stdshapes.res .. maybe a major reason subscription is low

[AKIron]

I ran a tracert and it stayed inside Frontier.

[Animl-AW]

You’re TX. The server is in TX
Give me the IP and let me ping trace route from here, it will not be the same.

[AKIron]

I posted the IP. Of course your route won't be the same. That's the point of running tracert and ping plotter.

[Animl-AW]

I posted the IP. Of course your route won't be the same. That's the point of running tracert and ping plotter.

Cloudfare Speed Test from my tech page on my system/connection
Download Speed: 444Mbps
Upload Speed: 23.4Mbps

Downloading BoB Terrain last night: 0.087mbps

Tracing route from my system to dlrobin.hitechcreations.com [47.190.119.209]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

   1     2 ms     1 ms     1 ms  10.0.0.1
  2    12 ms    11 ms    15 ms  ******
  3    14 ms    16 ms    13 ms  po-303-1270-rur102.griffith.in.chicago.comcast.net [96.216.26.161]
  4    21 ms    10 ms    14 ms  po-2-rur101.griffith.in.chicago.comcast.net [162.151.145.65]
  5    12 ms    12 ms    10 ms  po-100-xar01.griffith.in.chicago.comcast.net [69.139.202.169]
  6    14 ms    12 ms    12 ms  be-17-ar01.area4.il.chicago.comcast.net [68.85.177.237]
  7    14 ms    20 ms    16 ms  7922-3356-chi.sp.lumen.tech [4.68.110.122]
  8     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  9    35 ms    39 ms    32 ms  4.15.44.126
 10    36 ms    36 ms    34 ms  ae7---0.scr05.dlls.tx.frontiernet.net [45.52.201.120]
 11    38 ms    37 ms    35 ms  ae0---0.ber01.irng.tx.frontiernet.net [74.40.10.209]
 12    36 ms    38 ms    35 ms  ae101--100.fdr03.kllr.tx.frontiernet.net [184.19.247.229]
 13    36 ms    39 ms    37 ms  dlrobin.hitechcreations.com [47.190.119.209]

It dumps as soon as I get into the Dallas trunk, which isn't what I call horrible, but it's twice as slow.

[Animl-AW]

<shrug>

[Bizman]

Back in the day the stdshapes.res could take quite a long time and many attempts. So I removed said file from the game folder, downloaded and reinstalled the game. That took about two minutes. Then I tried to start the game. The splash screen splashed and disappeared. Tried it a few times, then rebooted my system. After that the game started to download the stdshapes.res file. At the start it said it'd take half an hour but the download speed kept increasing all the time up to about 5.5 Mbps so finally it was over in mere six minutes after which the game started normally.

So starting from downloading the game it took me almost 12 minutes to get into the Tower including a reboot.

Target Name: dlrobin.hitechcreations.com
         IP: 47.190.119.209
  Date/Time: 23.3.2025 18.56.48 - 23.3.2025 19.06.48

Hop  Sent  PL%     Min     Max     Avg  Host Name / [IP]
  1    24    0    0,67    1,16    0,89  www.routerlogin.net [192.168.1.1]
  2    24    0    1,40   11,52    2,57  83.146.186.1 [83.146.186.1]
  3    24    0    3,45   21,55    6,45  46-163-193-159.blcnet.fi [46.163.193.159]
  4    24    0    3,40    4,38    3,87  46-163-193-158.blcnet.fi [46.163.193.158]
  5    24    0    5,65   12,63    6,73  85.194.195.30 [85.194.195.30]
  6    24    0    9,43   18,19   10,18  87.236.154.178 [87.236.154.178]
  7    24    0    9,52   10,53    9,86  87.236.154.212 [87.236.154.212]
  8    24    0    9,50   12,60   10,24  et-0-0-19.bar2.Helsinki1.Level3.net [212.133.6.153]
  9    24   75  149,04  149,48  149,18  ae8.0.ear3.Dallas1.net.lumen. tech [4.69.210.145]
 10    24    0  148,48  164,71  153,82  4.15.44.126 [4.15.44.126]
 11    24    0  148,76  149,71  149,23  ae7---0.scr05.dlls.tx.frontiernet.net [45.52.201.120]
 12    24    0  148,73  150,65  149,16  ae0---0.ber01.irng.tx.frontiernet.net [74.40.10.209]
 13    24    0  149,79  177,24  151,94  ae101--100.fdr03.kllr.tx.frontiernet.net [184.19.247.229]
 14    24    0  149,85  151,11  150,48  dlrobin.hitechcreations.com [47.190.119.209]

[Animl-AW]

Back in the day the stdshapes.res could take quite a long time and many attempts. So I removed said file from the game folder, downloaded and reinstalled the game. That took about two minutes. Then I tried to start the game. The splash screen splashed and disappeared. Tried it a few times, then rebooted my system. After that the game started to download the stdshapes.res file. At the start it said it'd take half an hour but the download speed kept increasing all the time up to about 5.5 Mbps so finally it was over in mere six minutes after which the game started normally.

