Ping Problems

[Wanted Bob]

Hey guys,

Using the resident network at my university has mostly been a pleasent experience. However I've noticed some strange ping issues since I started using it.

The connection to Steam is generally very good, sometimes I can get speeds of 2 mb/sec.

Two games in particular I've attempted to play online with little success. The Left 4 Dead 2 demo I tried to play a private, local match, only to get a ping of 1400 or so. Also, when browsing for a server in Shattered Horizon, the pings seem quite respectable (<100), but upon joining, my ping is about 600 for a server with less than 50, and every other player seems to have a decent connection.

I'm unsure whether this problem is associated with my network or not, as my network drivers are up to date, and I've seen to it that my firewall is not interfering. Is this issue related to the residence network, and if so how do I fix it?

 

[Higlac]

Contact your network administrator, there might be some sort of whitelist for gaming or something. Or it might be insisting to proxy all of your communications.

 

[Wanted Bob]

Hmm, so is there anything I can do at my end, or is my only option to go to the IT services?

 

[Iced_Eagle]

Try disabling any software firewall (for example Windows Firewall). Me and my roommate were playing CSS on LAN, and he was getting 1000 ping, which was unbelievable. MS Firewall was just taking its sweet time analyzing the packets, making the game unplayable. He just added the exception, and it worked perfectly fine.

Me personally though, I just disable it altogether.

 

[Wanted Bob]

I tried disabling the firewall, no such luck. I'm gonna try other games to see if it makes a difference.

 

[Wanted Bob]

Hmm, so I've tried other multiplayer games (TF2 and L4D), and both appear to be working fine, but the ping remains super high for both Shattered Horizon and L4D2 demo. I've checked to see that my firewall allows both programs, and even tried both games with the firewall turned off. No such luck.

Anyone got any other ideas?

 

[VirusType2]

Have you forwarded the ports?

www.portforward.com

 

[Qonfused]

University = no port forwarding, usually. It's very frustrating.

 

[Wanted Bob]

I would give port forwarding a try, but my computer wont create a network map so I cant find out what the router in my residence is.

Screw it, I'm going to IT services tomorrow and asking them about this. Hopefully they arent like Best Buy's Geek Squad and actually know a thing or two about computers.

 

[No Limit]

When you do a standard ping to like yahoo.com what do you get? You can ping by going to your command prompt (start > run > cmd) and then typing ping yahoo.com

However, it sounds like this is something on your end since it is only happening on certain games.

 

[Wanted Bob]

Hmm, weird. I did what you said No Limit and this is what I get:

Pinging yahoo.com [209.191.93.53] with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Reply from 130.15.200.1: Destination net unreachable.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 209.191.93.53:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 1, Lost =3 (75% loss)

I've tried it with a couple of other well known websites, and the result is similar (same unreachable message, and a loss or 50% or 75%). What does this mean?

 

[No Limit]

Is this a PC or a laptop? If its a laptop might be good to take it to a different network to see what happens.

You got any other computers on the same network you can try this out on?

You are for sure getting large packet loss so this isn't specific to any single application. The trick is troubleshooting to find out whats causing it.

One more question, how are you plugged in to the internet? Is there a plug on your wall? Is anything else between this plug and your computer such as a router or switch?

 

[Wanted Bob]

It's a laptop, and I will be taking it back to Ottawa with me this weekend so I can test out the games then (I'm in University right now, so my hunch is this has to do with the residence network).

Unless I get one of my friends here to download the L4D2 demo (though I think it'll be too late now), I dont really have a method of testing this out on another computer.

I am plugged into my wall with a standard ethernet cable, and after analyzing the network map there doesnt appear to be a router in the network. There are a couple of switches that link all the computers together, which then travels through another computer, then to the internet. Thats as much as I can make out so far. There is also an Internet Gateway device, but for some reason it doesnt show up as part of the network map.

Hope this info helps somewhat.

 

[No Limit]

Unless I get one of my friends here to download the L4D2 demo (though I think it'll be too late now), I dont really have a method of testing this out on another computer.

I meant can you just do a ping test again (ping yahoo.com) on another computer hooked up to the same network? See what you get, this will tell us if its your computer or the network.

