Ping Extremely High

[Nicholas 5]

Lately I've noticed that in ArmA 2 Operation Arrowhead my ping is really, really high(Like in the 100's-200's). It never used to be this way until I started playing again recently.

I've done a ping test and speed test and my results are normal. Ping low and speeds high.

Any ideas that might solve my problem?

Thanks in advance.

[Nicholas 5]

No one??? I am getting kicked because of this issue.

[vohk 10]

Maybe your regular server switched hosts? ISP started throttling that kind of traffic (happened recently with WoW)? Changed routers?

[Nicholas 5]

I know for a fact that my ISP does not throttle traffic (It's a local ISP) I have good DL speeds 20MBps+. And DL of 2Mpbs+.

Switched routers to some cheap Netgear thing after my Lynksys router went to hell.

Maybe I need a router that can handle more traffic.

[vohk 10]

Any router should easily be able to handle the number of separate connections a household would have to deal with, and pretty much every router can exceed your internet bandwidth. Port or firewall issue with the new router maybe, assuming the problem started when you switched?

Again though, are you sure your regular server didn't just switch to a more distant host? Is this affecting every server in the browser or any other games?

[Nicholas 5]

I don't really ever have a "regular server" I just play whatever is available.

It's just that on the US servers, I never used to get a ping of 100+, but I am for some reason.

[jblackrupert 14]

Maybe check forums like http://www.dslreports.com for anything that might be going on with your ISP.

Just because they claim not to be throttling doesn't mean they aren't

if they are leasing lines from someone else they could be doing something.

Large ISP's will do all kinds of trickiness and deny deny deny until they get caught.

[Westsailor 10]

High ping times do not (necessarily) have much to do with your ISP or even good gameplay for that matter. Of course lower is better but there are other equally (if not more) important considerations. Even if your ISP has leased servers on the other side of the country it really shouldn't affect your ping time that much.

'Ping Time' (otherwise known as latency) is the round trip time from a packet transmission to reception of an ICMP response from/to your computer. It's just one factor to consider when you are having connex problems.

If your ping time is high, perform a traceroute to the IP of the server you are playing on. Look for servers between you and the game server that might be a bottleneck. Unfortunately you cannot control the route but if you see a trend, one particular IP that is constantly showing up and constricting your data throughput you can always contact them, let them know. If it's your ISP then it will show up first in the list with a high ping and others after that adding only a few ms to the total.

Also, what is your packet loss? Ping time is less important than packet loss. What is important wrt ping time is not having any wide swings in the packet latencies. A steady ping of 200ms is much better than a ping that constantly swings between 20 & 100ms. OTOH, Packet loss is an online game killer.

Some things to try/do if you have wide ping swings and/or unacceptable packet loss;

- Make sure you close all programs running in the background, especially Microsoft's AutoUpdater, or any anti-xxxx software. Obviously TeamSpeak, Arma 2 Launcher, etc. is the exception.

- If you have been running another DirectX game before starting Arma 2, then reboot and try again. Some games leave DirectX in an unknown state and/or have memory leaks.

- If you are connecting via WiFi remember wireless connections will ALWAYS incur higher bit error rates in the data stream. Reducing the speed of the wireless connection (say, from 802.11G to B) will help reduce the errors. Otherwise, use a direct Ethernet connex to your router if you can.

- Check how many background processes are running on your computer. Stop any unneeded processes. The more you have listed, the more resources are used up.

Finally, if you use any file sharing program (utorrent, bittorrent, etc.) you might as well get use to the fact that you will never have a decent connection to the server.

Just 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. It can take over 24 hours for your Internet connection to return to normal after running a file sharing program for only 3-4 hrs.

Edited May 14, 2011 by Westsailor

[Nicholas 5]

Maybe check forums like http://www.dslreports.com for anything that might be going on with your ISP.

Just because they claim not to be throttling doesn't mean they aren't

if they are leasing lines from someone else they could be doing something.

Large ISP's will do all kinds of trickiness and deny deny deny until they get caught.

My ISP isn't even on that website. Like I said, it's an ISP only located in my area.

Traceroute to a server -

But I always have a ping of over 100.

Edited May 14, 2011 by Nicholas

[jblackrupert 14]

I'm in Vancouver,BC. Canada and my pings are always high playing on servers inside canada or even the west coast of the USA but connecting to east coast servers in NY and Chicago..etc I get decent ones.

Trying finding servers based in certain citys by searching here: http://www.gametracker.com

[vohk 10]

I'm in Vancouver,BC. Canada and my pings are always high playing on servers inside canada or even the west coast of the USA but connecting to east coast servers in NY and Chicago..etc I get decent ones.

Go figure. I'm in Abbotsford and I get great pings in western CAN, WA, Cali, etc, but Illinois is pretty much the eastern limit.

[FillaFillason 10]

hi. how fast internett do i need for arma 2. i have 5mb down and 0.5-0.8 up...will i be able to play or must i get another connection?

[vohk 10]

That's more than enough. Latency (re: ping) and connection quality (no lost packets, 'brownouts') matters a lot more to online gaming than bandwidth does.

[Nicholas 5]

I'm still having this issue and I can only find 10~ servers with a "Green" ping, which is lower than 100.

Practically all other servers are orange/red in color.

Could it be my router? I picked up a cheap one from walmart because my Linksys one broke.

[focher 15]

Try checking for background tasks or services which use bandwidth. These can make your ping seem higher. Torrents and online backup services are just two examples. Make sure you check all computer using your Internet connection.

If you are getting good pings from some servers, it is probably normal. Perhaps your ISP changed its routes or peers / partners.

You can always use the tracert command line tool or download one. This will tell you all the hops and where the delay is.

[pendragonuk 0]

Some of the newer routers attempt to filter packets. I had one that would misinterpret the regular traffic to and from a game server as malicious and would block the port.

Have a close look at the router security settings.

PS. while your in there having a poke about see if your router supports QoS. It's a marvelous feature and well worth your time investigating how it works and setting it up correctly...

[Nicholas 5]

Just turned on QoS and am attempting to set it up.

When adding an application, it's asking me what port range, what should I put?

I just put in my port for highest priority.

[focher 15]

By default, Arma series uses ports 2302-2305.