What's up with the 2 second delay on skill activations and rubberbanding armies of enemies which keep resetting themselves?

the lag is usually quite obvious in this game but this is much worse than I've seen it, and borders on unplayable.

I have an excellent internet connection and live in the states, lag shouldn't be a big issue like this.

It is not just where you are, the whole game and forums as well, I will blame the cheap servers that ea or biocheap went with....has been bad before but now is a complete joke when you try to execute anything quickly it is hit key multiple times and wait for it to happen.

Girlfriend is right behind me on an older computer with no issues whatsoever playing anarchy online so it is same ol same ol in my opinion.

Have you tried ping plotter, trixxie normally suggested this, but she's not around at the moment. Most (not all) find it's somewhere along the root that the issue is.

Personally, the only lag I'm experienceing is on dantooine, but that's because there's a lot of people there at the moment, and sometimes on fleet. But I think that is actully down to my own laptop, it's a good one, but not great, and definatly not a 'gaming' laptop..lol

I do have a gaming machine built by me like the hundred other ones i build, if i buy a game and play it online and discover issues with a bad connection which really hurts my and hundreds others game play then who is it really hurting? So should I do my own investigation to discover the problems location? I am not going to waste my time figuring out where an issue is because even when I do is there a solution? Call up so and so at a switch and tell them they have a bad switch or hub?

I used wireshark for an old company I worked for to find an issue in chicago which slowed our connection bandwidth down to a crawl, only happened around five or at the busiest time in after noon and actually told them exactly where the issue was......it took them six months before the switch finally gave out before they pushed to get it replaced.

The point here is that most companies are well aware of the issues and wait until they absolutely have to fix it before they do.

I still blame it on cheap servers as they are trying to save money.

Have you tried ping plotter, trixxie normally suggested this, but she's not around at the moment (forced holiday ). Most (not all) find it's somewhere along the root that the issue is.

 

Personally, the only lag I'm experienceing is on dantooine, but that's because there's a lot of people there at the moment, and sometimes on fleet. But I think that is actully down to my own laptop, it's a good one, but not great, and definatly not a 'gaming' laptop..lol

Definitely try ping plotter to see where the problems are.

Download Pingplotter at http://www.pingplotter.com

Install it so you can look at the hops to the server

To find out the server IP (it changes everytime you log in now) you need start swtor and then go back to your Windows desktop.

Now run command prompt in Administrator mode

(Depending on which Windows you have, there are different ways to run it in Administrator mode, so do a quick Google search on how too for your windows version)

 

Type this command into the command shell after you have opened it.

Netstat -n -p tcp -b | more

 

(I usually have the netstat command saved in a txt file for notepad and just copy and paste it into the command prompt)

 

It will show you the 2 swtor connections to the server IP

 

It usually has an ip like this - 159.153.65.233 or 159.153.65.232

But because it changes each time you login it will be different.. Ie it could be - 159.153.65.220

This is why you have to run this each time if you want to get an accurate read on the server ping.

 

Once you have that ip, open pingplotter. You can then enter the swtor server ip you are connected to and it will run a live trace route, showing all the connection hops along the way.

You'll be able to see live statistics and information on what is happening.[/Quote]

I do have a gaming machine built by me like the hundred other ones i build, if i buy a game and play it online and discover issues with a bad connection which really hurts my and hundreds others game play then who is it really hurting? So should I do my own investigation to discover the problems location? I am not going to waste my time figuring out where an issue is because even when I do is there a solution? Call up so and so at a switch and tell them they have a bad switch or hub?

I used wireshark for an old company I worked for to find an issue in chicago which slowed our connection bandwidth down to a crawl, only happened around five or at the busiest time in after noon and actually told them exactly where the issue was......it took them six months before the switch finally gave out before they pushed to get it replaced.

The point here is that most companies are well aware of the issues and wait until they absolutely have to fix it before they do.

I still blame it on cheap servers as they are trying to save money.

Help is offered to those who help themselves.

Help is offered to those who help themselves.

You go with that, if it gets worse then I just quit playing, there is more important things to do for certain than do bioware or ea job for them.

