What Does Latency Represent?
N_Recoup
Join Date: 2005-01-17 Member: 36126Members
Join Date: 2005-01-17 Member: 36126Members
<div class="IPBDescription">I have no clue!</div> You know the little numbers by my name, under Latency? What do those numbers mean?
When playing NS, or Sven Coop, or Brainbread, my latency looks like this:
42...53...117...386...412...663...1012...72...32...
This is extremely annoying. The number will start in the 30's and 40's, and shoot up to the hundreds or thousands. Now, I know this is ISP related. I've had 4 technicians out here to look at this and they all noticed something was wrong.
So unless I get some hard evidence of what these numbers mean, I cant really say "My internet is slowing down". What I'm really looking for is the "kbps" or "mbps" that these numbers could represent. Maybe I could at least CONVERT them if I knew what they stood for.
Any help?
When playing NS, or Sven Coop, or Brainbread, my latency looks like this:
42...53...117...386...412...663...1012...72...32...
This is extremely annoying. The number will start in the 30's and 40's, and shoot up to the hundreds or thousands. Now, I know this is ISP related. I've had 4 technicians out here to look at this and they all noticed something was wrong.
So unless I get some hard evidence of what these numbers mean, I cant really say "My internet is slowing down". What I'm really looking for is the "kbps" or "mbps" that these numbers could represent. Maybe I could at least CONVERT them if I knew what they stood for.
Any help?
Comments
(or maybe its just to the server) but I pretty sure its the above.
so 30 ping is cool, but when it gets to the thousands it means you computer is about a second behind the actualy server time. AKA lag
Edit: I don't really remember, but its something like getting to one agent to another, and if there is delay then the latency is the amount. In our terms, it was from router to router.
THAT is what latency is, and the lower the better.
Latency spikes are normally caused by something else taking the bandwidth of your line up. It can also be caused by a factor known as Contention.
Contention is the ratio of houses:actual lines and is normally 50:1.
If the x:1 line is a 10Mb/s connection, then for everyone to experience their maximum out of their connection, then they will need to have 200kb/s connections. Seeing as broadband is normally 512kb/s connections at the minimum, then with only on eperson, there is no problem, as 512<20000.
However, if you get 20 people on 512kb/s connections, then you get 10240kb/s being used. Still not a problem. Until you get to 40 people connecting.
Then you'll have 20480kb/s being used, which is the maximum that the contended line can sustain. Add a single other person onto that line, and it breaks the full connection limit. People start losing bandwidth to accomodate for the new people joining. I personally have a 2Mb/s connection, with a contention of 20:1, meaning that only 20 people share the same contended line. Seeing as I live in a street of old folks, it makes sense that I have a ludicrously stable latency.
In summary, Latency is a measurement of delay from your PC, back to your PC, via a remote server. Latency is affected by bandwidth, which can be used by other programs on your PC downloading data, or by Contention. Contention is the ratio of lines on a contended line (one which connects the houses individual phone lines to the local exchange.
If not, apologise to everyone for cuuting off their power for a while, and sit and bear it.
but they dont have it in my area. Fios is 15 mb/s for 50 dollars... most of the cablecompanies only provide 3 or 5 mb/s for 50 dollars. i dunno if we are supposed to link things like this but i suggest you get a new internet if you are getting frequent spikes.
Get the IP of the server you are connecting to, and do a ping first in a cmd ("dos") console (replace xxx of course with the server IP):
<!--c1--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>CODE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='CODE'><!--ec1-->ping xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx<!--c2--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--ec2-->
Look at the 'time=' results for each ping. You can play around with the options to perform more (or continuous [edit: actually, please DON'T abuse this unless you really want to **** off the server admin]) pings. This time may NOT be the same as your 'latency' you see when in-game (which is due to all sorts of factors), but is a good goal-post, and should NOT wildly fluctuate, e.g. from 30ms - 1000ms. If it does you know there is something at a network level, not NS-related, going on.
You can also try tracert:
<!--c1--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>CODE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='CODE'><!--ec1-->tracert xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx<!--c2--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--ec2-->
Watch the times again. If one sucker stands out, you know there is a problem at that hop. Look to the right and with any luck you may be able to deduce where the problem is (whether it is on your network, or your ISP, or some upstream provider or whatnot).
You can also play with the net_stat in the NS console. This draws pretty graphs which I am sure are really meaningful to smarty pants, and undoubtedly there are numerous threads on this topic, but since I am lucky and have never really had network problems, I never really cared to learn to interpret them.
The following are situations that are causing my ping to spike above (or significantly increases ping)
- the more people on the screen the higher the ping
- whenever an extra sensory skill is enabled that requires tracking of multiple objects the ping goes high and stays high for duration of the skill being operational
- whenever I'm an alien (due to the sensory capabilities)
Just so noone complains that it could be my ISP or whatever, if I sit in the waiting room (can't remember the name of the room) of the game, I can sit for ages and my ping stays at a consistant 30 - 90. I can also play other Half Life mods (TFC, CS) without only extreme rare cases of ping fluctuation. Haflife 2 seems to be even more consistant again.
I'm still doing research to see what else is happening so I apologise if its not very conclusive yet.
I have also found that playing with the halflife settings can make some improvements in keeping the ping more consistant, but thet don't eliminate the problems or make the ping comparible to that found in CS or TFC.
I am pretty sure this is the cause.
Or your ISP is just plain messed up.
I also have an intel 3.0Gb machine with 1Gb Ram and ATI 9800 Pro video card, I'm playing through a Steam client (if any of this makes any difference).
and I don't get the problem if I'm sitting on a server with only a couple of players or in the waiting room of a full server...but, as stated, earlier, I get it only under certain circumstances which are NOT isp related.
That doesn't explain my constant 50-80 latency.
And I only have a ~20% signal strangth, too.
Maybe wireless b is bad, but I have a wireless g connection and it has no effect on my gaming. The only problem I ever get is when there's someone downloading stuff on the computer that the router is wired to.
Actually, now that I think of it, the router keeps switching my connection between b and g for no particular reason, and neither one gives me issues.
[/ <!--emo&::nerdy::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/nerd-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='nerd-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> ]
the fix:
THERE IS NO FIX OH NOES!!!
JK..
change your rate (only if you have a very fast dsl or cable connection) to something like
rate 25000
and that should stop your lag problems.
cl_updaterate 100
cl_cmdrate 100
ex_interp .04
Put those in your config or console and see if it does anything...
I believe the one that shows up when holding tab takes into consideration it takes for the updated frame to draw on your screen too. So it's really how fast you see a change rather than just receiving a response from a pack.
cl_cmdrate 101
cl_updaterate 101
rate 25000
cl_rate 25000
cl_dl 300
ex_interp .05