Final Fantasy XIV Servers Specs.

Dear FFXIV Community.

I noticed something this Free Login weekend that's the latency was way up, And I got my self thinking, What are the current Specs for our current Data Centers.

The servers were recently updated supposedly when they released Stormblood, But we don't actually know where they were and what they went up too.

I've been actively searching for some details regarding the Specs for these servers and I was wondering how they compare with other larger games out there.

Latency has nothing to do with server specs. I get pings in the low 20s from Washington.

You just have a bad route.

In addition to above, hardware info is usually not released by game publishers, that's not something of public interest.

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Originally Posted by KiwiBubbletea

Dear FFXIV Community.

I noticed something this Free Login weekend that's the latency was way up, And I got my self thinking, What are the current Specs for our current Data Centers.

The servers were recently updated supposedly when they released Stormblood, But we don't actually know where they were and what they went up too.

I've been actively searching for some details regarding the Specs for these servers and I was wondering how they compare with other larger games out there.

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By Carrier Moogle.

In all seriousness, latency is a product of multiple moving parts, of which SE only has control of the part inside their part of the data center. If they lease part of a data center, or a building/warehouse to have the servers, there are geographically imposed limitations like distance from the actual carrier hotel and distance from trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific marine cables to consider. Anyone on the eastern half of the country can take a route that either goes through Canada, through the mid-west through Chicago, or through the south-west via Arizona before hitting San Jose. That route can be over various Tier 1 backhauls, which most are owned by Verizon, Comcast or AT&T. So if you're on one of these ISP's, you get no say in how your traffic gets routed. You may live in Florida and be routed to NYC before being routed to San Jose because that may be where Comcast's peering point is for everything in that time zone. If you're on Level3 or cogent backhaul, your ISP is probably just cheap, and that is usually he selling point for people who stream movies/video and don't play online games.

The individual specs of the server ultimately don't matter as each instance is spun up as needed from our perspective, and thus CRZ (Cross Realm Zones) suggest that the world servers are merely the gateway to other machines behind the "server", and those can be scaled up or down as needed.

Bit of a crapshoot, but you can figure out who runs the server farms and look up their sizzle reel on the types of hardware they offer. Doesn't rule out any sort of custom package SE might have put together, but you can make some guesses at least.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

By Carrier Moogle.

In all seriousness, latency is a product of multiple moving parts, of which SE only has control of the part inside their part of the data center. If they lease part of a data center, or a building/warehouse to have the servers, there are geographically imposed limitations like distance from the actual carrier hotel and distance from trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific marine cables to consider. Anyone on the eastern half of the country can take a route that either goes through Canada, through the mid-west through Chicago, or through the south-west via Arizona before hitting San Jose. That route can be over various Tier 1 backhauls, which most are owned by Verizon, Comcast or AT&T. So if you're on one of these ISP's, you get no say in how your traffic gets routed. You may live in Florida and be routed to NYC before being routed to San Jose because that may be where Comcast's peering point is for everything in that time zone. If you're on Level3 or cogent backhaul, your ISP is probably just cheap, and that is usually he selling point for people who stream movies/video and don't play online games.

The individual specs of the server ultimately don't matter as each instance is spun up as needed from our perspective, and thus CRZ (Cross Realm Zones) suggest that the world servers are merely the gateway to other machines behind the "server", and those can be scaled up or down as needed.

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There are more than 2 paths. I go through VA directly to CA. No AZ or IL.

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Originally Posted by alimdia

In addition to above, hardware info is usually not released by game publishers, that's not something of public interest.

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Oh it's of huge public interest.... to hackers. The more you know about a system the more likely you are to find an exploit. You never want you server hardware to be public knowledge, that's just begging to be breached.

I am sure the servers are doing way better than Montreal in terms having less issues servers tech stuff.Capacity issues is on engine Eureka is prime exemple of the engine struggle & mmo stuff should being added awhile ago. As for they re ISP is kinda meh/cheap but might be the contract they have with them.I don't exepect SE to go with deluxe edition with them.As for location they could place it better next time but then again its pending on ISP available places.

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Originally Posted by KaldeaSahaline

There are more than 2 paths. I go through VA directly to CA. No AZ or IL.