And there is a router in there somewhere (probably that computer in your network map everything hooks up to), but it is controlled by your university's IT department; you will be at their mercy if that's whats giving you problems. But I have a hard time believing a university network would be getting such high packet loss, I would be a lot more suspecious of your computer.

Since it's a laptop do you have any wireless networks outside of the university network you can try the ping test on?

 

[Wanted Bob]

I know the university has a wireless network, but I'm not sure if that will produce a different result. Worth a try at least...

And I'll get the ping check on another computer...

EDIT: I just tried it on another computer, the results were even worse. None of the packets made it back.

 

[No Limit]

It could just be that your university blocks ICMP packets. When you get high pings on those servers is everything still playable?

 

[Wanted Bob]

Well, the L4D2 demo was completely and utterly unplayable (1400 ping, so to be expected). Shattered Horizon I can do decently in, but there are still instances where I'm at a disadvantage due to bullet lag, or people jumping around instantaneously (the ping tends to vary from 300-700). As I said I'll test these out more when I am outside the university network this weekend, but as for now is there any way to circumvent this problem or am I out of luck? The tech support was of no use, as none of them knew what port forwarding is, and when I explained it to them they said it sounded like something their IT services wouldnt support.

 

[No Limit]

The IT people at your university didn't know what port forwarding was? But port forwarding is not your issue and you will have no control over what ports are open and which ones aren't.

But I still have a hard time believing that your university network could have such high pocket loss. Most of the time these networks are managed by professionals that know what they are doing. Again it could be that they just block ICMP (this includes ping) packets. This would mean that your ping shows up as very high in games but that high ping would have no effect on you. Did you try multiple servers on L4D2? Does L4D2 play fine in single player?

What about running a basic speed test here:

http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

Sorry if it seems like Im asking a lot of questions, hard to guess at whats causing your issue without being in front of the computer.

 

[Wanted Bob]

Hmm, well now I've discovered something interesting. The university also has a wireless network in addition to its wired network. I tried Shattered Horizon on there and the ping was totally normal. I did the ping check for yahoo.com and there was no packet loss. I had a look at the network map, and it showed that when connected wirelessly, the laptop connects straight to the gateway, and not through the admin computer like the wired network does, so I guess that admin is the problem here.

I had attempted multiple connections to servers, as well as trying a local host, though neither seemed to make a difference (sadly, I think the demo doesnt work anymore, and I havent bought the game). It did run fine in singleplayer, no problems whatsoever.

Finally, I ran the speed test you linked (connected to New York, seemed to be the closest one to me), and got these results:

Last Result:
Download Speed: 16691 kbps (2086.4 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 945 kbps (118.1 KB/sec transfer rate

Also, I really appreciate your help, ask whatever questions you need to, I'm just thankful for some help

 

[No Limit]

Without knowing what the computer you are connect to does its not very practical to speculate. The network map was put in place for simple home users, it cant really be used to speculate about a corporate/university network.

From what you said above I am really starting to believe even more that you aren't really getting any pocket loss and that your university is instead blocking ICMP packets. This means when you try to ping something those packets will be dropped, but your standard packets on the transport layer will get through. You would not see such a high download rate if most of your packets were truly getting dropped.

Do you have any other multiplayer games you can try? How do they play online?

Finally, it does seem like it is a problem you wont be able to fix on your end, it has to do with a firewall that you have no access to. If the wireless network is something you can freely connect to from your location that will probably be your best bet. Otherwise try contacting your IT department again and ask them why you are getting such high packet loss when you use ping; that's a question they should be able to answer. If they can't ask them to get someone higher up on the technical support chain.

 

[Wanted Bob]

Well I just playtested two other multiplayer games, the original L4D, and TF2. Both ran much smoother than L4D2 or Shattered Horizon did (receiving 160 ping for L4D, and 42 for TF2).

I'll try to phone them today before they close to see if I can get some more answers.

EDIT: Alright I just contacted them, and though they appeared to understand my problem, the answer I got wasnt exactly what I was looking for (or maybe it is, I'm not sure). They basically said that the traffic on the wired network is much higher than it is on the wireless network, especially in the evening. In any case, they gave a reference number and filed it onward to their second level staff to contact me later (whether this will actually happen is anyones guess). Does this sound like a plausible reason, or do you think there is more to it than that?