You go with that, if it gets worse then I just quit playing, there is more important things to do for certain than do bioware or ea job for them.

if the issue is the route your connection takes, then there is nothing BW can do about it, that's why you need to use ping plotter to find out at which point it craps out on

if the issue is the route your connection takes, then there is nothing BW can do about it, that's why you need to use ping plotter to find out at which point it craps out on

Don't bother trying to explain to him how the internet works. I already tried that before in May when he also complained about lags and he refused to listen to reason and simply wanted to dump it all on BioWare/EA.

Unfortunately he is not the only one. There seems to be a lot of players who don't grasp the basic concepts of internet routing and always blame the end point instead of looking for issues along the way.

if the issue is the route your connection takes, then there is nothing BW can do about it, that's why you need to use ping plotter to find out at which point it craps out on

If that was the case we would not have so many complaints of lag as we do.

If that was the case we would not have so many complaints of lag as we do.

Why not? it's quite possible all the people that are complaining are going through the same point, or that more than one is borked, It's too easy to sit on your hands and blame BW. You have to remember how many people play the game, if it was a game issue, there'd be a lot more complaints, as it is, the percentage is extremely low.

If that was the case we would not have so many complaints of lag as we do.

If you follow any of my posts on this forum you will know I’m not a bioware white knight or anything like that.

So it should say something when someone as critical of Bioware as myself tells you that 99% of the time it’s not the servers or Biowares fault when players have these lag problems.

I’m constantly trying to help people understand the lag issue they might be having. Both in private msgs and in forums posts.

Most of the people I have dealings with who have problems are willing to test with ping plotter as a starting point to find out what’s going on. And once they understand what they are seeing, they acknowledge that’s it’s not Bioware.

If people aren’t willing to at least test to rule out other issues, then they are their own worse enemies.

I live in Australia and I have had to deal with more lag issues than the majority of players still playing swtor. Not only because of the distance, but also because I live in what could be classified as rural Australia (not in a main city).

Then when swtor moved the west coast servers to the east coast, I had to deal with terrible routing across the different internet backbone of the US just to get to the servers.

As someone who has a IT technical background and experience, I thought I knew a fair bit till I started trying to trouble shoot half the lag issues this game has thrown my way for 10+ years. And since they moved the servers to the East Coast, I’ve learnt a hell of a lot more on how to deal with different ISPs, how ISPs deal with back bone companies, routing, looking glass server tracing (routing back to you, not to the game), as well as a tonne of other things. And I’m still learning more all the time because I don’t just blame Bioware, I go looking for solutions.

I’ve posted in this thread the first steps people can take to troubleshooting their lag issues. If they aren’t willing to do such basic troubleshooting, they should probably stop using the internet or playing online games.

Why not? it's quite possible all the people that are complaining are going through the same point, or that more than one is borked, It's too easy to sit on your hands and blame BW. You have to remember how many people play the game, if it was a game issue, there'd be a lot more complaints, as it is, the percentage is extremely low.

Absolutely this ^^

It’s most likely a pairing issue that their ISPs have with a specific back haul company.

Very unlikely. This is occuring in no other online games I play. unless SWTOR just goes through one of the most pathetically broken and glitchy network paths on the planet, which would be their problem not mine.

No, it'd be your internet providers issue, they control the route it goes, not BW, which is why people have suggested using Pingplotter to find the actual problem, and report it to your provider. BW has nothing to do with the route your provider chooses.

Very unlikely. This is occuring in no other online games I play. unless SWTOR just goes through one of the most pathetically broken and glitchy network paths on the planet, which would be their problem not mine.

Are all the other online games located in Ireland in the same data centre as swtor? I think not!

Do yourself a favour and just test. You’ve nothing to lose.

Are all the other online games located in Ireland in the same data centre as swtor? I think not!

 

Do yourself a favour and just test. You’ve nothing to lose.

By test you mean just run a ping check? and is SWTOR really based in ireland of all places? that's ridiculous lol. why is it there? that might explain the terrible connection- but I've had better connections when playing from the US on servers in Japan.

By test you mean just run a ping check? and is SWTOR really based in ireland of all places? that's ridiculous lol. why is it there? that might explain the terrible connection- but I've had better connections when playing from the US on servers in Japan.

The european servers are in Ireland, the rest in the US, not sure which side though...lol

Japan has probably one of the best infrastructers in the world, I think every building has an exchange in it, or something along those lines...lol

The european servers are in Ireland, the rest in the US, not sure which side though...lol

Japan has probably one of the best infrastructers in the world, I think every building has an exchange in it, or something along those lines...lol

Japans infrastructure is far newer, and built to take less damage from earthquakes given its right on the ring of fire so it's not surprising. here in the US our infrastructure is old and crappy.