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This is not a contest.

https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-conte...-fiber-map.png

https://www.sprint.net/images/North-America-GMPLS.png

http://www.pacifichost.com/images/co...etwork-map.jpg

http://www.level3.com/-/media/files/...etwork-map.pdf

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

This is not a contest.

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Great info - thanks for that. So which way do you think my traffic goes (with respect to FF14?). The only nodes I touch are local ones, Ashburn VA and SNJ -> Sacramento.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Latency has nothing to do with server specs. I get pings in the low 20s from Washington.

You just have a bad route.

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Within 500 mi of the server and get 40s-70s, with frequent spikes. On two different ISPs. Both end up garbled once they enter the NTT's service, and bog badly after about 8 PST, especially on Fri/Sat. All other games unaffected. Unlike during HW, none of my VPNs (WTFast, Battleping, Mudfish, Pingzapper) have any real effect on XIV ping or spikes, either, each running into the same issues within the last few hops.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Within 500 mi of the server and get 40s-70s, with frequent spikes. On two different ISPs. Both end up garbled once they enter the NTT's service, and bog badly after about 8 PST, especially on Fri/Sat. All other games unaffected. Unlike during HW, no VPNs have any real effect on XIV ping or spikes, either.

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See, I have a bad ISP out here, where occasionally their DNS drops XIV completely, but I just VPN and it boots up fine. Sounds more like an issue with the ISPs going through the same nodes than anything. A VPN can only get you around the issue if there is an alternate path it can take.

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Originally Posted by KaldeaSahaline

Great info - thanks for that. So which way do you think my traffic goes (with respect to FF14?). The only nodes I touch are local ones, Ashburn VA and SNJ -> Sacramento.

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Well normally I'd say Ashburn would route through Megaport IX (Ashburn) , that's IX for Internet Exchange, not 9. https://prefix.pch.net/applications/...il.php?id=1956 , and Hurricane Electric is in San Jose and peers with them. But NTT has a peering node in Ashburn, but who knows if that's their fiber (ae-2.r23.asbnva02.us.bb.gin.ntt.net).

Interesting to note that Megaport IX peers directly with Riot games (League of Legends) though.

Routes can change frequently, but if you managed to get a direct link between the east coast and the west coast without going through AZ or IL, then you really should not have any network-related issues with the NA game. The complaints that people are having trend towards the SE/NTT or NTT/Comcast peering arrangement. Of which Comcast does peer with NTT, and NTT's largest peer is Level3, so if your ISP is not one of the big 3 US ones (comcast, verizon, at&t) then it's likely getting to NTT via level3.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

See, I have a bad ISP out here, where occasionally their DNS drops XIV completely, but I just VPN and it boots up fine. Sounds more like an issue with the ISPs going through the same nodes than anything. A VPN can only get you around the issue if there is an alternate path it can take.

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It's basically one path going through San Jose that is the problem because it can't handle the load of all the people using it during primetime hours (~5-10pm) and involves a company Comcast is trying to screw over, or at least that's how I've come to understand it.

You can blame NTT. They have a couple of nodes that are notorious for causing some issues. Most people are fine unless they happen to be unfortunate enough to get routed through those bad nodes.

for me the troubles happen when it's routed through San Jose
If i set a VPN to avoid san jose i never have issues

ups my latency from ~11 to something in the 90's but the spikes do go away

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Originally Posted by Nihility

for me the troubles happen when it's routed through San Jose
If i set a VPN to avoid san jose i never have issues

ups my latency from ~11 to something in the 90's but the spikes do go away

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Yeah, that's the one that always gives NA players issues. Had to edit my post for that.

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Originally Posted by Nihility

for me the troubles happen when it's routed through San Jose
If i set a VPN to avoid san jose i never have issues

ups my latency from ~11 to something in the 90's but the spikes do go away

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Originally Posted by Kazrah

Yeah, that's the one that always gives NA players issues. Had to edit my post for that.

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Part of that problem is that San Jose is right there with Silicon Valley, arguably one would say they most congested network segments in the country despite being one of the most robust. So it makes a bit of ironic sense that any connections travelling through San Jose and not terminating there would hit a lot more congestion than elsewhere.