An Old Trick to Improve Latency! Disabling your Nagle Algorithm.

[Razor]

The Problem
To cut to the chase, I've been hearing that a lot of people have horrid lag problems with the game as it is right now; to the point of not being able to play competitively in endgame content that requires quick reaction times. (Or rather, a fast computer reaction time!) Personally, I've never had a single issue with lag, but then something dawned on me.

Anyone who's played the game Mabinogi will know how much of a massive ping/latency check that game is when it comes to being able to even play it. It's a unique game that requires a very very fast connection to avoid suffering horrible deaths. On that game, it was very common to do something know as to "Denagle" your computer. Or in short, apply a minor edit to your registry that disables something known as the Nagle Algorithm.

I'll let someone else comment on what exactly this little trick does to your computer because I don't know the in depth nerdy details. Check this handy link for more information on the Nagle Algorithm: http://smallvoid.com/article/winnt-nagle-algorithm.html However, I do know that there is a very considerable boost to your latency especially if you run on a weaker internet connection. It sounds really scary to do, and I know even I was very skeptical about it at first years ago. Rest assured, it won't ruin your computer and can very easily be reversed, but you should still be very careful when tampering with your registry!

The Solution
To the best of my knowledge, the short of it is that the Nagle Algorithm is a kind of flood-gate process your computer does that restricts your potential to send/recieve incoming packets (tiny bits of data sent across the internet to your computer). As the article above describes, it was invented to help with antiquated connections like dial-up not get bogged down or overloaded. It might be fine for web browsing and such, but in The Navel (Hard), ain't no body got time for that. Disabling this algorithm boosts your performance by unrestricting the flow of data your computer can receive. (If someone can explain it better than this, by all means =)

So how do you actually do it? Well first let me re-iterate again: Be very careful when editing the registry of your computer. This little process is very safe and harmless to your computer, but changing the wrong thing can be very bad.

There are many many guides on the internet, and I would recommend watching a couple of them to really familiarize yourself with the process. Especially the video guides since they show you step-by-step where to click. The following video is short and sweet and gets the message done well with only a small amount of treacherous music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRBKXm-Cs4c

This one is also very very good, and rather humourous, but is a bit of NSFW (swearing):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oDdagykUVM

In short; it boils down to this:

Step 1: goto Start > Run > type in: "regedit" no quotations and enter
(This opens the Windows Registry. You are free to browse all the folders at your leisure, looking around at things is harmless, just don't touch!)

Step 2: Navigate through the folders to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces

Step 3: The trickiest part, finding the proper folder. You'll need your IP, if you don't know it, just google "IP Address" and google will tell your IP. Or you can find it through Start > Run > cmd > type "ipconfig" no quotes and press enter. Then, as shown in the second video link, you need to find the folder that has your IP address listed inside as one of the parameters across from DhcpIPAddress (Jump to 1:29 in the 2nd video to see what it should look like)

Step 4: Anywhere inside the panel to the right, provide a right mouse click and goto New > New DWORD Value (32-bit). (Doesn't matter your operating system, it'll need to be 32-bit regardless)
This next part is CASE SENSITIVE. It MUST be typed how it is shown below without the quotation marks.
Create the first one, "TcpAckFrequency".
Create the second one, "TCPNoDelay".

Step 5: After these values are created, right click each one and set the "Value Data" to 1. You don't need to mess with the base, leave it set to Hexidecimal.

Step 6: Close out of that window (changes are saved automatically), and reboot your computer. This will apply your changes and you are all set and ready to go!

I hope this little trick serves you all well, I know it was always the first thing I did to a new computer when I was very into playing Mabinogi. It made an incredible difference. I can't say how much it can or will affect XIV, because it's already been done to my computer ^^; I'll try to do it on my girlfriend's computer tonight (unless it's already been done) and edit this post with any noticed improvements!

Best of luck to you all!

[Arcaloid]

Another thing ppl do for mabinogi is to lower the MTU (whatever that is) by using some command line like 'netsh interface ipv4 set subinterface "Wireless Network Connection" mtu=386 store=persistent', maybe try that as well...

[Gyrus]

and this wont affect any other computers that may be on your network? J/w? I might give this a try even though i have a solid connection and only see minor lag, I'd like tosee if improves the receiving though. Like i said though, If im playing XIV, Will other computers network usage fell more bogged down?

[Iryu]

You can also disable your nagle algorithm by running leatrix latency fix.

[WHS]

This really won't matter much to anyone. The real issue is on SE server side. Till they truly fix the issues on their end mostly over spiked capacity is the key issue. This will never be a true fix or much relief in the long term. Just wait and see.

[ChanceFurystrike]

Nagle's Algorithm essentially holds packet data if there has not been an ack (acknowledgement of receipt) for the previous sent packet, and keeps buffering until the ack has been received. The reason this can cause issues with lag is highlighted beautifully with The Navel (Hard Mode). When I am well out of the way of his landslide before the timer finishes (and not just as it finishes but over a second before it finishes) and it still hits me (happened a few nights ago) this means that stuff going on on the server side outpaced what happened on my side. I don't know how much this will help though unless SE sucks at network programming since most skilled network coders just bypass Nagle's Algorithm altogether. I guess that's a big assumption to make though considering the reported server-side validation issues (in before my post gets deleted just for mentioning it lol)

[Razor]

and this wont affect any other computers that may be on your network? J/w? I might give this a try even though i have a solid connection and only see minor lag, I'd like tosee if improves the receiving though. Like i said though, If im playing XIV, Will other computers network usage fell more bogged down?

No, this only affects the specific computer you do it to. I've never noticed any impact on the other computers within my home network, but I can't imagine it could even affect them. At the end of the day you won't be "using" any more data, but if your home connection is very congested then your connection speed will no doubt still suffer as a result. As someone else said above me, it's really about how fast your computer can finish up handling one packet and moving on to the next so it really only ever impacts MMO/video-game lag. (Since that is a persistent flow of packets). Normal web browsing shouldn't really see any noticable difference.