But I play on North American servers, on Starforge. so where are those servers?

Japans infrastructure is far newer, and built to take less damage from earthquakes given its right on the ring of fire so it's not surprising. here in the US our infrastructure is old and crappy.

 

But I play on North American servers, on Starforge. so where are those servers?

Both west and east coast servers were merged, but I can't remember if they stayed on the east or west, hopefully someone can answer. But if the US infrastructure is crap, chances are Pingplotter can tell you excatly where the issue is, then you contact your ISP, and hopefully get it sorted. But it will depend on the company, some are better than others for dealing with issues like this.

Are all the other online games located in Ireland in the same data centre as swtor? I think not!

This, this is exactly what people are unhappy about.

Placing EU servers in one of the most remote locations in Europe so that players would "learn a thing or two about IT/routing while they're at it" is... Not great.

Personally, I understand just enough about routing to get a lower boundary on time/effort investment so to (possibly!) get better experience playing ONE game that I'd rather put up with it and, at most, connect via proxy.

It's fair to say that you either try to fix it or make a decision to let it be and in both cases there's little point in complaining, but we're on forums

By test you mean just run a ping check? and is SWTOR really based in ireland of all places? that's ridiculous lol. why is it there? that might explain the terrible connection- but I've had better connections when playing from the US on servers in Japan.

First, it’s not just running a ping check, which doesn’t tell you anything.

Ping Plotter will actually run a live ping trace on your routing that shows the different hops to the server and show pack loss as well as tracking current, max and lowest ping over a period of time on “each hop”, not just the server (hop) IP address.

What this actually allow you to see is if there are hops between you and the server that maybe causing problems. This is important because anything outside of the EA/Bioware datacenter and their own ISP peering onto the internet is beyond their control.

As an example, you might have 10 hops to the server. The last two being hop 9 and 10, which would be the “public” IP server and the EA hop that connects them to the internet. If any hop from 1 (your end) to hop 8 is having an issue, then it’s beyond Biowares ability to fix it. IE, hop 7 could be having massive lag spikes and this will affect your connection to the game. But that’s not part of Biowares network and they have no control over it. So blaming them for that situation would be ridiculous.

So until you are willing to step up and do some basic troubleshooting as I outlined, step, by step, then blaming Bioware is pointless because you have zero information and considering this is only a small and limited number of people, it’s logical to many here that it’s probably not Bioware.

There are also only two server locations since they moved and merged the US west coast servers (during 5.0 expansion launch) to the East Coast (Virginia).

But the EU servers have always been located in Ireland since the game launched. So even though they merged a bunch of EU servers in 5,0. The location remained the same as it always had been.

If you are in the US and you have lag issues playing on Darth Malgus, then you should probably consider moving servers to the US ones of Star Forge or Satele Shan.

This, this is exactly what people are unhappy about.

Placing EU servers in one of the most remote locations in Europe so that players would "learn a thing or two about IT/routing while they're at it" is... Not great.

Personally, I understand just enough about routing to get a lower boundary on time/effort investment so to (possibly!) get better experience playing ONE game that I'd rather put up with it and, at most, connect via proxy.

 

It's fair to say that you either try to fix it or make a decision to let it be and in both cases there's little point in complaining, but we're on forums

You may not realise, but ALL the EU servers have been based in Ireland from the start of the game back in 2011?

It’s a little late to be complaining about it now. They certainly aren’t going to open more server locations on a game that has bled out so much of the player base,

The european servers are in Ireland, the rest in the US, not sure which side though...lol

Japan has probably one of the best infrastructers in the world, I think every building has an exchange in it, or something along those lines...lol

I miss the Australia Pacific Servers (APAC) we used to have

I had 19ms ping to Sydney, now I’ve 230ms to Virginia

Both west and east coast servers were merged, but I can't remember if they stayed on the east or west, hopefully someone can answer. But if the US infrastructure is crap, chances are Pingplotter can tell you excatly where the issue is, then you contact your ISP, and hopefully get it sorted. But it will depend on the company, some are better than others for dealing with issues like this.

It wont matter west or east coast, I play FF14 while living on the east coast on servers located in California, never lag.