should be getting and now in the last few months it’s started going up to 300ms, the game is just not responsive enough. After doing these tests I’m now concerned that if I switch ISP it might not change anything, which really confuses me. If its not plusnet and its not me, the exchange or wiring to the house and I don’t see how it can be blizzard, if it was I would be seeing a number of posts on the official wow forums stating so as well a friend 2 miles away can connect fine among others elsewhere, then what can it be?

[#14]

It could possibly be contention between the exchange and the backhaul, I've dropped an email to the relevant department within BT to check.

[#15]

Thanks. Rarely am I hopeful something is broken, but in this case i hope they find something and fix it and my latency lowers