UPC and XBox Live - Laggy for anyone?

Ravenholm

anyone else having issues with UPC broadband and XBox live? Lag mostly.

I'm on the 20mb package. Download speeds are sweet, no complaints there. I always seem to get picked as a host while playing call of duty MW2 though. This results in a laggy game for myself and everyone else in the lobby.

Frequent disconnects from friends when in a party also occur.

Annoying the hell outta me as apart from gaming I dont have any complaints about the speeds.

Is it to do with UPCs routing of IP traffic thru London and Amsterdam that I've read about on here? Does anyone think this is going to improve?

thanks in advance.

valdigre

Interesting, I am looking for the exact answer, I am on 20 mbit UPC package as well and having high latencies on Xbox live. Sometimes it is obviously due to house mates downloading stuff, but mostly they do not interfere.

My theory is, that in the afternoons people are heavily downloading stuff, using the internet and NTL infrastructure might be just overloaded, hell knows...

neil_purdy

Personally never had problems.. im only on the 10/1 upc package.. I run through a neathear switch to a netgear router and out the modem.. never dropped but saying that i dont think i have hosted a game yet..

But parties with friends are fine..

ei.sdraob

same here on the 10mbit package

i even connect directly to modem when i want play (halo3)

really annoying getting beaten cause your in yellow/red bars

i find its worst at 11PM everyday

Ravenholm

cheers for the replies lads. Obviously a UPC issue then.

yeah you guys on 10mb package prob wouldn't be selected as hosts.

It seems like the lobby selects the fastest connection and not the one with the lowest ping.

Even cutting out the router and plugging the xbox directly into the modem doesn't help

mackattack

Hey,

This also driving me nuts, TBH It has only started in the last few months just after MW2 was released I was still playing W@W and assumed it was the lack of players on W@W but I got MW2 for xmas and it is unplayable online.

i'm also on 20MB all is fine download, browse and VOIP but xbox live is driving me to the drink, "it doesn't take much anyways" I have the xbox in a DMZ changed the MTU size on the netgear upgraded the firmware to latest all in with no luck.

For me the worst times are 6PM to about midnight, I might get into a lobby and all seems fine game starts and within the first minute I got dropped out and game lobby closed. I have found that when i do get a good connection it is mostly dutch guys playing so this would explain the Amsterdam route.

I might have to change back to eircom if it does not improve.......

Paul

ntlbell

They were routing through Amsterdam but I thought they had got capcity in INEX.

Try doing some traceroutes and see where your traffic is going.

generally the cause of lag on xbox lives is when you're in a game with others users with bad connections.

The-Game

In the same boat here really.

On the PC The connection is fine, having no problems out of the ordinary however Xbox live is suffering terribly, every day / night it seems to occur, heavy lag and disconnection from games. UPC have said there is nothing wrong with the line when you finally get through but something has to be up for it to be only killing the Xbox and seemingly happening to others here too??

Did anyone else ring them and get any answers?

Damien360

Are you sure it is not the MW2 servers and connections.

Brother in law is on MW2 on xbox live and is having awful trouble with his connection to servers yet his internet is perfect.

Personnally, I am on UPC 10/1 and speedtest shows pings of 40ms or thereabouts. I play MW2 on PS3 with no problems whatsoever with wife on internet at the same time. Less users on PS3 than Xbox but it seems like a Xbox live issue rather than a UPC one.

mackattack

Hey,

Ok I have done a little more testing. I have tested the route and it pop's out all over Ireland from UPC. Naas, Waterford and Limerick so far.

On the Netgear I have changed the DNS settings to provide googles DNS servers, 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. This has made no difference to live but has made for a faster search all the same. I have not called them because I can predict the outcome of the call as you say NTL-Game they say the line is fine. also this is far to complicated an issue for the front line, I have called them once before and they sent an engineer out to the house. it might be best to get a few involved they might take notice then.

I have asked all the others I play with and not one is having an issue with lag let alone getting dropped out of games or bouncing back and forth in a map like a ping pong ball. Also a neighbor up from me is using imagine and is fine no issue at all.

I tested the MTU size again and the highest response from a ping I can get back is 1272, now the xbox live minimum MTU size 1364. If you guys could also try this and see if it is different for you.

the command to test is, try it on something that allows pings first like google.com instead of live as it takes an age when it wont allow the ping back.

