Tried everything, please help me: Massive ping spikes! (Update: june 16)

Only in 3v3, 4v4 and 5v5 games.

By Ghost on May 18, 2009 11:04:15 PM from

(23 may updates in replies #11 and #12)

(27 may update in Reply #18)

(16 june update in Reply #88)

I have this problem with my ping since when i bought the game. I've tried everything i know to solve or pinpoint the cause.

Problem:

I can't play any 3v3, 4v4 or 5v5 games because i get very, very big ping spikes (<1500). It gets worse as the game gets bigger (in a 3v3 match the spikes appear at intervals of 5-15 minutes, in a 4v4 match they appear at intervals of 5-15 seconds and in 5v5 matches it's almost constant at 1000-1500 ping). I can connect to everyone, no problems here, and in the lobby i have good ping to everyone (max 200, green). But as soon as the game starts, the ping spikes at 700-1500, affecting everyone in the game.

I must say that i can play any 1v1 or 2v2 matches, no problem here: it doesn't matter where the players are located, it doesn't spikes at all. I've tried on Gameranger so i can see the players location, and i've played fine with people from Asia, Australia, US, Europe, it makes no difference, no spikes from me.

My PC specs and internet connection:

Intel Core 2 E6400, 4 GB ram, 8800 GT, Asus P5B (motherboard), Creative X-FI. Played in 1360x760 on 16:9 TV screen. No FPS or sim speed problems.
My connection is 4Mb download, 1Mb upload (on paper). Direct cable modem connection. No router, no wireless.

What i have tried:

On my Vista x64, i have no firewall, my antivirus is disabled, no other programs left to run in the background (any kind of downloader)
All my drivers are up to date (including the network card on my motherboard).
Just to be sure it's not a software problem, i've tried Demigod on a clean Windows install (Win 7), just Demigod and drivers, and it didn't changed the situation.

Next, i will show you 3 recorded games, first one is a 3v3 match, the second is 4v4 match and last is a 5v5 match.

I used CamStudio to record and BitMeter to show the network usage in real time (with average upload and downlod). Please note that BitMeter shows the speed of the connection in kB (kiloBYTES). All videos are HD, so you can clearly see the numbers.

3v3 game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSPpRUm1e8I

You can see that the spikes appear for a short duration, and only from time to time. The average upload and download speed is around 13-14 kilobytes/sec (that's 104-112 kilobits). Note that as soon as the ping spike comes, the maximum upload and downlod speed grows a little bit, from 15-17 kB/sec(~128kilobits/s) peak, to 23-24 kB/sec (~184 kilobits/s) peak. Still in my connection limits (4096 kilobits/s download / 1024 kilobits/s upload).

4v4 game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hyoYIVN7P8

Here you can see the pings i have in the lobby with all players (all green and maximum ping is 133). Then, as soon as the game starts, the spikes go as high as 1400, with only a few seconds of normality, then again to 1400 and so on. Much smaller intervals than in 3v3 matches. Note that the maximum download and upload speeds have rised to 34 kB/sec (272 kilobits/s) for upload peak, and 41 kB/sec (328 kilobits/s) for download peak, still in my connection limits (4096 kilobits/s download / 1024 kilobits/s upload).

5v5 game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQPQkoNMGqA

This is the most extreme, i get constant ping spikes of 700-1500, freezing the game for everybody. You can still see the pings in the lobby are normal. In the game, the maximum download and upload speeds are a bit higher than in the 4v4 game, but not by much: ~46 kB/sec (~368 kilobits/s) for upload and download peaks. Still in my connection limits (4096 kilobits/s download / 1024 kilobits/s upload).

As i've said, i'm connected directly to my cable modem, no wireless, no router.

I've tested my connection on speedtest.net, on a couple of servers from around the world, so i can show it to you. Note that i'm located in Europe!

First picture is from servers located in Europe:

EUROPE

The second picture is from US servers (note the distances from me, as i've said, i'm from Europe):

US servers

The last picture is from servers from the rest of the world (Asia, Australia, etc), located at great distances:

As you can see, i don't think my connection is too slow. At least in Europe i have great pings and upload speed. I've tried 4v4 matches on Gameranger and i've made sure all the players were from Europe, but i still get ping spikes. It doesn't matter with who i play and from where.

So if it's not my PC, and it's not my connection setup from home, than it must be either the ISP or the software (Demigod). The only way i know an ISP could cause this problem, is by throttling the p2p bandwidth. I've tried some torrents and they worked fine. More, i've done this P2P test, to see if my P2P connection is throttled. It's not! See the result below:

P2P

So this is it, i don't know what else to do. If someone can help me pinpoint the cause, i would be grateful. I would appreciate if someone from Stardock (or GPG) would look over this.

+13 Karma | 168 Replies

Good data. Will send this over to GPG.

Very nice post Dead Ghost!

This is an issue that is incredibly annoying and seems to be affecting more and more people.
I did not have this happen until the last patch (the one before the 18th). I can currently play 3v3, 4v4.. not sure on 5v5.. but you never know when it is going to strike. Internet goes down! I tried to just ipconfig /release and then /renew.. ni dice. I tried to Repair my conenction. Nope. Rebooting my system DOES fix this without touching my modem/router.. but it is annoying as hell. Also accompanied by the game freezing and requiring a forced close.