So starting from downloading the game it took me almost 12 minutes to get into the Tower including a reboot.

Target Name: dlrobin.hitechcreations.com
         IP: 47.190.119.209
  Date/Time: 23.3.2025 18.56.48 - 23.3.2025 19.06.48

Hop  Sent  PL%     Min     Max     Avg  Host Name / [IP]
  1    24    0    0,67    1,16    0,89  www.routerlogin.net [192.168.1.1]
  2    24    0    1,40   11,52    2,57  83.146.186.1 [83.146.186.1]
  3    24    0    3,45   21,55    6,45  46-163-193-159.blcnet.fi [46.163.193.159]
  4    24    0    3,40    4,38    3,87  46-163-193-158.blcnet.fi [46.163.193.158]
  5    24    0    5,65   12,63    6,73  85.194.195.30 [85.194.195.30]
  6    24    0    9,43   18,19   10,18  87.236.154.178 [87.236.154.178]
  7    24    0    9,52   10,53    9,86  87.236.154.212 [87.236.154.212]
  8    24    0    9,50   12,60   10,24  et-0-0-19.bar2.Helsinki1.Level3.net [212.133.6.153]
  9    24   75  149,04  149,48  149,18  ae8.0.ear3.Dallas1.net.lumen. tech [4.69.210.145]
 10    24    0  148,48  164,71  153,82  4.15.44.126 [4.15.44.126]
 11    24    0  148,76  149,71  149,23  ae7---0.scr05.dlls.tx.frontiernet.net [45.52.201.120]
 12    24    0  148,73  150,65  149,16  ae0---0.ber01.irng.tx.frontiernet.net [74.40.10.209]
 13    24    0  149,79  177,24  151,94  ae101--100.fdr03.kllr.tx.frontiernet.net [184.19.247.229]
 14    24    0  149,85  151,11  150,48  dlrobin.hitechcreations.com [47.190.119.209]

Do you have optic fiber? Just wunderin

I think its going to come down to where ya live and what routes you pass through.

[AKIron]

How to:

[Brooke]

I install AH a lot on different machines (in numerous places in Tennessee, not just my own house or my provider) and sometimes in different states.  I am IT literate.

All the times I do it (including just yesterday in California), it takes an hour or something ridiculous to get stdshap.res.

It's not people who are installing the game doing something wrong.  There is about nothing you can do wrong with this.  You start the game, and it does the getting of stdshape.res.  About zero percent of people do anything weird with their routers, etc. -- they don't even know how to do that.  They are standard Internet from standard providers.

These are people who have no problem downloading 500 gb files from various other places through their browsers.

And, yes, it is a deterrent for the game.  These folks are doing it because I am personally recruiting them to play in scenarios.  I walk them through installation (or if they are local, install for them).

[AKIron]

It's not the server or it's connection as I have shown. Being slow I mean. As I mentioned, it is likely Frontier throttling outside connections to their network. Maybe just to this particular site. Do some testing, correlate the data among users, provide the evidence to hitech and maybe he can get Frontier to work the issue. Or don't. I've helped all I'm willing.

[Brooke]

Do some testing, correlate the data among users,

Franklin TN
4x same site, Franklin TN
Franklin TN
LA area, California
Detroit suburbs, Michigan
Detroit suburbs, Michigan
Redmond WA

Every one one of those 10 installations took an hour-ish to download, including the one from 2 days ago in California.

Or don't.

Not a burning enough issue for me to do such work.

Like you said, maybe a thing that doesn't affect local Texas, maybe doesn't affect this or that network.  But at 7 different sites, 10 different computers, 4 different states, I always see it take an hour-ish.

[Bizman]

Do you have optic fiber? Just wunderin

I think its going to come down to where ya live and what routes you pass through.

Yepp, got it a month ago, 300 Mbps. The ping went down to 150 from the 180 I had with the 100 Mbps 4G mobile broadband. And before that with the 24 Mbps ADSL the ping was around 200. Those are the ones I've seen the stdshap.res being downloaded. With the slowest one it required a couple of tries and took about 20 minutes IIRC.

The Level3 hop under the Atlantic ocean has always bumped the ping time up - natural due to distance - and the first two over there have always shown quite a high percentage of packet loss.

[Kermit de frog]

I did fresh install on new Win11 PC, and the standard shape file was a slow download. I eventually walked away and I think it completed in 20 min. The entire install took about an hour.

[Brooke]

Just to be clear, for me, when I loosely say "an hour-ish", I should more precisely say "30-60 minutes".

[icepac]

How often does that file change?