Talk to me about latency...

[Lilie]

Ok...so...brand new computer 790i Nvidia, 4g Patriot DDR3, 3.16 chip (45nm), with one 9800 gtx card.

I did the build on this thing 'round about the time AoC launched and was using it with the guild over there. I had great connection...usually running around 60 fps never going over 100ms latency, full maxed out on graphics. Now that I am back to WoW, playing on an east coast server (and I live on the east coast), I still sit around 60 fps and am usually around mid 200's ms all the time. Is this normal? Is there something specific about WoW that would make this so much different from the AoC experience? I have checked my router and run directly from the modem and there doesn't seem to be any change which makes me believe that it is something outside my ISP and local hardware. Is this just the way it is? Am I missing a way to improve performance? I would of thought my performance in WoW would blow AoC out of the water considering the difference in graphic demands. I really don't much about the whole thing so I thought I'd see what you guys had to say. Thanks for the help!

[Lizana]

If your getting 60 fps in both games, with one maxed and the other not, you probably have v sync on. Its not that big of a deal, the human eye cannot see a difference above 38 fps.(well theres a few that can see close to 40, but thats less than 1% of the population)

As far as lag goes, it all depends on the connection your making to the server. For instance, i live in KY, I play on a west coast server and average 113 ms. When i try to connect to East coast servers, i on average have a 200 ms latency. A lot of this is due to the fact that my ISP backbone is in Saint Louis, so all my data first has to go West to go east. Chances are the AOC server is a few hops closer to your location than the wow server your playing on.

[Ont]

I am under the impression that WoW's servers are all hosted on the west coast, regardless of the "zone" they serve. Is this not correct?

AoC, I know, was hosted somewhere on the east coast. I am thinking one of the Carolina's but I could be wrong.

[Satrina]

Nope, WoW has datacentres in Boston, Dallas, LA, and Seattle. (look here: US realm list by datacenter - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft) Servers running on EST are in Boston or Dallas.

[orcstar]

Making a portforward for port 3724 in my router helped get my ping down.

[Rak]

It depends on the server. On my first server back during WoW launch, I never saw pings over 100 ms. On my current server, I have a variance between 200 and 300 ms. It's all fine and shouldn't impact your gameplay at all.

Your computer hardware for the most part plays no part in your ping. Your FPS also shouldn't be connected to your ping.

As someone already pointed out, if you have 60 FPS constantly with both games, you have v-sync turned on. It's up to your preference if you want to use it or not. You can disable Vertical Sync in your WoW video options and you should notice your FPS go up. It will also cause a variance in FPS however, because v-sync basically sets your maximum FPS to the refresh rate of your monitor - so the video card only draws a new picture each time the monitor is painting the picture on your screen.

Sometimes turning off v-sync leads to graphical problems but that's pretty rare nowadays. In a game like WoW, leaving it on or off is of no real difference. In first person shooter games that rely on twitch aiming, having your FPS locked is beneficial so there is never any variance which could mess with your reflex aim.

[Lilie]

Making a portforward for port 3724 in my router helped get my ping down.

Is this the same as opening the port on your firewall? Sorry for the ignorance.

Rak...thanks for info on v-sync. I'll check my settings when the servers are up.

[dirt]

Is this the same as opening the port on your firewall? Sorry for the ignorance.

Yes. When you are behind a router, you have a LAN IP address(usually a number like 192.168.x.x). Depending on the type of router you have, it should have section like Virtual servers(atleast my Belkin does) where you can map ports to specific internal IP addresses.

So it would be something like this:

App Name--------Port Range ---------Protocol---------LAN IP--------------------Port Range
WoW ----------- 3724 - 3724 -------- TCP --------- 192.168.1.2(Internal IP) ---- 3724 - 3724

Also keep in mind if your using DHCP, that the 192.168.x.x number will eventually change depending on the lease time on it. I like to statically set mine to prevent that from happening.

[Lilie]

Cool. I'll spend some time messing with it. Thanks a lot for the help. I <3 the tech forum!

[orcstar]

On my router it's called NAT (Network address translation). If you're remapping ports make sure you alway take the same target and destination port.