Usage Summary - Gaming - New User Question

[#1]

Hi,
I'm new to Plusnet as of last Friday (29/5/2009) and as an avid pc gamer I am slightly anal about my broadband speed etc.
I joined Plusnet because of the positive filtering of gaming traffic so obviously I am a little concerned that there is no gaming traffic showing on my Usage Summary even though I have spent a good few hours on COD4 over the weekend.
So is there a delay on these stats, or is not picking up my gaming? And if its not picking it up on the stats is it being missed on the packet filtering?
Not too bothered about speed at the moment as I know it will be about 10 days before my line stabilises - although I have already noticed an improvement over my old Orange connection
Just want to be sure I'm going to get the full benefit of Plusnets higher price...I'm on Plusnet Pro btw
thanks for any advice

[#2]

Hi and welcome
I've had a quick look at your traffic and like you say, VMBU (View My Broadband Usage) doesn't appear to be picking up your gaming traffic.  I wouldn't worry about that too much though as because you're on Pro, all of your traffic is being prioritised.
There's a possibility that the traffic will catch up (although I wouldn't expect it to), but just keep an eye on things and see if any of it shows up.

[#3]

thanks James 

[#4]

you can use wireshark to tell what prioity any traffic is getting over the PN network.
http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/troubleshooting/wireshark.shtml
its little more tricky to be able to capture console traffic but can still be done by wiring a console up to a pc to use it internet connection and capture the traffic as it passes through the pc.
if you do use it dont worried by the fact that all traffic outgoing from your pc is classed as 0x00 thats just because its not been over the PN network so hasnt been taged yet
as your on the pro package its not a great impact if its not picked up right as lowest prioity you get on that package is 0x80 (gold) gaming being 1 up from that 0xa0 (titanium). but if you do come across any games new or old that havent been added to the traffic mangment database yet then i am sure us guys on the other packages would be thankful that you spotted it first and got PN working on the sig  asap
edit.

Quote

avid pc gamer

dead easy then to capture your gaming traffic

[#5]

thanks asbo dog - wireshark is a very useful tool
looks like my gaming traffic while playing cod4 is being classed as 0x80 - is that the correct setting on a pro account?
Differentiated Services Field: 0x80 (DSCP 0x20: Class Selector 4; ECN: 0x00)
only other game I play regularly is star wars battlefront  - I will do a capture next time i'm on that and see how it goes

[#6]

nah should be 0xa0 on pro and any other package.
strange that cod's sig would of gone awol
you defo sure the packet is from cod and not any random background traffic that might of been running at the time?
i am pretty sure this isnt network wide issue as alot of people would of noticed cod's pc version traffic not being right
as your on pro the lowest prioity you traffic gets is that your getting 0x80 and this should not have a great impact on your cod latency unless the network went into overload mode and gold traffic started to drop which as you can see here it dosent do under normal condtions and infact isnt droping gold traffic even with pcl-ag04 gateway out of action at the moment http://www.plus.net/support/network_performance/broadband_packets_drop.shtml gold is under interactive on the graphs
one for plusnet to have look at.

[#7]

I tracked the packet using the ip and port number of the cod4 server I had been playing on and it showed 0x80
I'm not seeing any 0xa0 traffic in the wireshark capture
And apart from wireshark the only thing (obviously) running was the game

[#8]

did you save the wireshark capture and was it around 10 seconds worth if so raise a ticket if not take another capture  and add the pcap file .
i would add the link to the ticket you need to raise but the sites down for maintenance at this moment in time
any way its under help assitant then raise a ticket and use the incorrect traffic mangment link
just say that cod is being picked up wrong on your account ect

[#9]

Well i have just received an e-mail saying my usage is reaching its limit  :o, I hardly download a thing , i admittedly use my ps3 online about 20 hours a week , and surf the web daily using a laptop, i'm no expert but surely thats not gonna exceed 15GB/month is it ?
I'm on the Pro Package for gaming.
I have been really happy with plusnet since joining in FEB , but i'm not sure about paying extra a month on top of £19 for gaming!

[#10]

think there may have been some proactive service from plusnet
did another scan with wireshark tonight and got 0xa0 traffic on the cod4 server ip i used...
played for a few hours and had my smoothest play ever 
thanks for all help and advice

[#11]

good to hear all is gd