Edwin,this needs improving

[jdc1]

90% of all gaming servers are located in the midwest. It's absolutely unreal
bad joining most of them.
I can unload a full clip at someone's head and no effect. He pulls out his
colt and fires 2 rounds and I'm dead. This bullshit has been going on for too
long. It's pathetic !*@!$*&@&^*$!!

What can be done about this brick wall that RR San Diego expericences at the
St. Louis router? It just sucks!

In the past...Edwin would contact them and see what could be done.

Tracing route to IP226.gigE.vskgamingservers.com [66.165.126.226]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 5 ms 8 ms 8 ms 10.71.128.1
2 6 ms 8 ms 7 ms crsdca1-rtr1-ge2-1.san.rr.com [24.25.192.246]
3 8 ms 7 ms 7 ms WCSDCA1-GSR1-SRP0.san.rr.com [24.25.196.1]
4 7 ms 11 ms 23 ms wcsdca1-gsr3-srp8.san.rr.com [24.25.196.42]
5 9 ms 8 ms 8 ms so-0-0-0-0.gar1.SanDiego1.Level3.net [209.0.8.1]

6 7 ms 8 ms 7 ms so-7-0-0.mp2.SanDiego1.Level3.net [4.68.113.69]

7 68 ms 82 ms 94 ms so-0-0-0.mp1.StLouis1.Level3.net [64.159.0.53]
8 68 ms 80 ms 68 ms ge-7-1.hsa1.StLouis1.Level3.net [64.159.4.130]
9 69 ms 68 ms 68 ms Level3GigE.cybercon.com [63.208.32.186]
10 67 ms 72 ms 85 ms IP226.gigE.vskgamingservers.com [66.165.126.226]

[Bill Kelly]

Hi,

Post by jdc1
90% of all gaming servers are located in the midwest. It's absolutely unreal
bad joining most of them.
I can unload a full clip at someone's head and no effect. He pulls out his
colt and fires 2 rounds and I'm dead. This bullshit has been going on for too
What can be done about this brick wall that RR San Diego expericences at the
St. Louis router? It just sucks!
In the past...Edwin would contact them and see what could be done.

I run a boatload of Quake2 servers (well, six or seven :) on a
server in Texas, and my ping from here in San Diego to my servers
winds up about the same as yours, even though it takes a completely

Post by jdc1
Tracing route to IP226.gigE.vskgamingservers.com [66.165.126.226]
1 5 ms 8 ms 8 ms 10.71.128.1
2 6 ms 8 ms 7 ms crsdca1-rtr1-ge2-1.san.rr.com [24.25.192.246]
3 8 ms 7 ms 7 ms WCSDCA1-GSR1-SRP0.san.rr.com [24.25.196.1]
4 7 ms 11 ms 23 ms wcsdca1-gsr3-srp8.san.rr.com [24.25.196.42]
5 9 ms 8 ms 8 ms so-0-0-0-0.gar1.SanDiego1.Level3.net [209.0.8.1]
6 7 ms 8 ms 7 ms so-7-0-0.mp2.SanDiego1.Level3.net [4.68.113.69]
7 68 ms 82 ms 94 ms so-0-0-0.mp1.StLouis1.Level3.net [64.159.0.53]
8 68 ms 80 ms 68 ms ge-7-1.hsa1.StLouis1.Level3.net [64.159.4.130]
9 69 ms 68 ms 68 ms Level3GigE.cybercon.com [63.208.32.186]
10 67 ms 72 ms 85 ms IP226.gigE.vskgamingservers.com [66.165.126.226]

traceroute to tastyspleen.net (67.19.248.74), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
1 10.73.0.1 (10.73.0.1) 8.955 ms 9.206 ms 11.606 ms
2 ucsdca1-rtr1-ge2-3.san.rr.com (24.25.192.102) 7.019 ms 11.932 ms 10.632 ms
3 WCSDCA1-GSR1-SRP0.san.rr.com (24.25.196.1) 9.323 ms 11.478 ms 17.301 ms
4 24-25-193-2.san.rr.com (24.25.193.2) 10.998 ms 8.871 ms 12.007 ms
5 so-0-0-0-0.gar1.SanDiego1.Level3.net (209.0.8.1) 12.784 ms 9.536 ms 12.096 ms
6 so-7-0-0.mp2.SanDiego1.Level3.net (4.68.113.69) 12.203 ms 12.466 ms 10.908 ms
7 ae-0-0.bbr2.Dallas1.Level3.net (64.159.1.110) 40.074 ms 40.371 ms 39.409 ms
8 ge-1-1-51.car3.Dallas1.Level3.net (4.68.122.6) 41.426 ms 39.497 ms 40.744 ms
9 4.78.220.10 (4.78.220.10) 47.998 ms 40.936 ms 40.039 ms
10 dist-vlan31.dsr3-2.dllstx3.theplanet.com (70.85.127.30) 40.380 ms 65.576 ms 45.317 ms
11 dist-vlan-42.dsr2-2.dllstx4.theplanet.com (70.85.127.91) 39.799 ms 40.826 ms 41.094 ms
12 gig1-0-2.sm-car6-13.dllstx4.theplanet.com (67.19.255.186) 41.370 ms 39.890 ms 40.421 ms
13 74.67-19-248.reverse.theplanet.com (67.19.248.74) 65.145 ms 62.650 ms 66.096 ms

You can see the big jump between hops 6 and 7 (San Diego -> Dallas).

