Server locations, Latency & Australia - Page 9

• Turkalton · 12/11/07, 3:47 AM

At the time of posting i am only using the Windows XP Registry change and have noticed a significant difference in latency.

I'm only posting this because unlike the majority of WoW players, i am unfortunate enough to be on an ISDN internet connection (DSL unavailable due to a RIM exchange and Telstra sucking QQ).

With this hack i have gone from 700-900 regular latency in orgrimmar and whilst raiding kara(yes i can still tank relatively well with this latency.) However with this fix i believe i can get back down to close to DSL speed, it sits around 500 in ORG now so cant wait to try this in a Raid situation. Im actually seeing a constant 300 whilst doing the dailies today, woohoo!

Anyone else raid on an ISDN connection? Curious to see how you go with 25man instances especially as a tank.

Plimmer · 12/11/07, 5:05 AM

Tried the regedit hack. Was at around 100ms before it and this is the result.

Not during primetime though. My regular download speed did suffer though. Went from around 600kb/s to about 400kb/s with a single thread download.

Tinkerfizzle · 12/11/07, 5:08 AM

Like a few others here, I'm using the TcpAckFrequency registry edit - at first, I was skeptical about it, but after trying the fix, I was able to immediately notice the difference: I live in the Northeastern US and I often would have pings anywhere from 150 to 260 during off-hours, but during peak hours(esp. 6:00 PM to 10:00) it would go from 320 to 400, especially bad in raids or large-scale battlegrounds.

After trying it for a couple days, I was just in total disbelief how much this improved my latency and the consistency of it in-game. I have yet to see my ping rise above 100ms(40-60 pretty much everywhere but Alterac Valley, etc) in three days, and the difference it has made for my game experience is simply stunning!

Kinz · 12/11/07, 5:49 AM

Originally Posted by Baalzaman

Another way to do this (if you are not too worried about anything other than wow lag).

To get low pings with 2 simple registry hacks do the following. You need to apply both registry changes to get the maximum effect.

1 - TcpAckFrequency - NOTE if you are running Windows Vista this setting may not have any effect - a hotfix is needed which i'm tracking down. This works fine under Windows XP

Type "regedit" in windows "run.." dialog to bring up registry menu

Then find:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\

There will be multiple NIC interfaces listed in there, find the one you use to connect to the internet, there will be several interfaces listed (they have long names like {7DBA6DCA-FFE8-4002-A28F-4D2B57AE8383}. Click each one, the right one will have lots of settings in it and you will see your machines IP address listed there somewhere. Right-click in the right hand pane and add a new DWORD value, name it TcpAckFrequency, then right click the entry and click Modify and assign a value of 1.

You can change it back to 2 (default) at a later stage if it affects your other TCP application performance. it tells windows how many TCP packets to wait before sending ACK. if the value is 1, windows will send ACK every time it receives a TCP package.

2 - TCPNoDelay
This one is pretty simple

Discussed here

Type "regedit" in windows "run.." dialog to bring up registry menu

Then find:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSMQ\Parameters

Right-click in the right hand pane and add a new DWORD value, name it TCPNoDelay, then right click the entry and click Modify and assign a value of 1.

Click Ok and close the registry editor, then reboot your PC.

I have found the performance to be at least as good as routing via a linux box, possibly better.

Great fix I tried the first one and it seems to of helped me (I play from UK to US servers), though there were several folders with my IP in so I just put it in the longest one, should I add it to the others too? or will that screw stuff up? (As you can tell I suck at computers)

Also for the second fix, I don't have a MSMQ folder at all, my computer is a little bit old which may be why but seeing the results people have had I'd like to get both fixes working. Running Xp not vista.

seminarca · 12/11/07, 7:43 AM

Originally Posted by Wodahs

Extended maintenance for US realms for tomorrow, Tuesday, has been posted. Its for 'server software updates', but I am not sure if that means patch, or not.

