Lagging on perfect connection.

[BigTough]

I've been lagging for a few days now making it very difficult to run instances. In fact, I couldn't even cap poetics lastnight because the lag was just way too bad. It's not my connection as I have been in touch with my ISP and ran mutliple speed tests and am running on a perfect connection and even sometimes better connection than what I am allowed.

I am on Malboro, not sure if it's the server end or what but I can't play like this.. I even did a PC clean. I never lag.. and I'm a tank so this is unacceptable.. I died twice on the way to the first boss of Keep of the Lake lastnight. That never would happen.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/4370826432.png

Edit: might have to copy and paste link for it to work.

Edit2: Ran benchmark

Tested on: 5/19/2015 10:17:14 AM
Score: 7030
Average Frame Rate: 57.330
Performance: Extremely High
-Easily capable of running the game on the highest settings.
Loading Times by Scene
Scene #1 4.489 sec
Scene #2 7.329 sec
Scene #3 6.815 sec
Scene #4 5.622 sec
Scene #5 5.418 sec
Scene #6 2.194 sec
Total Loading Time 31.869 sec

[Eye_Gore]

Grade B- is not perfect. On that note, you just checked it to your local server, what is it to the SE servers? You're probably being routed all over the place before making the connection to SE. Clogged pipes.

[BigTough]

Pretty sure it's Grade B- compared to the higest connections like broadband 100-150 or something. My ISP sub is supposed to give me 30mbps and I'm getting a better connection than that because my ISP allows it.

How do I check my connection to the SE servers?

Edit: I'm also on a NA server living in NA.

[Kaze3434]

check where you are being routed. speed tests do nothing to show your connection to the server.

[BigTough]

How do I do that? I'm not sure I understand...

[Eye_Gore]

Ping 184.107.107.176 ( I think)

[Raist]

Wrong address. That 186 address is a webserver that hosts sites in the EIDOS lineup as well as a few games from SE. It is on i-web lines and has nothing to do with the game servers on Ormuco's lines.

You can get the actual address you use while logged fully into the game by either running the netstat command from a CMD prompt or by running Resource Moniter (resmon from the search/run box) and looking for the address ffxiv is using under the TCP or network sections. The servers in Canada start with 199. For Japan they will usually start with 124, but occasionally may see one starting with 202.

Alternatively you can use the lobby server DNS names.

neolobby02.ffxiv.com
neolobby04.ffxiv.com
neolobby06.ffxiv.com

Those are the ones for Canada. The ones in Japan look the same but use odd numbers (01,03,05).

Note that even though you play on a server in Canada you still connect to Tokyo for authentication, version checking, and content in the launcher and such. It is vey easy for things to go south along a route and knacker things up. It happens often, and has been shown time and time again to be an issue in route to the servers and not the servers themselves. Some of the more frequent offenders are Level3, TiNet/Spa, and alter.net.

If you spot issues in a trace you need to get the results forwarded to your ISP's Tier3 support team. They will be the best people to analyze the route and file for escalation to pull in the right people or to otherwise tweak things to try to get around any failing/congested nodes.

That is what typically is at fault here...bad network segments that are ramping up latency and causing retransmits or loss of session. Your "speed" is not an issue...what you are actually testing is throughput, more appropriately gauged as your bandwidth and not speed. The electrons all flow at the same speed according to the medium used (copper or fiber). The difference is how many are bundled per cycle--that is your bandwidth. The two work together to provide your capacity (or throughput) of say 50mbps.

This game barely requires more than dialup levels of bandwidth for normal gameplay. ADSL lite is more than enough for this game. The problem is your latency..more specifically it's consistency to remain low so packets are sent/received in a timely and orderly fashion so as to avoid retransmits or packet loss.

[StouterTaru]

Hit start button, type "cmd" then enter. Command prompt opens up.

Type in "tracert -d 184.107.107.176"

This will show you the route you take to the NA datacenter, and if there are any blockages along the way.

[BigTough]

I'm being routed to 9 different ip address's before I reach the destination. One of them times out, this just seems insane.

[StouterTaru]

I'm being routed to 9 different ip address's before I reach the destination. One of them times out, this just seems insane.

It's standard to go through that many hops. It starts with your computer, to your modem, to your ISP, then through the tubes that make up the internets. Any hops over 100ms are borderline slow, a total trip over 500ms will cause you to lag at times.

The one timing out is likely your issue, and programs like wtfast will allow your computer to stop banging its head against that wall every few seconds, and just go around it.