+1 for some serious data on this!

When you tried using torrents, did you watch your upload speed and did it spike? Before you test it with torrents, limit the number of connections in your torrent client to something like 25 and try it with some very popular fresh torrent. Basicaly what I am aiming at is that your cable connection may have some physical (L1) problems (SNR, DS power...) that are only visible in realtime applications like P2P gaming. Also, do a constant ping to google and see if any packets are dropped or have lag spikes.

This is all a long shot, I'm just throwing you something worth checking out just to be sure.

still the same problem nothing changed yet. i will wait until tomorrow's proxy servers if there is no improvement, it's refund time !

keeping in mind that everything worked fine until the update on May 15, 2009, its time for me to go MAD!

getting really angry now... was a hell of a time since release date when i bought it! and now you just banned me from online gaming!

i have nothing more to say!

We are still looking at this and seeing what we can do.

TheBird: Can you tell us more?

One other thing, how long have you been running into this issue?

Dead Ghost: One thing I'd like you to try is renaming the overlay file in the demigod bin directory to something else and see if that helps.

i tried to explain everything in this thread : lag spike since last patch (~1000ms) for some seconds

i have these problems since the patch @ May 15, 2009. i try to play an online game once per day and its always the same with lag spiking (fewer players= fewer lag spiking / more players = more lag spiking)... ill try it again now with the overlay file fix.. lets see if this helps

edit: no games from europe open at this time. ill try it again in a couple of hours!

renamed both impulse overlay files, played a 3vs3... in lobby everyone had pings between 100 and 200. right after the first second ingame lag spiking started again (over 1000 pings). no improvement. would like to get some information from your side in a journal about this as soon as possible plz.

I am having a similar issue. 80-100 ping for maybe a minute or so then a big spike up to 1k for a few seconds then back down again for a while. I dont know if this was caused by the most recent (not the proxy one, if that is out yet, but last weeks latest) or the fact that it was the first 3v(x Ai's) I have played. Recently a 3rd friend of mine got the game so we were playing around in a normal game. The only games I play really are against AIs and in a 2v4AI I had played earlier with this new player I had normal ping, and I have played many normal 2vXAI games with the non new friend before this (but not after the patch.) Next time I play ill try the overlay thing and see if it helps at all. In any case if I have the same problem, it isnt caused by 3v3 games but 3vanything games it appears.

UPDATE

1. I've tried renaming both impulse files in the bin directory, as Frogboy suggested, but it didn't changed the situation: it still spikes.

2. Next, i've tried Neur0transmitter's suggestion: search for a torrent and start to dnl and upload, while limit the global connections to 25 and ping google at the same time, to see if the ping spikes. It didn't. As you can see in the pic below, i'm uploading at 90 kilobytes/sec and downloading at 130 kilobytes/s. The ping to google (normal is ~30-40) is higher, but it does not spike and timeouts (when i try demigod, it's a another story, as you'll see):

Below is a pick from the lobby. Notice the good ping i have to the rest of the players and the ping to google:

But as soon as i enter the game, the ping to google spikes the same as the ping in the game, with timeouts as well. Very different from the ping to google when i was using uTorrent:

What i've also tried today:

Install the game on a completely different PC, a laptop with Vista 32. Used the same connection as before: the result is the same, still spikes!

Took the laptop and the game to a friend, so i can test the game on another internet connection. He has the same ISP as me, same modem, cable net connection, no router, and same internet package as me, but one that is a bit lower in speed (just 1mb/s dnl and 512kb/s upload). Tested a game of 3v3, with players from Germany, i had ~110 ping to them in the lobby. But when in game, same story as before: spikes to ~1000.

So far, i've completely eliminated two causes:

It's NOT a software problem (OS, programs in memory, etc)!
It's NOT a specific PC hardware problem!

It's either the ISP (but i don't know what exactly, as everything else works ok, including torrent traffic) or Demigod itself. Or both.

Similar specs, but with a DSL connection on US East Coast. Identical problem.

It seems like this is the place to be. I'm copying my post from here.

My PC:

Q6600, 8GB RAM, Radeon 4780 512MB, onboard sound and network

I'm getting ping spikes while playing DG. I've noticed this a lot during gameplay. I'll be humming along at a great clip, pings at 100 or less to other players, like it was listed in the lobby, and then wham, the games stutters, and my ping to everyone else jumps to 1000 or more, then back to normal for a bit.

I've noticed this in DG alone, CoD4 doesn't exhibit this behaviour, nor does Supreme Commander, Company of Heroes, or the Half-Life series. I have tried 4 different routers, WRV54G, DI-524, an older Belkin wired model, and a a TrendNet TEW-432BRP. The reason I have them is for AP use. I've connected directly to the cable modem, and experience the same behaviour.

I have no issues connecting to other players, in this regard, I am all set. It seems odd to me. I am currently on the phone with my ISP, WOW!, to see if there is an issue there, but I imagine they'll say everything is fine, go away.

