Lag since 2.0?

Deathwing · 12/16/06, 1:19 AM

Has anyone else receiving a lot of lag since the 2.0 patch, specifically in PvP areas? I'll be running around IF with a latency of 100, I'll zone into a pvp game, type doesn't matter, and about half the time, my latency will quickly climb to where it will disconnect me.

This is NOT server end. While my lag is climbing, my internet will slow down to eventually timeouts. Even after the disconnect, my internet is still clogged, only exiting the program will release the stranglehold on my internet connection.

I have tried the usual diatribe of deleting my Cache, Interface, and WTF folders. The lag is still present even after deleting said folders. All the mods I use are updated to 2.0. Restarting my cable modem, router, and computer don't affect anything.

My guess is that something in WoW is openning way too many connections, much like a huge torrent gone berserk. From some of the ignored threads in the WoW Technical Support forum, this seems like a somewhat common problem. I was hoping someone here could have some relevant info. Nothing like waiting 40 minutes for the AV queue, only to have it boot you out everytime you log back in.

♦ Praetorian · 12/16/06, 1:24 AM

Originally Posted by Deathwing

I have tried the usual diatribe of deleting my Cache, Interface, and WTF folders.

I can't help your lag problem. I can, however, correct your word usage!

di·a·tribe (dī'ə-trīb')
n. A bitter, abusive denunciation.

:unsure:

Voljun · 12/16/06, 1:55 AM

You mention deleting your Interface, WTF and WDB/Cache folders but you didn't mention using the following technique.

One of my guildies posted this on our forums, it cleared it up after a few logons and I haven't had the high latency since. I don't know who created it, and I don't recall where it was posted.

This post points out that after patch 2.0, without corrective action on the user's part, the client doesn't cache WDB files anymore. It explains how to solve the problem and why it's important to solve it.

Symptom

When logging in, every time, a lot of the items placed on the action bars are red question marks for a few seconds. Also, when opening a crafting profession's window for the first time, delay is observed in loading the icon for items and list of ingredients. Other symptoms that indicate that the client is not performing caching and has to query the server for data with each login session.

Explanation and Solution

The old WDB folder is now gone with patch 2.0. The client is supposed to cache data in the "World of Warcraft\Cache\WDB\<locale>" folder, where <locale> depends on your client language. It's enGB for EU English players. However, during a standard installation and patching scenario, only "World of Warcraft\Cache" folder gets created, and the client doesn't automatically create its subfolders. This means that the client never saves cache files.

To force WoW to start saving cache files, manually create a WDB subfolder in Cache, i.e. make sure that a folder named "World of Warcraft\Cache\WDB" exists. The client will take care of the rest, create the locale specific subfolder and start saving files.

Why this is important

For starters, this improves the game experience of the end-user. However, more importantly, with so many players, all the clients querying the server for information that was supposed to be cached could lead to additional load on the servers. Only Blizzard knows the significance or fraction of this additional load, but it's important that we as users do everything we can to reduce load on the servers.

Edit: It appears that this may be an issue only on the Windows client and not Mac

It isn't the deleting of those folders that is important, but making sure that there is a Cache\WDB\enUS. (My locale, yours could be different) Creating that enUS folder in my WDB folder got rid of the very high pings I would get. Follow the directions exactly as said above and see if it works. This will take a couple of logons to get the ping fully reduced as it caches the information. I would suggest logging on, zone in a BG, open all your tradeskills, first aid, etc to make sure everything gets cached.

I hope this solves it for you, otherwise I have no idea what your problem is. Do you always get regular latency in IF, and then it only spikes in BGs? Sounds like it is something WoW related if that is the case. I don't see why an outside factor would cause latency only when you zone into a BG.

♦ Praetorian · 12/16/06, 1:58 AM

The WDB folder wouldn't even exist if the above still applied. Blizzard's background downloader had a patch that added a Cache/WDB/enUS directory a week ago.

Mcgriddle · 12/16/06, 1:59 AM

I can second what Voljun said--I too got very high pings for a while, even before patch 2.0. The patch only exacerbated the problem, however, and adding the WDB folder seemed to alleviate the problem at least partially. They seem to be doing a lot of maintenance because of the lag people are receiving (I think more rolling restarts are happening today/just happened).

Again, as Volujun said, the fact that it only happens in BGs leads me to believe it probably is WoW-related. It may simply be that the sheer number of battlegrounds are putting an enormous load on the BG servers and causing the latency issues. I know several friends who get high latency in BGs only as well, so I would try the Cache thing and then wait it out to see if Blizzard fixes it. My guess is they will.

sp00n · 12/16/06, 5:57 AM

This reminds me of when I was leveling my character in Stranglethorn. Yes it is ages ago, but I had the exact same symptoms. Lags, freezes and disconnects in WoW, but it also effected the whole internet connection. I was running Ping Plotter (basically a graphical UI for pings) and there were a whole lot of timeouts and packet losses as soon as I was running WoW. If I quit it, internet worked fine again.

Now, I don't have a solution for this. Back in the days I tried whatever possible, updated network drivers, changed network card settings (10 mbit half duplex and what not all), searched for that weird option that didn't even exist for my network driver, etc etc.

In the end - nothing helped. The problem vanished as fast as it occured, Blizzard patched something and *poof* everthing was back to normal.

Trindade · 12/16/06, 6:44 AM

Are you using ag_UnitFrames? There was a bug with some version of them where you'd get some nutty latency (I got a screenshot somewhere of me with a 9 digit ping, that was awesome).

