Weird Variance in delay pattern

[Wolf14]

CAn anybody possibly have an idea as to why my variance in delay looks like this? All firewalls are off and I am not going through any router. Sometimes when I log on I have no issues but other times I get a pattern like the one in the picture. It seems here lately its getting more frequent.



Thanks in advance for any help.

[StarOfAfrica2]

A/V program?  Possibly spyware sending out regular bursts?  Someone pinging your comp?  Some kind of autoupdater?  Just throwing some things out here, could be one of several problems.  If you know someone with a router you could borrow, try hooking it up and see if the problem goes away.  Help you narrow things down anyway.

[38ruk]

im having the same issue  exactly, ive reformated twice , even tried a different opperating system, still the same exact variance ,there is nothing running in the background , no spyware or viruses , it does it on a clean install of the os . Ive been in contact with skuzzy , he is aware of my situation . what ive notice is if you open task manager and watch the cpu usage AH2 will drop to 80% then back to 99 % . when it should hold the cpu at 99% . i just tried splinter cell and it holds all of the cpu. I didnt notice this initally till i had the task manager update quicker . Its an option under view .  Try it out and see if yours is doing the same thing .   Hate to see anyone else have issue but im glad im not alone ,  ive been pullin my hair out.   GL 38

[38ruk]

it still does this on a different hard drive with a different OS, win 2000 pro , what else could it be , it can't be spyware or malware because the hard drive was wiped clean and wasnt connected to any websites , the only net connection was AH2. Ive swapped out almost every piece of hardware except MB/cpu, and it still shows the same weird variance . i actually have another socket 754 Motherboard , but i think its a waste of time to swap it. I am  on dialup ,(no broadband availiable) i have 2 isp's , and the choice of 3 different route's , all do the same thing . My phone line has a good signal to noise and checks out fine .  the game never boots or disco's but it almost always shows the exact same pattern as posted above .winxp and 2kpro where running barebones 11 proccess's, nothing hits the cpu or net connection but as i stated above the cpu bounces off the idle proccess, and i think it must have something to do with it ...... have i forgot anything? any ideas ?  any help is appreiciated  <> 38

[pellik]

Originally posted by 38ruk
it still does this on a different hard drive with a different OS, win 2000 pro , what else could it be , it can't be spyware or malware because the hard drive was wiped clean and wasnt connected to any websites , the only net connection was AH2. Ive swapped out almost every piece of hardware except MB/cpu, and it still shows the same weird variance . i actually have another socket 754 Motherboard , but i think its a waste of time to swap it. I am  on dialup ,(no broadband availiable) i have 2 isp's , and the choice of 3 different route's , all do the same thing . My phone line has a good signal to noise and checks out fine .  the game never boots or disco's but it almost always shows the exact same pattern as posted above .winxp and 2kpro where running barebones 11 proccess's, nothing hits the cpu or net connection but as i stated above the cpu bounces off the idle proccess, and i think it must have something to do with it ...... have i forgot anything? any ideas ?  any help is appreiciated  <> 38

I see two possibilities right off the bat. A hop on your way to the server is at full load and queing you, which should be detectable by running ping in the background, then tracert. Or you've got some hardware that wants CPU time, like a winmodem.

How frequent are these CPU useage drops you're reporting? Are they at the same rate as those latency peaks? My bet is they arn't, and whenever you get one a program called services.exe is getting the extra cycles. This leads to a bad linux geek pun... windows services doesn't play 'nice'.

-p.

[38ruk]

its definetly something in the pc or the game that is doing this , pings look good ,i have 3 different routes i can take .  the proccess that is jumping is the system idle process , and it does it about every 2 seconds or so ,  ah just isnt using the full capacity of the cpu for some reason. as for the modem , its an external harware modem , so it doesnt use many proccessor resources   thx 38

[hitech]

When you see that, does it ever suddenly clear up?


HiTech

[Wolf14]

HT it can go either way for me. Sometimes the jumps and drops start small, then build, and then I get discoed. Other times I can let my connection sit, and 15-20 minutes later my variance will flat line and look normal with a very small peak on occasion when somebody talks on vox for an extended amount of time.

so yes in some cases it does suddenly clear up.

[38ruk]

Originally posted by hitech
When you see that, does it ever suddenly clear up?


HiTech

Hitech , it has cleared up for me some times after 30 mins or so after the game has been running , sometimes it doesnt matter at all it will continue to do it all night . it was doing it on my machine even before the new skins where released . thx for any help 38

edit , mine never disco's though i could play all night with the up and downs , i chose not too cause it get really studdery

[Wolf14]

HT any update? your response kinda sounded like you may have had an idea providing wheather or not it stopped after awhile or not.

[214thCavalier]

Ok i will give in and tell you what caused that exact problem on my computer.

ALG.EXE

Specifically the problem occured after i installed adobe acrobat pdf reader.
Not the current version but an earlier one.

I believe it was polling to see if a graphic tablet was connected to my computer.
Never had such a thing so decided to disable alg.exe and see what happened.
Problem stopped straight away.
Whenever it reared its ugly head stopping alg.exe cured it everytime.

Earlier versions of adobe were apparently known to preload and enable every possible driver known to man so the program was ready to roll.
Whether you needed it or not.

I now use abobe reader version 7 and have not seen this since.

Of course your mileage may vary etc but  as i say it definitely cured that pattern every time by closing alg.exe and i found references to adobe driver loading in google i believe.

[Adjuster]

I have been having the same problem with varying degrees of severity.

Just did a quick check in task manager and I get the same 99%-89% jump in AH usage with it going to system idle. Also I noted that if I didnt "End It All" the .Net framework CLI was also taking a pop at the resources.

I also had a big problem using limit fps to 45 or 60 this would magnify the problem and I would see warps all over the place unlimited and it went away.

It seemed to be linked to the grasphics driver / card for me and has eased a bit since changing drivers etc albeit I havent been online for a few days to see how it has changed.

Common part here seems to be ATI X800 Pro at least for me and 38ruk.

I have been having my first Discoes in 2 years playing but this all happened with New Patches and an increse in my Broadband Speed at the same time so I cant say what is causing that.

the Variance stepping seems to be random for me it is always on loading as expected but sometimes in game it will start then stop or will get to the point of booting me with no common denominator.



Adjuster
Athalon 64 3400 +
2GB Ram
X800 Pro 256mb

[Clifra Jones]

One thing guys, and it's been said here many times. Stop all non-critical processes and services. I play AH with only 13 processes running. If in doubt look it up in Google.

Cav, ALG is absolutly not a required service and will effect your network traffic. There are several others, Windows Update, Computer Browsers Service, Scuzzy has listed many of the ones you can stop in a sticky. Even nVidia and ATI install services and stuff you don't need to play AH.

[38ruk]

hey guys , ive had this problem for awhile, it was a clean install, i never had acrobat reader, or adobe installed, so thats not an issue on my end. I also only run 13 proccess in XP sp2 , and havent installed any .net programs or frame work that im aware of . actually the only programs on the pc are  AH2 adaware , spybot , registycleaner , and driver cleaner. I have noticed that limiting frame rates agrevated the problem . Im running 4.12 catalysts so im not aware of any issues with those . thx    38


EDIT: actually only 11 proccess in xp at boot

[StarOfAfrica2]

Did you install the catalyst control panel?