Not so much a liability issue Minotaur, I just like to try to get some sleep at night and if post the manual way to alter the MTU and someone messes up, they could leave thier system unbootable. <SHUDDER>
There are so many different version of the MS TCP stack around, it is difficult to say what is the correct way to do it. Most consumers just do not update thier software as well as they should.
How many of you actually use
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com on a regular basis? (I hope most do)
Or how many actually check and update video, audio, and other peripheral drivers from the respective companies that supply these items?
Now, dont go nuts here. Sometimes upgrades are bad, depending on the source. For instance, when DirectX 7.0 was released, it introduced a ton of bugs, but then 7.0a finally got it back to being stable.
A general rule of thumb I use is this; When I see an update for my device available, I check the date, then make note to go back 45 days later. If the update has not changed I download and install it. That allows the bleeding edge technology nuts to get the bugs found. There is a reason it is called bleeding edge technology
.
Anyway I digress.
About high speed connections..... The faster your connection to the Internet, the more erratic the flow of data will be. Why?
Data on the Internet does not flow smoothly, like water through a pipe, it is more like water over a very rocky terrain, with eddys, and various speeds of currents.
Taking the analogy further, if you take a 12 inch wide stream of water flowing over those rocky terrains, and put it through a one inch straw, the flow of water is pretty constant and smooth, but if you put that same flow of water through a 12 inch straw, you will see all the various currents and eddys caused by that rocky base the water flowed over.
Every time a packet of data is injected into the Internet backbone stream, it causes all the packet latencies to change for all the packets behind that packet.
As you increase your speed of your connection to the Internet, you become more susceptible to those various flows and eddys.
It is generally accepted that the aggregate throughput of the Internet is about 384Kbits/second. Once you get past that point, smooth Internet game play becomes virtually impossible during peak times of Internet usage.
So, while it may not seem intuitive, slowing down your connection speed could actually result in smoother game play.
However, if you are using ISDN, you should be doing well with 128K connections. If you find a 64K connection works better, then I would suspect the ISP has oversold his/her connections to the Internet, or his/her immediate upstream providers are oversold, especially if it is consistent.
Depending on the ISP, you may be able to ask them when thier peak usage times are and try to work around those times. All ISP's have times they consider peak.
For instance, here at AppLink we have 2 times a day, during Monday through Friday, which are high usage times. From (all time are CST/CDT) 4:30pm to 6:00pm is one. Why? Business users are finishing up for the day and the kids have gotten home from school and are surfing.
The next time occurs from 9:00pm to 10:00pm. Everyone is finishing up last minute surfing before going to bed.
Don't be afraid to ask your provider the question. Most providers will answer honestly as they figure you are looking to stay away from those times, which makes all clients happier. Also understanding when the peak times are will help you understand why you might see yo-yos in data flow.
Hope this helps.
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Roy "Skuzzy" Neese
President, AppLink Corp.
http://www.applink.netskuzzy@applink.net
