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

Quoting pseudomelon,

reply 149

None, I'm afraid. I've requested an update on any information through the August Monthly Demigod Community Question Thread, found here.

Well looks like stardock answered your question by locking the thread and saying that it's people's bad connections and not their problem that we can't play. Fuck this.

Ouch. I just popped in and saw that they locked that Monthly Community Question Thread. Sorry, Pseudomelon. I guess they weren't too fond of it for some reason (??). It defintely had some good questions. In any case, it was beyond decent of you to, "carry the torch" so to speak, in that thread for everyone having this problem.

On a side note, I just can't help but get the feeling that all this keeps getting underestimated or overlooked as a "low bandwidth" issue that they expect us to fix on our end. But I hope I'm wrong and it isn't getting brushed off!

GL!

I'm afraid the reaction may have been in part by the fact that my quote on the next statement did not function properly (in fact, it didn't come out as a quote at all), so the paragraph looks like a mess. I have since PM'ed a Stardock employee with the hope of better sorting this out. Cheers!

Well, I just played Demigod for the second time in the past week, and hey, what'd ya know. Ping spikes, I drop, loss counted.

This game is fun, but I can't take the connection issues anymore. There are dozens of other games I have played online with 0 (zero) issues. Guess it is time to go back to playing them.

I sometimes get ping spikes & sometimes drop but I think it's something to do with my ISP. It seems to happen a lot more during the daytime.

A: Ping spikes are almost always due to someone in a given game not having enough upload speed. Even more specifically, it’s almost always some DSL user in Europe who gets 600kb/sec downloads but some tiny number uploaded. Beyond re-designing the MP for the game, there’s no real solution other than for those users to try to avoid games with too many players.

We plan to develop tools for Elemental that will let people know their upload speeds. In that game, we plan to be total bastards and simply not let people play online MP if they have low-end connections. Some of those tools will likely come back for Demigod though because GPG are nicer people than us, we probably won’t be blocking users who have poor upload speeds.

https://forums.demigodthegame.com/362335/page/2/#replies

Sorry, looks like that's the end of it. I've officially retired from Demigod, myself.

it’s almost always some DSL user in Europe who gets 600kb/sec downloads but some tiny number uploaded.

This is the most retarded response I have ever seen. Sure I, as well as many others around here are on ADSL, which stands for Assymetric Digital Subscriber Line. This is the norm in these parts for an internet connection. Assymetric is because my DL is bigger than my UL (10Mbit/768Kbit). ADSL however are never below 256Kbit UL, and most often are 512Kbit. I've played tons of games that work perfectly well with well below 256Kbit upload. Hell I've even played games that work perfectly well on 64Kbit total bandwith ISDN dial up connections. Blaming a 256K+ connection as the culprit of problems in a 3v3 or 4v4 game is, excuse my wording, downright IDIOTIC.

At the same time, with my "shitty" ADSL line I get <20ms first hop. 50-100ms across Europe (I'm on T-Home which has one of the best backbones around and I'm not even in a country that is part of EU). My connection is perfectly good for any type of game, be it a huge scale RTS, twitchy action FPS or anyhing you want. But no, Demigod, in all it's glory is more demanding than any other game. And it's out fault that we cant provide enough bandwith for it's insatiable hunger.

STOP....THE...FCKING...CRAP!!! Just admit the devs have no idea how to fix (or for a matter of fact properly implement) the MP.

Quoting pseudomelon,

reply 156

Q: Has there been any progress on the ping-spiking issue detailed here (https://forums.demigodthegame.com/352593). A small portion of the player base (including myself) have put Demigod on hold, as we cannot play games with more than X (where x is a number between 4 and 8, with the median being 4) players in them, despite solid connections. Many of us have tested the game with worse connections in another area and the same ISP, and had no trouble running the game.

A: Ping spikes are almost always due to someone in a given game not having enough upload speed. Even more specifically, it’s almost always some DSL user in Europe who gets 600kb/sec downloads but some tiny number uploaded. Beyond re-designing the MP for the game, there’s no real solution other than for those users to try to avoid games with too many players.

We plan to develop tools for Elemental that will let people know their upload speeds. In that game, we plan to be total bastards and simply not let people play online MP if they have low-end connections. Some of those tools will likely come back for Demigod though because GPG are nicer people than us, we probably won’t be blocking users who have poor upload speeds.

https://forums.demigodthegame.com/362335/page/2/#replies

Sorry, looks like that's the end of it. I've officially retired from Demigod, myself.

