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View Full Version : PSU-PC: To those experiencing lots of constant lag.



Shanira
Nov 2, 2006, 03:16 PM
This method won't be usable by PS2 users obviously, unless they have a PC hooked up, and even then the results might be tainted. (but better than nothing)

First off. Apparantly Gameguard doesn't block netstat from revealing what you're connected to, at least as far as I can discern. After logging in to a random universe (I'm not sure which it is; it really doesn't matter in my case as lag is constantly over a second regardless of universe or mission)

The IP I came up with: 198.176.10.9

Using ARIN/RIPE/APNIC (don't ask me, this is all my friend's work) which apparantly hold data for what IP ranges belong to what registrar I found this:

Sega of America, Inc. SEGAOA3 (NET-198-176-10-0-1) 198.176.10.0 - 198.176.10.255
Sega of America, Inc. NETBLK-SEGAOA (NET-198-176-8-0-1) 198.176.8.0 - 198.176.15.255

The IP is definately within their netblock. If it's not the server, it should be good enough; even if there are a few extra hops within SEGA's own network that are bad, it's still a problem SEGA needs to solve.

On to the technical stuff. First I traced the route to the IP. I'd like it if other people getting lag like this could do this as well.

To trace the route do this:
- Start > Run... >
- Type in cmd (Windows 2000/XP) or command (Windows 98/ME)
- A prompt should show up, input tracert 198.176.10.9
- If you want to save the traceroute directly to a file use tracert 198.176.10.9 > tracert.txt which will store the traceroute in a file called tracert.txt

Here's mine:


Tracing route to 198.176.10.9 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 * * * Request timed out.
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 25 ms 25 ms 25 ms s55923c01.adsl.wanadoo.nl [85.146.60.1]
4 29 ms 30 ms 30 ms V774.dr3-asd5.nl.euro.net [194.134.156.13]
5 31 ms 29 ms 30 ms GX-X.cr2-asd4.nl.euro.net [194.134.162.21]
6 30 ms 29 ms 30 ms PC12.er1-asd4.nl.euro.net [194.134.162.9]
7 37 ms 38 ms 37 ms ge-3-0-0-0.loncr5.London.opentransit.net [193.25
1.252.213]
8 37 ms 37 ms 37 ms ge-4-0-0-0.loncr4.London.opentransit.net [193.25
1.242.182]
9 210 ms 210 ms 211 ms po10-0.ashcr1.Ashburn.opentransit.net [193.251.2
40.182]
10 210 ms 210 ms 210 ms gi13-0.ashcr2.Ashburn.opentransit.net [193.251.2
41.54]
11 225 ms 224 ms 390 ms so-1-0-0-0.atlcr1.Atlanta.opentransit.net [193.2
51.240.154]
12 243 ms 244 ms 243 ms so-6-0-0-0.dalcr2.Dallas.opentransit.net [193.25
1.240.142]
13 243 ms 243 ms 243 ms sprint.GW.opentransit.net [193.251.247.158]
14 244 ms 244 ms 245 ms sl-bb20-fw-13-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.20.16]
15 245 ms 244 ms * sl-bb21-fw-14-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.11.218]

16 185 ms 186 ms 185 ms sl-bb22-ana-12-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.20.131]

17 187 ms 187 ms 187 ms sl-bb20-ana-15-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.1.178]

18 186 ms 187 ms 187 ms sl-bb24-sj-4-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.9.93]
19 187 ms 187 ms 187 ms sl-bb21-sj-12-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.3.201]
20 188 ms 187 ms 187 ms sl-st20-sj-13-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.9.58]
21 201 ms 201 ms 204 ms sl-browing-24-0.sprintlink.net [144.223.242.10]

22 200 ms 207 ms 202 ms g2-2-0.a1.hywr.broadwing.net [216.140.3.41]
23 203 ms 202 ms 203 ms 216.140.3.158
24 201 ms 202 ms 202 ms 66-114-194-236.focaldata.net [66.114.194.236]
25 204 ms 204 ms 203 ms 198.176.8.194
26 203 ms 203 ms 203 ms 198.176.10.9

Trace complete.

This shows the route, while long and not particularly the fastest on my end, is not broken. There are no nodes timing out completely. The only glitchy node is sl-bb21-fw-14-0.sprintlink.net which failed to time out on two subsequent traceroutes.

