How to determine which server is causing you lag

You can find out which server is causing you ffxiv lag by using functions included in windows. This is for analyzing the lag where everything stops for a couple seconds, not continuous long latency.
TLDR; dos window, netstat, tracert, ping

Step 1: NETSTAT
Determine the ip of your game server. You might think you already know this, but check anyway. There is some misinformation going around about the isp used. Before you start your game, open a command prompt window. Type netstat. If you want to save the info you can type it like
Netstat > c:\temp\filename.txt
But the temp folder has to already exist. Create it if necessary. You can use any folder, but you cant just use the root (c:) folder. Now login to the game – all the way in. Tab out to the dos window and do the netstat again. You should see a few new lines almost at the end, like so:
TCP (deleted for privacy) 199.91.189.31:55028 ESTABLISHED
That 3rd field is the game server I use – NA normal. Ignore the :55028.
Now you know their ip. Note that their ip will remain the same for some time but eventually (probably when they boot their router) it can change.

Step 2: TRACERT
In the dos window type
Tracert 199.91.189.31
Or whatever your server ip was that you found in step 1. Or optionally you can use
Tracert 199.91.189.31 > c:\temp\tracert.txt
to save the data to file. This shows the path your data uses to get to the game server. Any one of those hops could be causing your lag. If there is a timeout in the list just ignore it for now.

Step 3: PING
Now you can determine which of those hops is causing the lag. Start at the 2nd hop. Type
Ping –t ip#
Don’t use the > redirect this time because the t makes this continuous output and you want it onscreen. Play your game and when you get one of those freezes tab out to the dos window and check. If the last couple lines show timeout then this is the hop that is causing lag. If there was no timeout coincident with gamelag then stop the ping and start a ping on hop 3. Eventually you will find the cutoff where every hop previous does not timeout and every hop after does. That’s the one that is causing problems. If there are no timeouts coincident with lag all the way up to SE's server then its them, but if its somewhere along the path then its not. If its hop #2 on your tracert then its your isp.

Note:
Remember that ping timeouts can occur separately from game lag. Servers typically assign lower priority to ping requests, so pings (and tracerts) may occasionally show timeouts when the game is not lagging at all. Those are meaningless. You need to wait till there is game freeze and then check if the ping timed out as well.

You can also use resources monitor to get live data.

1. WIN + R
2. type "perfmon /res"
3. click "networking" tab
4. check "ffxiv.exe" from the processes list

you'll get something like this with IPs, doors and latency:
http://i.snag.gy/UQDnt.jpg

Still doesn't help that SE Picked a cheap backbone that can't handle the load

While I understand that lag is distressing, don't try anything that will get you into trouble. Continually pinging a server can be interpreted as a Denial of Service attack and result in adverse consequences.

To those saying Denial of Service attack, you misread him. The OP is likely old school and is referring to Command Prompt as Dos, remember good old MS Dos? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS. The actual commands are: netstat, tracert, ping. There is nothing denial of service attack like in this.

That said, this is a bit odd, because the servers are on the same network... If you have a bad connection to one, you will have a bad connection to all on that network as it travels the same path so these commands are not going to give you very good results that would be different from you realizing you're on a popular server. Character creation during peak will tell you which server is most busy and you can then decide which to go to.

You will not get lag on 1 server and not on another through the simple fact of your own connection to that server, the lag comes from how popular that server is that results in it being overloaded with congestion. This means you might think X server is good, but it might not be X Servers peak time where as Y server might be bad but thats because its peak time or most congested was at the time you did these tests, but do you play at that time? Was it common for it to hit that congestion, lots of variables.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by viion

To those saying Denial of Service attack, you misread him. The OP is likely old school and is referring to Command Prompt as Dos, remember good old MS Dos? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS. The actual commands are: netstat, tracert, ping. There is nothing denial of service attack like in this.

That said, this is a bit odd, because the servers are on the same network... If you have a bad connection to one, you will have a bad connection to all on that network as it travels the same path so these commands are not going to give you very good results that would be different from you realizing you're on a popular server. Character creation during peak will tell you which server is most busy and you can then decide which to go to.

You will not get lag on 1 server and not on another through the simple fact of your own connection to that server, the lag comes from how popular that server is that results in it being overloaded with congestion. This means you might think X server is good, but it might not be X Servers peak time where as Y server might be bad but thats because its peak time or most congested was at the time you did these tests, but do you play at that time? Was it common for it to hit that congestion, lots of variables.

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Yes, using the actual ping command to ping the servers is quite a bit different from the programs hackers use to cause denial of service. The rate of ping is no where near enough to cause problems. These commands have been well known and used since the bad old days of early UO when lag was much more common. I had to work over the brain cells a bit to remember how it was done.

The process I suggested has nothing to do with which game server you play on though. It has to do with the path the data travels on its way to the game server. The suggested testing will show you which node the lag is coming from on the path between you and the game server. If its the second hop, its your isp (1st hop is your modem). If its farther down the line perhaps you can identify if it is cogentco. If it is the last hop then it is SE.

Greetings,

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