From the 2.3.2 thread (bolded emphasis mine). Yet when I log in to the game (1 hour 40 minutes after the servers went down), I don't get a patch download. Starting up the Launcher does nothing and BackgroundDownloader tells me data for the next patch isn't available. So who's secretly hoping the server software updates are to address/fix the latency issues? It wouldn't surprise me really, considering how much noise has been made over it these past few weeks =x

Baalzaman · 12/11/07, 2:16 PM

Originally Posted by Kinz

Also for the second fix, I don't have a MSMQ folder at all, my computer is a little bit old which may be why but seeing the results people have had I'd like to get both fixes working. Running Xp not vista.

Some other people had this as well, I am not sure as to why this entry is missing.

You can add it yourself by copying the text below, saving it to a text file and rename it msmq.reg. Then right-click the file, select merge and click ok to the box that pops up. This registry file has the TCPNoDelay setting already entered.

******snip below******

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSMQ]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSMQ\Parameters]
"TCPNoDelay"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSMQ\Parameters\OCMsetup]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSMQ\Parameters\Security]
"SecureDSCommunication"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSMQ\Parameters\setup]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSMQ\Setup]

******snip above******

Baalzaman · 12/11/07, 2:19 PM

Further to this, this post here http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...1447&sid=1#190 links to the hotfixes needed for Windows Vista

Biscuitnet · 12/11/07, 11:56 PM

EDIT: Nvm

Joink · 12/12/07, 6:56 AM

My avg ping dropped about 150ms with the registry settings.

Nice.

• koaschten · 12/12/07, 7:45 AM

To all those people fearing that using FreeCap might get you a Ban, i have been using Freecap due to limitations of a University Dorm Firewall for about a year in 2005-2006 and didn't get into trouble.

Ronnie · 12/12/07, 11:10 AM

Originally Posted by Baalzaman

2 - TCPNoDelay
This one is pretty simple

Discussed here

Type "regedit" in windows "run.." dialog to bring up registry menu

Then find:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSMQ\Parameters

Right-click in the right hand pane and add a new DWORD value, name it TCPNoDelay, then right click the entry and click Modify and assign a value of 1.

Correct me if I'm wrong but this disables nagling in Microsoft Message Queuing service (MSMQ) only, it does NOT disable it for every other tcp connection.

So this registry key is useless and has absolutely no effect on WoW.

xiaoxin21 · 12/13/07, 12:59 AM

Originally Posted by Cadfael

And I'm still interested in feedback, too...

I tried your java program with freecap and socks 5 and it dont seem to work that well. When i initially log in, my ping was 212(previous was about 600 without anything). However, my ping after like 10 mins of play will raise to about 500.

This is much higher than compared to about 200 when using lowerping so I am not sure on what I am missing in the steps.Does this program only do the setting of no delay or anything more?Set my port to 1338.

Namsar · 12/14/07, 12:59 AM

From the 2.3.2 PTR

General
* Reduced network latency by disabling the Nagle algorithm.

One small step to fixing things globally ?

◊ Cadfael · 12/14/07, 2:49 AM

Originally Posted by xiaoxin21

I tried your java program with freecap and socks 5 and it dont seem to work that well. When i initially log in, my ping was 212(previous was about 600 without anything). However, my ping after like 10 mins of play will raise to about 500.

This is much higher than compared to about 200 when using lowerping so I am not sure on what I am missing in the steps.Does this program only do the setting of no delay or anything more?Set my port to 1338.

Did you use *another* proxy or am I reading you wrong ? Yes all it does is simply wait for an incoming connection, which is the WoW traffic being relayed by FreeCap to it and then opens a connection to the original destination with the TCP_NODELAY (disable nagle algorithm) flag set. It doesn't do anything else besides that.

Originally Posted by Namsar

From the 2.3.2 PTR
One small step to fixing things globally ?

Not a small step, that's basically what all the workarounds in this thread aim to do indirectly. That is the fix for the problem.