At some point we're just being sadly inconvenienced by the speed
of light here. I don't think even Edwin is going to have too
much luck opening a trouble ticket on the laws of physics. :-/

BTW, out of curiosity, which games are you playing where a 70
ping puts you at such a disadvantage that you can, "unload a full
clip at someone's head and no effect" ? I'm just asking because
in Quake a 70 ping is very, very playable. We have people on
the servers with 150 - 250 pings who still enjoy playing there.


Regards,

Bill

[Kenyon Ralph]

Post by Bill Kelly
I run a boatload of Quake2 servers (well, six or seven :) on a
server in Texas

People still play Quake2?!?! :-)

[Darren New]

Post by jdc1
6 7 ms 8 ms 7 ms so-7-0-0.mp2.SanDiego1.Level3.net
7 68 ms 82 ms 94 ms so-0-0-0.mp1.StLouis1.Level3.net

Given that the speed of light in copper or fiber gives you a 20ms
distance from San Diego to St Louis, and a round trip is thus roughly 40
ms, it seems like 70 ms is a pretty good go.

The best solution would be for you to move to St Louis.

[Scott Lindner]

Given that the speed of light in copper or fiber gives you a 20ms distance
from San Diego to St Louis, and a round trip is thus roughly 40 ms, it
seems like 70 ms is a pretty good go.

Isn't fiber faster than copper? But your point remains. Taking the assumed
60% speed of light for electricty in copper and the driving distance between
here and St. Louis you do get roughly 16.5ms for a single direction. Double
that for the ping return time and you're at 33.2ms. That doesn't even
assume the Operating System overhead at both ends, the network card being
used (cheap or good), the drivers, and any network switching overhead that
is incurred. Putting the rest of that at less than 40ms really isn't that
bad.

I do wonder, is this an accurate test for what this user is experiencing?
Long ago I used to do ping races to test things like this. I found some
disturbing things especially at different times of day. I recommend the OP
to do a simple ping test again while playing the game. Latency is not
static. It's also possible that RR does dynamic routing based on the IP
protocol being used and/or TCP/UDP ports. Another thing of note, RR could
be doing other things that could make these tests not valid for the
situation the OP has described.

As an example, I noticed a huge performance drop when I switched from my
Linux based router at home to using a hardware router. Can you believe it,
the hardware routers are significantly slower. Even though ping tests don't
show much difference. It could be a throughput limitation that affects
latency when under high loads. When doing a ping test on its own the load
drops and the latency recovers. Of course this is just a theory without
putting any analysis into it. My suggestion to the OP is to try playing the
game with the computer directly on the cable modem to see if that changes
anything (assuming a router is used to share the IP).

I'm starting to think up a more advanced test that could pin point the
source of the perceived performance drop during gaming with servers in the
MidWest. I highly doubt this person is lying about it even though the
numbers suggest he's whining about nothing. Which I don't believe to be the
case.

Scott

[Daniel Damouth]

Post by Scott Lindner
I'm starting to think up a more advanced test that could pin point
the source of the perceived performance drop during gaming with
servers in the MidWest. I highly doubt this person is lying about
it even though the numbers suggest he's whining about nothing.
Which I don't believe to be the case.

One possibility is that the game server is CPU overloaded, which causes
"lag" as well. I've seen the "unloading full clip into person's head
with no effect" phenomenon in Unreal Tournament under such conditions
(typically in huge games).

I play on 70ms servers all time in UT without much of a problem.

-Dan / Tuber

[Edwin Kruse]

Let's have you go though the help desk (local before 6:00 p.m.) and work
with them. They will need 3 tracerts indicative of issue with the
date and time of the tests. Our National NOC may be able to work some
with Level3.
Edwin Kruse
Network Services Manager
TWC San Diego

Post by jdc1
90% of all gaming servers are located in the midwest. It's absolutely unreal
bad joining most of them.
I can unload a full clip at someone's head and no effect. He pulls out his
colt and fires 2 rounds and I'm dead. This bullshit has been going on for too
What can be done about this brick wall that RR San Diego expericences at the
St. Louis router? It just sucks!
In the past...Edwin would contact them and see what could be done.
Tracing route to IP226.gigE.vskgamingservers.com [66.165.126.226]
1 5 ms 8 ms 8 ms 10.71.128.1
2 6 ms 8 ms 7 ms crsdca1-rtr1-ge2-1.san.rr.com
[24.25.192.246]
3 8 ms 7 ms 7 ms WCSDCA1-GSR1-SRP0.san.rr.com [24.25.196.1]
4 7 ms 11 ms 23 ms wcsdca1-gsr3-srp8.san.rr.com [24.25.196.42]
5 9 ms 8 ms 8 ms so-0-0-0-0.gar1.SanDiego1.Level3.net [209.0.8.1]
6 7 ms 8 ms 7 ms so-7-0-0.mp2.SanDiego1.Level3.net [4.68.113.69]
7 68 ms 82 ms 94 ms so-0-0-0.mp1.StLouis1.Level3.net [64.159.0.53]
8 68 ms 80 ms 68 ms ge-7-1.hsa1.StLouis1.Level3.net [64.159.4.130]
9 69 ms 68 ms 68 ms Level3GigE.cybercon.com [63.208.32.186]
10 67 ms 72 ms 85 ms IP226.gigE.vskgamingservers.com [66.165.126.226]

[Kenyon Ralph]

Post by jdc1
90% of all gaming servers are located in the midwest. It's absolutely
unreal bad joining most of them.

When I used to play games (counterstrike mostly), I would sort by latency
and find plenty of servers on the West Coast and even in SoCal. Perhaps
you just need to look harder.