READ THIS: Internet Connection Hints/Tips

[Skuzzy]

Updated:August 24, 2018

In this post, I will try to give you helpful information on how to interpret your connection to the various servers that HiTech Creations deploys.

First, the server IP addresses, to be used for traces/ping plots.

Axis vs Allies, Melee, Special Events 1, Training, World War I: 71.252.137.153
Lobby, Special Events 2: 71.252.137.154
Custom Arenas: 71.252.137.155
Dueling, Missions: 71.252.137.158

The current port range for all arenas in Aces High is 2000-7000, inclusive, for UDP and TCP.  Aces High will use a random subset of those ports for all online play.

The custom arenas currently use 4000 through 5000 for the port range, however, that can change.


I get a lot of questions about connections, net status, variance, and so on.

Let me start by dispelling some myths.
1) Your ping is some what irrelevant to the servers. If it is below 250ms, then you are golden. Faster is not always better.  For example, if your connection is ping changes from 10ms to 90ms regularly, then that is worse than having a connection which pings range from 200ms to 210ms.
Having a steady ping is the best connection, regardless of the speed.  This is not a first person shooter where the first packet arriving wins.

2) Plane warping is not as much server related as it is client or Internet related. This is a simple fact. I will explain further down why.


MY CONNECTION SUCKS

I get this from users occasionally. If you say that to me, all I can say back is, "So?". You have to understand that without tangible data, it is impossible to do a thing for anyones connection.
Every hop/router affects your connection to the any of the Aces High arenas. Even another person on your cable node can impact your connection to the Internet.  We cannot control them. We can only directly affect the immediate connection at the servers, just like you.

What to do:
1) Make sure you minimize the number of programs running in the background, especially Microsoft's AutoUpdater, or any anti-xxxx software or iTunes (or anything like iTunes).  Windows 10 will not allow you to disable the updater.  Just beware, Windows 10 will update when a game is running, so just be on the lookout for that.
2) If you had been running another DirectX game before starting Aces High, then reboot and try Aces High again. Some games leave DirectX in an unknown state and/or have memory leaks.
3) If you have a bad connection, then you should immediately leave the game and run either a traceroute (tracert for Windows users Start->Run->command) or a PingPlot and post that data here in this forum.
4) If you are connecting using a 56K modem or wireless, try reducing your connection rate.  56K modems normally have much slower speeds coming from your computer (<19.2K), whereas a 33.6K connection will usually run >26.4K on the downlink from your computer.  Wireless connections will always incur higher bit error rates in the data stream.  Reducing the speed of the wireless connection will help reduce the errors.  If the upload and download rates are badly skewed, then you will probably get a lot of "Losing UDP, switch to TCP" messages from the game.
5) Check how many background processes are running on your computer.  For Windows 2000 and XP, it should be between 19 and 21 for a normal/clean system.  For Windows Vista and Windows 7/8/8.1, if you can get it around 35 to 38, you will be in much better shape.  With Windows 10, it is more difficult to control the background processes as Microsoft is taking steps to prevent what they think should be running from being stopped.  The more you have listed, the more resources are used up. After any given update, Windows 10/Microsoft may revert all your operating system settings back to default.  Check that. 
6) Check your CPU usage in the Windows Task Manager (under the "Processes" tab).  For Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and Windows 7/8/8.1, it should vary from 0 to 1% at regular intervals.  If it is spiking higher than 2%, you have other active programs (possibly spyware/malware) running on your computer and these will effect the performance of the game in a big way (stutters, pauses, freezing, loss of UDP, loss of connection, crash to desktop are but a few of the potential problems manifested by this issue).

There are certain times of the calendar year where the Internet is going to be problematic, as it pertains to maintaining a reliable connection, to the game servers.  Unlike a first person shooter or browsing, where dropping packets is not so bad and may not be noticeable, flying at 400MPH makes things very problematic when the connection suffers abnormal delays and/or dropped packets.

When schools start around the country, or when schools are out for holidays, or when schools are let out for any breaks, packet loss will be higher than other periods of time.  During severe weather, packet loss will be geographic in sync with wherever the severe weather is occurring.


FILE SHARING PROGRAMS (also known as P2P)

If you run any file sharing program (or iTunes), you might as well get use to the fact that you will never have a decent connection to the servers.
Turning off those programs after they have been running for any period of time at all does not stop the users on the Internet from pounding on your connection.
This will cause lost packets, switches from UDP to TCP, and just generally lousy connections to the servers.
My testing shows, that after the program has been running longer than 3 hours, it takes over 24 hours for your Internet connection to return to normal.


USB versus ETHERNET Internet Hardware

For those of you who have a Fiber Optic, DSL, or Cable modem connection to the Internet, you are using a modem to interface to the broadband ISP you are connected to.
It is imperative this modem have an Ethernet port and not a USB port to attach to your computer.
USB based modems will cause significant connection problems.
A cheap Ethernet card can also cause problems, but not as bad as a USB based modem would. Generally, for Windows I recommend either the 3Com 3C905 family, a DEC2104x based card, or an Intel 8255x based card.
Those Ethernet cards will give you the highest throughputs and least amount of software overhead.

Concerning 'tweaker' programs for the TCP network stack. Do not use them!  The default configuration for all versions of Windows since Windows 95 is fine for broadband/LAN activity.  Aces High has been specifically tuned to use the default network stack as provided by Microsoft (such as it is).

Yes, you may improve your download performance by using tweakers, but you risk hurting online gaming performance, and by a substantial factor, as well as reducing the stability of your online gaming connection.

Bottomline, we cannot control the Internet. It is a dynamic beast with a mind of its own some days, but for the most part it works well.

I will be adding/changing this post from time to time, so give it a read once in a while.

[Skuzzy]

Losing UDP, switch to TCP

The above game message is not one you want to see.  Basically it means the game has detected packet loss on the Internet connection.  Packet loss can happen at any hop between you and the servers.  If the packet loss is severe enough, you will be disconnected from the server.

There are certain times of the calendar year where the Internet is going to be problematic, as it pertains to maintaining a reliable connection, to the game servers.  Unlike a first person shooter or browsing, where dropping packets is not so bad and may not be noticeable, flying at 400MPH makes things very problematic when the connection suffers abnormal delays and/or dropped packets.

When schools start around the country, or when schools are out for holidays, or when schools are let out for any breaks, packet loss will be higher than other periods of time.  During severe weather, packet loss will be geographic in sync with wherever the severe weather is occurring.

It matters not what type of Internet connection you have.  You can have the bestest, fastest, most whizbang connection on the planet, and you are still at the mercy of every router between you and any destination on the Internet.  So, what do you do?

The best thing to do, if this happens, is to run Ping Plotter for a few minutes after the disco.  In the second column (PL%) of the output packet loss will be expressed as a percentage.  Each line in the Ping Plotter output represents a hop/router your data packets have to cross to get to the server.

One thing to note, if the packet loss shows up at the last or second to the last hop, then the packet loss is occurring on the return trip to your computer.  The path from your computer to the servers, is different than the path from the servers back to your computer.  You cannot see the path back to your computer in Ping Plotter.  We (HTC) have to run a trace back to your computer in order to see if we can isolate where the packet loss might be occurring.

In all cases, if you cannot read the Ping Plotter data, feel free to export the data as a text file and email that file to support@hitechcreations.com or post it in the Technical Support forum.