Is this good ping?

[drdeathx]

Comcast Indianapolis

[Skuzzy]

Not that good.  The variance is pretty high, once it gets into Level3's network.  Generally speaking, it is better for game play to have a 200ms ping with a 10ms variance, than a 100ms ping with a 100ms variance.

All a moot point as you traced to the WEB server, not a game server.  Try using 206.16.60.38 and let Ping Plotter run for 5 minutes.  Try it between 8pm and 10pm.

[The Fugitive]

Skuzzy, why does his first hop show 100% packet loss? Firewall, router problem, or is it due to the level3 hop messing with the return trip?

[Skuzzy]

Typically a firewall configuration which ignores ICMP ECHO packets.

[drdeathx]

Updated ping plotter. Ran  at 8:30 for half hour. Indianapolis Comcast. Never have any real lagg issues.

[Newman5]

How do you read this thing?

[The Fugitive]

Are you having any lag issues? How many times did you have it ping it that half hour? That one doesn't look that bad to me. The worst ping was the "80" on hop 8, but even that one averages "41". Anything under 200 is good, and the more stable the better. Lie Skuzzy says tho, anything with "level3" in it could be suspect.

[drdeathx]

what is level 3. Does thye signal travel all over? I see different cities. No Lagg issues to report. Lagg is very rare.

[Skuzzy]

If that is a prime time ping plot, then that is pretty darn good, especially for Level3.  That hub must have been upgraded or never really busy to begin with.  Too bad the rest of the country does not look like that.  If it did, we would get zero complaints about lag, packet loss (switching to TCP from UDP), or a melee of other network related complaints.

It still does not stop Comcast from altering network priority and order of packets on their network, which is still an issue.

[The Fugitive]

what is level 3. Does thye signal travel all over? I see different cities. No Lagg issues to report. Lagg is very rare.

Each hop is a hub, and your signal travels from hub to hub until it hits the address you are looking for. Level3 are cheap "over sold" hubs. Look at it this way..... each hop is an intersection of roads. Good intersections have lots of signs, traffic lights and lanes so traffic moves smoothly and quickly. Level3 on the other hand don't have enough lanes or lights in their intersection and traffic gets all jammed up, slowes down, or you get on the wrong road and your lost (lost packets).

In most case level3 means your pings "could" run into trouble, but on your plot it looks good. If your not having any lag issues, don't worry about it. If it ain't broke, DON'T fix it !

[drdeathx]

Skuzzy,

I have never had any ping problems. Actually in my sim racing days, I have always had compliments on my bandwith. It has been stellar. I posted this for a reason. Comcast has never done anything in my area to hurt my ping. What can an average user do within their system to help a low connection speed or a suspect connect speed.

Please list all solutions such as firewalls, processes, ect.... If any.

[Skuzzy]

The average user cannot do a thing to help matters.  This is all by design.  Every cable ISP has been switching to Level3.  In almost every place they go in, the quality of service drops like a rock.