I don't imagine there is an answer that addresses this direct issue(one can hope though), but I wanted to ask it anyway.

i have the exact same problem. i bought this game on thursday to play with my regular crew in 3v3 and above, and it's next to worthless thanks to this. ran all p2p tests and come up clean, no problems with torrents etc, all ports forwarded.

have stardock addressed this problem yet? seems both widespread and game breaking.

Same problem here, have had it since Launch. However, I'm in an even bigger fix, as it spikes up immediately to 1000 or so even in a 3v3, and stays constantly. Other than that, it's identical to what Dead Ghost has described.

for an excellent post, Dead Ghost!

Edit: Frogboy, you mentioned changing the name of the overlay file. I assume you mean both the DLL and the LNG?

any status update on this frogboy ?

UPDATE (May 27):

Today i've tried DG on a completely different ISP: You can see in the pic the speedtest result of this connection:

It's much slower than my regular connection (at least at upload speeds).

Well, in short, i don't have spikes on this connection. I have high ping to anyone in lobby and the same in the game (around 300-400), but it doesn't spikes (tried 3v3 and 4v4 matches).

So, it seems it's a ISP problem, 99% sure of this. I've tried to talk to the ISP, but it's futile. They're idiots, plain and simple. And i can't switch to another ISP, because i'm limited to them in my area.

What i don't understand is why all p2p traffic works (like torrents) on my connection. How is this game different from what torrents do? If someone from SD or GPG could explain it to me, maybe i could find a solution...

it is NOT an ISP problem at all! you have to keep in mind that the game ran for both (Dead Ghost and me) fine before the update. we could play 3on3s without a problem until the update came out and we jad to deal with the newly lag spiking problem...

in the journal forum they said this:

Q: You say Demigod’s online play is fine now but I have a problem.

A: For that I say go to http://www.speedtest.net/ and check your upload speed. Demigod requires a broadband connection defined as at least 256 kilobit upload and download to reliably play a 5 on 5 game. A 3 on 3 game requires about 120 kilobit (about twice what an old phone modem does). v1.01 should reduce this well below the threshold of low end connections. But if you get a speedtest rating of less than 256 kilobit, you should stay with 3 on 3 games max unless you know how to make sure you’ve turned off other sources of uploading.

For example, it seems like everytime I run into someone whose complaining about “high in game ping even though it was fine in the lobby” it turns out to be someone with a DSL line that has 128 kilobit upload who also has a torrent seeder going on. Don’t do that.

Also, we have not given up on “edge” cases. The team at Stardock and GPG keep coming up with clever ideas to help more and more people.

first of all i think its rediculous that i can play every online game without problems but demigod is so powerful that i need a new ISP... never heard of that before... now you have to write on every box they sell: oh and you need at least 256 kilobit upload or you cannot play 5on5s. for 3on3s you need at least 120 kilobit... i dont know if they wrote this on the box since i have bought the digital copy (never read any information about this traffic usage). so if you have bought a demigod box please look at it and tell us if they wrote that MUST-HAVE information there so only people will buy their game who are actually able to play it...

overall i am still hoping that v1.01 will fix our problem, because we are practically still "banned" from online gaming...

and as you can see below my bandwidth is ready for 3on3s... BUT you may have guessed WE CAN NOT PLAY !

hell i cant even play 2on2s with that connection... the lag spiking is less of course but definatly far away from smooth... basically unplayable!

the game fooled me!

Dead Ghost, is that the same machine on two different ISPs?

I forgot to add it in my last post,, but this is my speedtest result:

And Across the Pond:

so as you can see AdmShatan upload and download is way more than enough to play this game... but he still got same lag spiking like us!

what tells that to us?!

TheBird:

I never said i had this problem after the update. I had this problem from the beginning, long before that update. I have this problem on Gameranger too.
In my case, it's not an insufficient bandwidth problem, as you can see from my speedtest screens. More, as i've said in post #18, i've tested DG on another ISP with a much slower connection than my default one, and it doesn't spikes at all.

AdmShatan:

As i've said in post #12, in my case it's not a hardware problem (router or pc). But to give you an answer, yes, it was the same machine. Two different ISPs, two different connection speeds, one works, one doesn't.

So my case is this:

Same machine, ISP 1 (0.90Mb/s upload), game spikes in 4v4 matches.

Same machine, ISP 2 (0.30Mb/s upload), game doesn't spikes in 4v4 matches. (yes, it works on the slower connection! ping ~300, but no spikes)

Tried on two very different machines (one desktop and one laptop), same results.

On both ISPs, p2p torrent traffic works 100% and it isn't throttled.

Same problem, playing has become IMPOSSIBLE.

If this is not fixed soon, game will die.

Just want to add as an update, I just tried a game with the /serverproxyonly switch, I get the same results, intermittent spikes >1500.

Has anyone else renamed the overlay file in the .bin directory like Frogboy said? I did it, then strangely could not connect. But my internet was pretty wonky at the time, so that might not have been the problem.

The Forums Are Now Closed!

The content will remain as a historical reference, thank you.

Tried everything, please help me: Massive ping spikes! (Update: june 16)

Only in 3v3, 4v4 and 5v5 games.