Zygar · 12/14/07, 4:24 PM

Originally Posted by Cadfael

Did you use *another* proxy or am I reading you wrong ? Yes all it does is simply wait for an incoming connection, which is the WoW traffic being relayed by FreeCap to it and then opens a connection to the original destination with the TCP_NODELAY (disable nagle algorithm) flag set. It doesn't do anything else besides that.

Not a small step, that's basically what all the workarounds in this thread aim to do indirectly. That is the fix for the problem.

I went onto the test realm and it was laggy as sin compared to the Linux method. Obviously the PTR is going to be laggy because of all the kiddies and their T5 premades, but is there something which the linux method does (socat, etc) that turning off Nagle's doesn't? (TCP ACK Frequency defaults are different on linux, perhaps?)

• Althor · 12/14/07, 5:01 PM

Originally Posted by Zygar

I went onto the test realm and it was laggy as sin compared to the Linux method. Obviously the PTR is going to be laggy because of all the kiddies and their T5 premades, but is there something which the linux method does (socat, etc) that turning off Nagle's doesn't? (TCP ACK Frequency defaults are different on linux, perhaps?)

WoW Forums -> PTR Build not reflecting Patch Notes

The patch notes for the PTR are for the next build not the current build.

sp00n · 12/17/07, 1:57 PM

Originally Posted by koaschten

To all those people fearing that using FreeCap might get you a Ban, i have been using Freecap due to limitations of a University Dorm Firewall for about a year in 2005-2006 and didn't get into trouble.

Even more, a German Blizzard employee basically said that you are free to use a proxy as you like to: German WoW Forum
I posted that already on this forum, but quite a long time ago and the old messages seems to have been purged since then.

//Edit
A translation might be not the worst idea:
"We don't support this solution, we have nothing against you using it, but we cannot give any support on this.
Meanwhile we are working on a solution for the underlying problem."

This was one year ago, when the German Telekom and Telia had some struggle about their interconnection fees and therefore refused to expand their connectivity, resulting in really bad pings for a lot of German (and European) WoW users (>800 with regular disconnects).

rhave · 12/17/07, 2:26 PM

Hey just wondering, if I use that registry edit, and do get negative sideafffects like slow d/l speed, can I revert the changes back?

Baalzaman · 12/17/07, 2:32 PM

Yes. Just delete the registry setting and restart your pc.

rhave · 12/17/07, 2:34 PM

Originally Posted by Baalzaman

Yes. Just delete the registry setting and restart your pc.

Okay, thanks for the reply, and one last question, is there a way to make a program (virus free :P ) to do all that stuff w/o restarting the comp? like I would like to have reduced ping only when I do arenas or only when I play WoW, but not all the time or all the time untill I restart comp, etc. ?

◊ Cadfael · 12/17/07, 6:35 PM

Originally Posted by rhave

Okay, thanks for the reply, and one last question, is there a way to make a program (virus free :P ) to do all that stuff w/o restarting the comp? like I would like to have reduced ping only when I do arenas or only when I play WoW, but not all the time or all the time untill I restart comp, etc. ?

Yes, use Freecap, redirect your traffic to a proxy that you wrote yourself. Alternatively, you can use my proxy linked in this thread, though you then have to trust me (or understand the source code that is included there).

If you're really unsure either way, just have patience and try to play as if you'd never heard about it. It will be resolved automatically for you when the next patch goes live. If it irks you too much, try some of the solutions in this thread.

Originally Posted by spoon

This was one year ago, when the German Telekom and Telia had some struggle about their interconnection fees and therefore refused to expand their connectivity, resulting in really bad pings for a lot of German (and European) WoW users (>800 with regular disconnects).