"ping -f -l 1272 "google.com"
"ping -f -l 1272 live.xbox.com"

If this works increase it to 1364 which is live's minimum. if you get a response like so.

"Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set."

I think this is the reason we are not getting a full game.

Let me know.

Paul

mackattack

Hey,

So I Called NTL\UPC today about issue with live. Guy on the phone said no others have called with issue and all seems fine on my line. I asked about the MTU size and he confirmed 1272 is the maximum size allowed over there network.

So I guess thats it.

JBUCD

Are yous using the UPC router/modem combo.Heard it's terrible for online gaming.

Maskedgameguru

The same thing is happening to me with Eircom broadband.

Damien360

JBUCD wrote: »

Are yous using the UPC router/modem combo.Heard it's terrible for online gaming.

I am using that combo and it works well for MW2 on PS3.

mackattack

JBUCD wrote: »

Are yous using the UPC router/modem combo.Heard it's terrible for online gaming.

Yea, I thought about that might see if I can borrow an other one from a friend to test. I swear i'm going to buy a capture card just to show how bad it is.

Cheers

mackattack

Maskedgameguru wrote: »

The same thing is happening to me with Eircom broadband.

Did you check you MTU size it is usually fine on eircom unless your bb sucks. Do a search for mturoute.exe and tun this see what it gives you back.

Paul

JBUCD

mackattack wrote: »

Yea, I thought about that might see if I can borrow an other one from a friend to test. I swear i'm going to buy a capture card just to show how bad it is.

Cheers

I have UPC myself although I use my own router and have no problems at all with it.

valdigre

Laggy connection is one thing, but recently I was getting disconnected from Xbox live service during MW2 game play!

Yesterday evening, it was just unplayable, I joined a game and after a minute or two, bam! connection dropped and says I am not connected to Xbox live... PC internet connection was working ok though.

mackattack

Funny enough the last two evenings since I called UPC all is fine a little laggy in places but not near as bad as before.

What I get is when I join a game is all fine for two minutes or so then the game goes all jumpy, it drops me back 10 paces then forward then left then right of course no in game information is viewable. Then the game drops out to the lobby and it looks like all the players got dropped then I get connection lost game lobby closed I then have to search for a new game. I do get signed out of xbox often maybe twice in an evening.

I was talking to a couple of guy's today one is xbox live with UPC the other was PS3 with UPC and the xbox guy is fine no issue but the PS3 guy was wrapped I was also having the same issue as him. Although this still leaves my with no more of an idea if the issue is xbox live or UPC.

Paul

Xbox Martyr

I'm having the same problems with UPC 10/1 Mb/s connection.The speeds are fine when tested but Xbox Live is a complete disaster.Lagging all over the screen.I contacted UPC support about it and was initially told the problem was with Xbox Live and that their piece of crap Cisco Combo wasn't compatible with Xbox.They ran some tests and (surprisingly) said they couldn't find a problem. After much nagging I got through to the top dog in support and he said he would boost more juice down the line (for the inconvenience)...Yesterday I done a speed test and was getting 24 mb/s download and guess what...It was still unplayable online (unless you like losing very badly that is)!!! This is a complete mystery to me.If anyone can throw some light on how to solve this,I would be grateful.
P.S. I wasn't meant to mention that they boost your line.They only do it in extreme cases of Whining......So Whine On People

Ranicand

Xbox Martyr wrote: »

I'm having the same problems with UPC 10/1 Mb/s connection.The speeds are fine when tested but Xbox Live is a complete disaster.Lagging all over the screen.I contacted UPC support about it and was initially told the problem was with Xbox Live and that their piece of crap Cisco Combo wasn't compatible with Xbox.They ran some tests and (surprisingly) said they couldn't find a problem. After much nagging I got through to the top dog in support and he said he would boost more juice down the line (for the inconvenience)...Yesterday I done a speed test and was getting 24 mb/s download and guess what...It was still unplayable online (unless you like losing very badly that is)!!! This is a complete mystery to me.If anyone can throw some light on how to solve this,I would be grateful.
P.S. I wasn't meant to mention that they boost your line.They only do it in extreme cases of Whining......So Whine On People

Don't you people read any of the threads?:rolleyes:
It is your fault you did not read the instructions turn off the firewall on the router and turn on UpnP.

Xbox Martyr

Ranicand wrote: »

Don't you people read any of the threads?:rolleyes:
It is your fault you did not read the instructions turn off the firewall on the router and turn on UpnP.