Assuming it's not ag_uf, there are two things Blizzard broke with this patch:
1: The cache directories (as has been mentioned). If you run WoW.exe directly rather than via the launcher, you need to create cache\WDB\enUS
2: They introduced some glitch related to their sound system. http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...52827443&sid=1
Apparantly they increased the number of hardware sound channels to use at one time. People using lower-end soundcards/onboard sound (the majority) suffered a big drop in performance as a result of this (since it caused CPU bottleneck to process it). Fix is this:

If you are experiencing low framerates with the latest patch, please try modifying your Config.wtf file in your WTF folder (default location: C:\program files\World of Warcraft\WTF).

To modify your Config.wtf file:
1. Right click on the Config.wtf file
2. Select "Open With"
3. Select "Wordpad"
4. Add or Modify the following lines -

SET soundmaxhardwarechannels "12"
SET soundsoftwarechannels "12"

5. Once those lines have been added/modified, click on "File" in the top left hand corder and select "Save".

Also, two client side fixes you can make to tweak your network performance:
1: If you are using Windows XP sp2, unless you have specifically patched for it, you will be currently throttled to 10 TCP simultaneous connections. It's basically an internet security thing Microsoft added to slow the propagation of worm-type viruses, but it does have a detrimental impact upon performance. If you reach the limit further connections are queued (enter: lag). You can read about it, and get a link to a patch for it here: http://www.mydigitallife.info/2005/1...event-id-4226/
2: If you havn't modified your QoS service settings from default, 20% of your available bandwidth will be 'reserved' for operating system traffic (totally ridiculous). You can disable this here:

Click Start-->Run--> type "gpedit.msc"
Now, open the branches Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Network -> QoS Packet Scheduler.
Now, double-click the option in the right-hand window 'Limit reservable bandwidth', and then set it to Enabled, and the Bandwidth Limit to 0%.
Click the description, and you will see even though the setting is "not configured", it will say that when not configured it will reserve 20% of your bandwidth for operating system functions (who knows why it needs that much, it's pretty silly).

♦ Kurisu · 12/16/06, 7:39 AM

i ran launcher and it updated my cache itself so idk if you really need to make it now. It didnt update it last time I tried Launcher (also a lot safer as I saw one person corrupt some files trying it).

spronk · 12/16/06, 9:12 AM

there are some latency issues with one or more of the ace2 mods, I think they are debugging it in the ace forums now. the sound fix and cache fix were both fixed by blizzard, just run launcher and it'll auto update and fix.

I still see 1/2 the FPS i used to pre 2.0 in naxx, its gotten a bit better but when I turn off all my mods my FPS doubles. its still pretty playable so I don't mind too much, hoping it gets fixed up in the next few days. in major cities and battlegrounds FPS is fine, so its something to do with raiding (not sure why BG's not hit though).

Wodahs · 12/16/06, 10:30 AM

I am 100% sure the drawin distance for mobs has changed. In BGs, I can see fights going on further away that before. In Naxx, I can target Patchwerk upon entering the instance. I can target a mob in the dk wing, and keep it targetted running to gluth, only losing my target at the forgger area. The more bosses/trash we kill in naxx, the less vid lag I have.
On Wednesday we killed noth, heigan, raz, patch, grob, gluth, and Thaddius. Today we zone in, and all mobs are repopped. Every boss we killed is alive, every boss we have yet to kill, has a twin. Eight horseman, 2 Loatheb, etc. The FPS lag I had, was a ton more extreme than normal, since 2.0. I think that backsup the fact that the draw in range is longer, on mobs, and ouble the mobs is way way too much for my pc to handle.

Greybone · 12/16/06, 10:33 AM

Originally Posted by Wodahs

Eight horseman

Oh god please tell me you frapsed that :D

Elerion · 12/16/06, 10:38 AM

Kel'Thuzad yells: You landlubbers are tougher than I thought! I'll have to improvise!

♦ Praetorian · 12/16/06, 10:43 AM

Originally Posted by Kurisu

i ran launcher and it updated my cache itself so idk if you really need to make it now. It didnt update it last time I tried Launcher (also a lot safer as I saw one person corrupt some files trying it).

Ah, I suppose it is a launcher-only thing. I never noticed it because I never start WoW except through the launcher. Is there some reason you'd bypass it?

koaschten · 12/16/06, 11:09 AM

Originally Posted by Praetorian

Originally Posted by Kurisu

i ran launcher and it updated my cache itself so idk if you really need to make it now. It didnt update it last time I tried Launcher (also a lot safer as I saw one person corrupt some files trying it).

Ah, I suppose it is a launcher-only thing. I never noticed it because I never start WoW except through the launcher. Is there some reason you'd bypass it?

save an extra click?

• Shalas · 12/16/06, 11:13 AM

Originally Posted by Trindade

2: If you havn't modified your QoS service settings from default, 20% of your available bandwidth will be 'reserved' for operating system traffic (totally ridiculous). You can disable this here:

Click Start-->Run--> type "gpedit.msc"
Now, open the branches Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Network -> QoS Packet Scheduler.
Now, double-click the option in the right-hand window 'Limit reservable bandwidth', and then set it to Enabled, and the Bandwidth Limit to 0%.
Click the description, and you will see even though the setting is "not configured", it will say that when not configured it will reserve 20% of your bandwidth for operating system functions (who knows why it needs that much, it's pretty silly).

No.
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/ar...3/1128591.aspx