Oh I remember that time. It was fun, I did provide access for two entire raidgroups of friends on Dun Morogh and Senjin via openVPN proxies over one of my servers. It was a detour which about doubled the physical distance for almost all of them, since I am in Switzerland and most players were German. However it bypassed the congested links in the backbone and reduced their raid-latency from 5000-ish with multiple disconnects down to ~300 and allowed them to raid.

sp00n · 12/18/07, 4:10 AM

Originally Posted by Cadfael

Oh I remember that time. It was fun, I did provide access for two entire raidgroups of friends on Dun Morogh and Senjin via openVPN proxies over one of my servers. It was a detour which about doubled the physical distance for almost all of them, since I am in Switzerland and most players were German. However it bypassed the congested links in the backbone and reduced their raid-latency from 5000-ish with multiple disconnects down to ~300 and allowed them to raid.

Yeah, we also routed from Germany to Austria and back to bypass the backbones.

On topic, I have edited my registry accordingly now (although most times having a ping <100ms), just to see if and how it works.

I wonder however, how does someone come up with that. I mean, it is a rather deep digging into the system mechanics, and it doesn't seem very obvious to change exactly these values. Not for me at least.

Lazare · 12/18/07, 6:53 AM

Here's how I'm doing it:

1) Get a dedicated server in the US. This might run you $100/month for even a decent one, so hopefully you already have one, or have some friends to split the cost with. Failing that, you could try a VPS - since this doesn't use much resources, it should work, and it's a lot cheaper. I already had a server I use for some random webhosting and related stuff, so that's what I'm using.

2) Get PuTTY, and set up a SSH tunnel between your local machine and your server. Set it to forward port 1080. Make sure you select the "Dynamic" option. Log into your server and minize PuTTY.

3) Get an application to "socksify" WoW. I'm using SocksCap (free for non-commercial usage) which some people claim to be a bit less buggy that FreeCap.

4) Set SocksCap to connect to localhost (127.0.0.1). Start WoW via SocksCap.

5) Enjoy going from ~550ms to ~290ms latency.

May not be the easiest way of doing this, but since I had the server and routinely use PuTTY anyhow, it couldn't have been much easier. 90% of the time it took to get it set up was just waiting for SocksCap to download and install. And as an added bonus, there's no need to set up a socks server or do any real configuration of your server or firewall. All WoW traffic is tunneled over SSH. (This is also a good way to bypass corporate or university firewalls, or to fool attempts to determine your location via IP - which is good if you like to listen to Pandora. Not that I'm advocating ignoring your employer or educational institutions network use policies, of course!)

Bajasen · 12/20/07, 6:53 PM

Originally Posted by Baalzaman

1 - TcpAckFrequency - NOTE if you are running Windows Vista this setting may not have any effect - a hotfix is needed which i'm tracking down. This works fine under Windows XP

Type "regedit" in windows "run.." dialog to bring up registry menu

Then find:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\

There will be multiple NIC interfaces listed in there, find the one you use to connect to the internet, there will be several interfaces listed (they have long names like {7DBA6DCA-FFE8-4002-A28F-4D2B57AE8383}. Click each one, the right one will have lots of settings in it and you will see your machines IP address listed there somewhere. Right-click in the right hand pane and add a new DWORD value, name it TcpAckFrequency, then right click the entry and click Modify and assign a value of 1.

I have problems with this bit, in my regedit i have 14 NIC interfaces listed, 3 of which contains my IP (on my local network, none contains my internet IP). Which one could it be?
None of them stands out either, they have 16, 26 and 28 settings respectivly.

• Anarkii · 12/21/07, 1:11 AM

Originally Posted by Lazare

1) Get a dedicated server in the US. This might run you $100/month for even a decent one, so hopefully you already have one, or have some friends to split the cost with. Failing that, you could try a VPS - since this doesn't use much resources, it should work, and it's a lot cheaper. I already had a server I use for some random webhosting and related stuff, so that's what I'm using.

I understand tunneling over SSH, but don't have any experience setting up a server. What, if anything, do you need to do on this server before you can route WoW traffic through SSH to it?