Thanks Einstein...Where In My Post Does It say I Haven't Done That Already:rolleyes:

Ranicand

Xbox Martyr wrote: »

Thanks Einstein...Where In My Post Does It say I Haven't Done That Already:rolleyes:

Just going by all the other people who are having problems with Xbox on the Cisco router.


Well did you try that?

Also have you considered there might be someone using the same wireless channel as you?
You can change the wireless channel this can work wonders.

Xbox Martyr

Ranicand wrote: »

Just going by all the other people who are having problems with Xbox on the Cisco router.


Well did you try that?

Also have you considered there might be someone using the same wireless channel as you?
You can change the wireless channel this can work wonders.

Yeah the firewall is disabled and UPNP is enabled.

Don't know anything about the wireless channels. It's not a shared connection
(ie. I'm the only user) but a neighbour has Broadband from same supplier.
Not sure if this has any bearing on it. Also I'm connected wirelessly which might cause some delay.
Apologies for the snappy comeback earlier.
Pissed off with getting good speeds and **** connection to xbox live.

Ranicand

Xbox Martyr wrote: »

Yeah the firewall is disabled and UPNP is enabled.

Don't know anything about the wireless channels. It's not a shared connection
(ie. I'm the only user) but a neighbor has Broadband from same supplier.
Not sure if this has any bearing on it. Also I'm connected wirelessly which might cause some delay.
Apologies for the snappy comeback earlier.
Pissed off with getting good speeds and **** connection to xbox live.

People using the same wireless channel next to you will slow things down.

Go into the wireless settings and change you wireless channel.

Turn off your Xbox when you turn it back on it will pick up the new channel.

I was snappy too lot's of people have seem to leave the firewall on.


Your connection is password protected as is your neighbors so you connection is secure.
Two people on the same wireless channel will make the signal week for the two of you.
Your Xbox will be getting a weak signal due to two routers using the same wireless channel.

This leads to packet loss and lag.

Xbox Martyr

Ranicand wrote: »

People using the same wireless channel next to you will slow things down.

Go into the wireless settings and change you wireless channel.

Turn off your Xbox when you turn it back on it will pick up the new channel.

I was snappy too lot's of people have seem to leave the firewall on.


Your connection is password protected as is your neighbors so you connection is secure.
Two people on the same wireless channel will make the signal week for the two of you.
Your Xbox will be getting a weak signal due to two routers using the same wireless channel.

This leads to packet loss and lag.

Do I switch To Auto Or Pick Something Manually???
Its On Channel 11 At The Moment..
Presuming I'm Looking In The Right Place!!!
Setup/Wireless/Basic
Then Pick New Channel????

Ranicand

Xbox Martyr wrote: »

Do I switch To Auto Or Pick Something Manually???
Its On Channel 11 At The Moment..
Presuming I'm Looking In The Right Place!!!
Setup/Wireless/Basic
Then Pick New Channel????

Try 7 maybe and save the setting then try your Xbox and let me know how you get on.

My router goes between 1 and 16 I think just pick one yourself.

Ranicand

Xbox Martyr wrote: »

Do I switch To Auto Or Pick Something Manually???
Its On Channel 11 At The Moment..
Presuming I'm Looking In The Right Place!!!
Setup/Wireless/Basic
Then Pick New Channel????

Yes just manually pick a number yourself as far away from 11.:)
Edit my router is on channel 8 for the same reason.

Xbox Martyr

Ranicand wrote: »

Yes just manually pick a number yourself as far away from 11.:)
Edit my router is on channel 8 for the same reason.

Just tried that setup...There was no noticable lag this time.Hope it stays like that.
Thanks for your help mate.

Ranicand

Xbox Martyr wrote: »

Just tried that setup...There was no noticable lag this time.Hope it stays like that.
Thanks for your help mate.

Well it worked for me and no problems since and that was about 2 years ago.

Glad to help.:)

mackattack

Last night it was really bad so I did all you said, there is only one wireless network in range of me and it's another UPC connection on channel 3, I had already changed channel from the install time to 7 but I changed it again to 1 anyway and it made it worse went to 12 and back to normal.

I also had upnp on but the firewall was on so as a test I turned it off and it did make a difference but nothing major still had laggy games but an improvement all the same.

I'm going to get a linksys I have elsewhere back and see if this helps I cant leave my firewall off as I have to many devices running on this network to leave open to the public with a static address.

Thanks for the all the help.

Paul