Nothing broken there. It's showing a 203 ms ping as well. So lets verify that for a second:


Pinging 198.176.10.9 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 198.176.10.9: bytes=32 time=203ms TTL=43
Reply from 198.176.10.9: bytes=32 time=202ms TTL=43
Reply from 198.176.10.9: bytes=32 time=202ms TTL=43
Reply from 198.176.10.9: bytes=32 time=203ms TTL=43

Ping statistics for 198.176.10.9:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 202ms, Maximum = 203ms, Average = 202ms

Yup. Around 200ms ping. If you want to try and post your ping as well follow the same instructions found above but instead of tracert type ping.

Why am I getting over five times the lag my ping would indicate? Is SEGA's netcode so bad it more then quintuples one's ping?

Either way, my conclusion is that this mystery lag people are getting, wether it's constant like in my case and some others, or bursts, I'm thinking it's mostly a problem on SEGA's end.

Of course, it never hurts to have more evidence, so that's why I'm posting this here, so others with lag can contribute to try and find the cause of the problems; and if it lies with SEGA possibly to badger them into doing something. >_>

Nagidar
Nov 2, 2006, 03:23 PM
I get no lag, what most people are experiencing is inadequate frame buffering, thats slowdown caused by too many objects on screen at one time, BUT, it can sometimes be caused BY lag, or at least, lag could play a part in it.

Kura_Kai
Nov 2, 2006, 03:24 PM
It isn't SEGA most likely for you it seems like something along the line is causing it to lag. Also it might be because there are so many users playing on the servers. It might get better when the hyperness of the gamers die down and there playing when they normally can and not staying up at night to play instead of sleeping.

ParkPlace
Nov 2, 2006, 03:27 PM
Maybe because you live in Europe and the server is in United States?

Lorsavasus
Nov 2, 2006, 03:29 PM
Honestly, I believe people are getting lag and just not knowing it. As someone who plays with someone else, physically in the same room, its obvious that something's off on Sega's end. Our characters are never in identical positions. Actually, every edition has had the same sort of problem and I've noticed others who complain about the same thing.

Though, I'm not going to pretend I know as much about this as I should. Shanira, perhaps you could send this to Sega on phantasystaruniverse.com 's "Contact Us" link? They're not checking the message boards at all.

EDIT - the only time we never had any sort of lag problems was when we were playing the Japanese version of Ep1+2 - on the Japanese servers. Go figure, but that was a rock-solid connection. We've experienced the same problem with all U.S. based versions. I'm all for the "Sega's netcode is THAT bad" comment.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Lorsavasus on 2006-11-02 12:32 ]</font>


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Lorsavasus on 2006-11-02 12:34 ]</font>

myomer
Nov 2, 2006, 03:40 PM
On 2006-11-02 12:29, Lorsavasus wrote:
Honestly, I believe people are getting lag and just not knowing it. As someone who plays with someone else, physically in the same room, its obvious that something's off on Sega's end. Our characters are never in identical positions.


I can attest to this as well. My wife would be hitting with a saber a mob but she'd be across the field from me point-blanking the same mob with a diga. Sometimes I would see her damage flash on top of the mob but on my screen she is nowhere near it.

And vice versa.

Shanira
Nov 2, 2006, 03:40 PM
Okay:

1. I have a Core 2 Duo E6400 CPU, a Geforce 7900 GT, and 2 gigs of DDR2 RAM. I know the difference between slowdown on my PC and the difference between lag on my connection. The graphics are smooth as silk, and I can even run FRAPS to store a video of what I'm doing at max settings without any slowdown, but everything I do is delayed to the point that where I use Rising Strike PA on a monster and SEE both hits strike, then run back a bit, the second hit will never register thanks to lag. Example found here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR163KErJd0). It's not graphical (as you can see) as I can turn everything to minimum and frameskip to max and it will still do this. (yes I tried, it only makes things ugly, not less lagged)

2. If something along the line were causing it to lag it would show up on the traceroute. That's what a traceroute is for, and full round trip time for packets is only 200 ms, while I'm getting well over a second lag. There might be something in SEGA's internal netblock, but that's a pretty big if, and even then it's in SEGA's netblock, and thus their fault (or the fault of their backbone provider)

3. If it's overloading of SEGA's network this doesn't explain why some people get it, and others don't. Moving to other universes also seems to not affect anything. If their backbone was getting overloaded, everyone would be lagging due to congestion. This is mystery lag that only affects a smaller section of the playerbase seemingly at random and without cause.