That said, kryo lists it in his known issues list:

https://forums.demigodthegame.com/359551

Ping times periodically spike in-game (despite sufficient upload bandwidth). (Link)

Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. All I know is that I'm not in Europe, and I have a 1Mbit upload. Maybe the set of users that includes player like me with this specific issue is sufficiently small that it doesn't warrant a fix. If that is the case, then it should be put forth. I wouldn't like it, but I'll accept the reasoning.

Wow @ that answer. Without a doubt, a brush-off that just implies incompetence or laziness. That answer might as well have said, "I'm not even going to read the thread you referenced in your question but instead I'll just zero in on the key phrase 'ping-spiking issue' and give you my generic answer because I've already made up my mind up about what your your problem is. Anyway, don't look at Demigod's problems anymore! We'll have a nice, shiny new game for you called Elemental!" Lol, I can just picture him waving his hand in front of your question trying with all his mind's prowess to get his Jedi Mind Trick to work on you via the internet: "There is no Demigod! Buy Elemental! Bring me a taco!!"

If even a part of this thread was read it would have be seen that upload speed isn't the problem. To reiterate, I've got 10Mbps down and 2Mbps up. And everytime I test it, I have at least a 3Mbps Upload! Yet everytime I played a MP game, even ones that were hosted near me here in the US, I'd always be the one lagging while everyone else was trying to get rid of me so they could play without lag. Even in his question Pseudomelon mentioned that the problem did NOT exist for some of us when tested on a worse connection.

*Sigh*...sorry for the rant...

I've got to agree with Misfortune and AdmShatan. It would have been better if it had just been truthfully stated that no fix is forthcoming for this issue due to it being unreproducable, not having enough manpower, not enough technical knowledge, not enough resources, or whatever. Or, that the cost of having to fix the issue would not be justified given the small amount of users experiencing the issue. I'd prefer knowing that than being strung along with distraction, misdirection, and generally vacuous feedback.

Edit: Speaking of which, now that the demo is out, I've seen alot more issues in the forums of people having this exact same problem. I wonder how many people are actually having this issue? I wonder how "small" this problem actually is??

If I had to hazard a "guess", I'd say "latency spikes" (when in relation to P2P-gaming) often have something to do with certain hardware not being able to handle multiple concurrent connections properly. Some hardware doesn't initiate and/or track them correctly and some hardware isn't able to close and reopen them fast enough.

The above can be due to an actual hardware limitation (shitty consumer-model routers, home-hubs etc.), or being limited by an ISP's particular firmware on said hardware (ISP supplied modems and/or home-hubs).

The best thing those of you with issues can do, is to provide Stardock with the make/model of each piece of hardware in your network map (ie. modem >> router >> etc.) including firmware versions so that some sort of "pattern" might be possible to detect.

thanks,

the Monk

I'll do this as soon as I get home tonight.

Still happening.

I have an issue where aevery 10 seconds or so I get about a 1 second lockup then everything goes back to working fine for the next 10 seconds and then it all repeats over and over. It has caused me to be unable to play this game over my local network with my friends which is really the only time I ever play this game. The game works just fine for everyone else over my router so I know that is not the issue. I have not tried playing online, but I assume it is the same. When I play a single player game or a lan game with no other human players I have no such problems.

I am thinking that it may have to do with an incompatibility of our NIC cards with this latest version on Demigod ( I haven't played any previous version on my new computer so I don't know if the problem goes back versions or not ). I was wondering if everyone with this problem could list their NIC card. I have a Realtek Gigabit Ethernet integrated NIC in my Asus P7P55D PRO Motherboard. Maybe if we find a similarity between our hardware we can get the developers the required information they need to start fixing this problem.

My model and drivers of the NIC are:

Realtek RTL8111B/C & RTL8112L 10/100/1000M LAN Driver V7.3.522.2009 for Windows 7 x64. (WHQL)

For no I cannot play Demigod at all with my friends over the LAN and I assume multiplayer on the net (will test when my friend gets home from work tonight) as well so the game is dead for me until this is fixed.

I have my computer run on LAN, using the jack from a Gigabyte G31M-ESL mobo on XP. Latest drivers, the problem persists.

pseudomelon what type of NIC do you have on that mobo? Realtek, atheros, etc...

I'd have to check, I haven't been able to touch the thing all day, sadly.

Strange.... my problem was with my friend on my wireless N and myself on a wired connection to the router. I played with another buddy last wekend and he brought over his desktop and I had no such problems with him (we were both wired). Its really strange because when I had my laptop I used to play with my buddy with his laptop and we were both on wireless with no problems what so ever.

D-Link DIR-615 by the way.

Quoting nukemeister,

reply 123

Sign me up. I played the whole evening and did not have one game without spikes.

i tried speed test from here

http://www.scanmyspeed.com/

my download speed:1.09kbps

my upload speed:0.87kbps.

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

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