Technical Tackling Latency

[QuadReplicant]

Does anyone have any advice on huge latency spikes. Usually we get around 200-400 but lately its been hitting 3000+. We are in Australia and have just noticed this in the last few days. I actually have no idea how Latency works and why it would change so rapidly.

- Does Addon Memory affect it?
- Are there any free VPN services that could tackle it?
- Is is purely a server issue?
- Is it an issue on my end?

My Connection Below:
DOWNLOAD Mbps
98.31
UPLOAD Mbps
37.54

[Obnoxious]

Latency is the amount of time it takes for data packages to go from one point to another on a network, usually in milliseconds. A latency of 400ms, for example, means it takes 0.4 seconds for the information that you used some spell reaches the server, which then has to be processed and the result sent back to you, to then be processed by your computer to display the result. That can be affected by many things, though, like the distance, the amount of hops across the network it takes to reach the destination, and how much concurrent traffic there is both locally and at the destination.

Services used to reduce latency can help with that by using specific routes to optimize how you reach the server (less hops, avoid bad routes, etc.), but how much they affect it can vary a lot. Free ones have way more than likely already been banned by IP here due to them being abused to spam advertisement and such, so you really shouldn't risk it, you will probably just have to wait a few days after sending a ban appeal to get your account back.

In most cases the issue is neither quite on your end (all your connections would be slow in that case) nor on the server (all players would be affected in that case), but on the route your ISP is taking to reach the server. No one has a direct connection to the server, they follow a path over multiple "hops" to intermediate servers that forward the data to the next one, until it arrives. And that's where most issues happen. If any of those hops (which can routinely be 10-15+) is having an issue that slows down their traffic, you will be affected. That's why even someone who doesn't live far from you could have a better connection, it just would take his ISP to be using a different route that is working properly. This is what usually happens suddenly and fixes itself on its own, be it when the issue gets fixed or a new route avoiding that hop is spread across routing tables, but it can take a while.

Your connection speed is also completely irrelevant (well, I suppose if you were on a 14.4k dial-up it would matter, but yeah). You could be driving a Bugatti, but all its speed would be meaningless if you took a street with men at work.

[Shred92]

The only reasonable things that you can do to lower your latency are 1) making sure it's not a problem in your local network (have you tried using a cable?), 2) changing ISPs or 3) using a VPN or a similar service.

But you live in Australia so... good luck.

[QuadReplicant]

Latency is the amount of time it takes for data packages to go from one point to another on a network, usually in milliseconds. A latency of 400ms, for example, means it takes 0.4 seconds for the information that you used some spell reaches the server, which then has to be processed and the result sent back to you, to then be processed by your computer to display the result. That can be affected by many things, though, like the distance, the amount of hops across the network it takes to reach the destination, and how much concurrent traffic there is both locally and at the destination.

Services used to reduce latency can help with that by using specific routes to optimize how you reach the server (less hops, avoid bad routes, etc.), but how much they affect it can vary a lot. Free ones have way more than likely already been banned by IP here due to them being abused to spam advertisement and such, so you really shouldn't risk it, you will probably just have to wait a few days after sending a ban appeal to get your account back.

In most cases the issue is neither quite on your end (all your connections would be slow in that case) nor on the server (all players would be affected in that case), but on the route your ISP is taking to reach the server. No one has a direct connection to the server, they follow a path over multiple "hops" to intermediate servers that forward the data to the next one, until it arrives. And that's where most issues happen. If any of those hops (which can routinely be 10-15+) is having an issue that slows down their traffic, you will be affected. That's why even someone who doesn't live far from you could have a better connection, it just would take his ISP to be using a different route that is working properly. This is what usually happens suddenly and fixes itself on its own, be it when the issue gets fixed or a new route avoiding that hop is spread across routing tables, but it can take a while.

Your connection speed is also completely irrelevant (well, I suppose if you were on a 14.4k dial-up it would matter, but yeah). You could be driving a Bugatti, but all its speed would be meaningless if you took a street with men at work.

Thanks so much, extremely informative. I wouldn't say it does it too much. we can sit for hours on 200-400 latency and its great. But this explanation really does help in understanding how it all works.

[QuadReplicant]

The only reasonable things that you can do to lower your latency are 1) making sure it's not a problem in your local network (have you tried using a cable?), 2) changing ISPs or 3) using a VPN or a similar service.

But you live in Australia so... good luck.

Yeah, Australia really only hits speeds of around 100mbps on a normal household NBN plan. If you were to pay a lot more and if the infrastructure allowed for it then you could get 200-1000. Usually only available for businesses in the City.

I know that New Zealand hits 500mbps on a normal household plan, I feel like we have the rough end of the stick here lol.

[Shred92]

It's not about speed, it's about latency. The speed of light at this scale is a limiting factor.

Once again if your latency is irregular make sure to be connecting using an ethernet cable to your router and see if the spikes keep occurring.

[QuadReplicant]

It's not about speed, it's about latency. The speed of light at this scale is a limiting factor.

Once again if your latency is irregular make sure to be connecting using an ethernet cable to your router and see if the spikes keep occurring.

Yeah sweet, i'm cabled up. Thanks heaps for the advice.