4. The "you live in Europe" thing. Seriously, that's not even looking at the evidence portrayed in this thread. Because if you had, you'd see that the connection from where I am in Europe to where the server is in the US takes 200ms. It's right there in the traceroute and the ping data. Tracert.exe and ping.exe are designed to let you know how fast your connection to something is; they time how long it takes for my signal to get to where I want it to go and back and spit out how long that is. That is my ping, living in europe won't magically make it larger than what tracert and ping say, because tracert and ping are the things that tell me how long it takes.

Plus, the whole "you live in europe" thing is moot. A guy on dialup in the sticks of Germany isn't getting this lag, a guy in the UK isn't getting this lag, I am getting the lag, another guy in the UK is getting the lag, lots of americans aren't getting the lag, and some americans are getting exactly this type of lag. It is not a regional thing.

Please remember, I'm not here to complain about "oh it's a little laggy". I'm getting well over a second lag. How is this possible when the time it takes for my signal to reach SEGA and come back takes 200 ms, or 0.2 seconds?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Shanira on 2006-11-02 12:42 ]</font>

Jaylix
Nov 2, 2006, 03:55 PM
This is simple. 3 things.

1. 26 hops? Jesus, seriously. 26 hops is not a good sign. More possible points of failure.

2. It's not Sega at all. It's hop number 9 that is the problem in your traceroute.

3. You are in the EU, I can see it in your traceroute, this kind of thing is expected with transatlantic communications. You are right, it doesn't mean it will be bad, but it can.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Jaylix on 2006-11-02 12:56 ]</font>

Shanira
Nov 2, 2006, 04:10 PM
Hop number 9 is crossing the atlantic to north america. An increase in ping time is expected. (in fact that's where the largest part of the ping will be, big ocean)

The fact remains is my connection to the server is 200ms. Not 1000-1200. Yes, it's trans atlantic communication, that's why it's approximately 174 ms slower (difference between hop 8, London, and hop 9, Ashburn), and this is entirely correct, there is a massive slowdown there.

I'm not saying you're incorrect, but nothing I'm seeing here accounts for that 800-1000 ms extra on the ping that my diagnostics say I have. If I'm missing something here, please let me know.

In case anyone's wondering, how I arrived at that number for my actual ping time is simple. I FRAPSed at 60 frames per second offline mode Rising Strike, and then online. I compared when the monster should go flying to when it factually does between the two, counted the frames, and divided by 60, coming up to basically a second in between that shouldn't be there.

200 ms ping isn't ideal, but it's also not a full second.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Shanira on 2006-11-02 13:12 ]</font>

Lorsavasus
Nov 2, 2006, 04:18 PM
Myomer knows what I am talking about. I find it really hard to explain, since it doesn't -seem- to make a whole lot of sense.

Enemy and character positions appear very random. Like, there isn't so much a delay in attacks, rather delays in updating character/enemy positions? I never really thought there was much of a problem until I looked at this side-by-side. My screen shows me leading our group down a hallway... the other screen shows me trailing our group. Yet people are still attacking, chatting, and moving, rather than skipping around.

Its just strange, since all U.S.-based PSO(U) games do this, whereas a stray FPS, racer, or JP-based PSO game won't do this.

Shanira
Nov 2, 2006, 04:31 PM
I can't really say anything about the rather odd updating issue people seem to be having, but to those that are getting that, does it mean sometimes your PA will not register hits because you used it and backed off, or you get interrupted on an attack after you made it by a monster attacking you? If so this might be a similar, netcode related issue.

Anyhow, a friend of mine (a certified networking professional) pointed out that there might be an issue with the route it's taking back if there is any IP masking; IE I'm not actually reaching the server IP itself but something at least on SEGA's netblock.

The problem could be that because I'm not getting there on my traceroute that the actual game server might be sending their packets back on a radically different, and wholly crappy route.

This seems for now the most plausible explanation to me, as well as him, especially since it's only a fraction of the playerbase getting this issue it heightens the possibility of it being a return pathing issue.

Which still, unfortunately, means that the issue seems to be with SEGA. Or rather that their backbone provider's routing table has bad return routes.