Vista tcp ack - improce wow ping latency - reduce lag (solution)

[Moorea]

Found in the wow forums:

"
1) Determine your IP (ipconfig or similar)
2) Run Regedit
3) Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces
4) Determine which interface is for your IP. The correct interface will have a DhcpIPAddress set to your current IP.
5) Right-click on the interface and select New->DWORD
6) Set the name to TcpAckFrequency (case sensitive)
7) Set to a decimal value of "1"
8) Save
9) Restart your computer


That will drop you below 100ms ping

Yes its a vista issue and I promise you will see a vast improvement
"

I think it should be in the twiki or on of the sticky

ps: there is that annoying "feature" of forum software search that you can't search for "lag" or "tcp"

[Pardall]

I discovered this thing recently too (in a topic here), but didn't make any difference at all in my computer. I did this change + the other one that involves MSMQ ( http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=3031.0 ). To tell the truth, I got even more lag, lol but I think it is just a coincidence. I use XP x64 Pro btw.

[Stabface]

Well, its not specific to Vista.
And it's posted here quite a few times already (try searching for ping or latency - on the first page of results...) with links to exactly what this does and what problems it can cause too...

But it seems the only way to get people to read stuff here is just repost it over and over and... over... so :thumbsup:

[ObesAU]

I did it (plus the message queueing) when I first started boxing. Dropped my pings from 300+ (never below 300) to 240+ (rarely above 300).

YMMV

[Pardall]

4) Determine which interface is for your IP. The correct interface will have a DhcpIPAddress set to your current IP.

Amazing! All articles said about interface, but I was putting in the wrong one. Thanks to this phrase you quoted, I could setup the DWORD in the right interface. Latency went down from a fix red 680-1000 (which is common, as I play from Brazil, very very far from Servers ;( ), to a green 180-280!

http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/1930/latencygreenek8.jpg

Thanks a lot.
(So, even with all topics already about this topic, there is always something to learn).

[thinus]

I thought Blizzard fixed this in a patch a long time ago?

[Wide]

me too Oo

[Pardall]

Actually they said the "fixed" this in patch 2.3.2 if I am not wrong. But, didn't solve anything, then this regedit trick still spreading in all forums, including WoW officials.

[Jamien]

They "fixed" it. But it didn't change anything.

Whats awesome is if you're from Australia (i don't know about other non-american connections) you get a higher ping by default, even if it should be around the 150-200 mark it will be up around 300-400.

[suineg]

Try playing from Iraq where you learn how to play with a 1300 MS ping time!!

This "fix" didn't help me at all.

[softflow]

I'm not sure if this is common knowledge or not, but the US servers are not necessarily located in their 'game time zone.' Here's the list of the US servers by datacenter from the wowwiki:

http://www.wowwiki.com/US_realm_list_by_datacenter

I'm in North Carolina, as you can tell, and my ping to the Seattle servers is around 200ms with this TCP Ack Frequency fix in Vista64. Before, it was around 280ms-300ms. However, my ping to the Dallas servers and sometimes the Boston servers is 40-55ms. I use Quartz for a cast bar as it has the lag built into the casting display (great feature!) and have easily hit 450-500 ms in instances on the Seattle servers, but rarely see it over 100 on the Dallas servers. Quite a difference!!

Check each data center and choose a server based on those results if you're really looking to improve your ping.

[Moorea]

It worked for me on vista 64bits - the problem I had is I had 1 of my 5 toons randomly was getting "yellow" ping time - with this change I got ping times under or around 100ms for all 5 windows (with 29ms (!) once)

don't do the MSMQ it isn't necessary

[Chorizotarian]

I'm not sure if this is common knowledge or not, but the US servers are not necessarily located in their 'game time zone.' Here's the list of the US servers by datacenter from the wowwiki:

http://www.wowwiki.com/US_realm_list_by_datacenter

I'm in North Carolina, as you can tell, and my ping to the Seattle servers is around 200ms with this TCP Ack Frequency fix in Vista64. Before, it was around 280ms-300ms. However, my ping to the Dallas servers and sometimes the Boston servers is 40-55ms. I use Quartz for a cast bar as it has the lag built into the casting display (great feature!) and have easily hit 450-500 ms in instances on the Seattle servers, but rarely see it over 100 on the Dallas servers. Quite a difference!!

Check each data center and choose a server based on those results if you're really looking to improve your ping.

Using Quartz or some other in-game measure of latency confounds network issues in getting your packets to/from the server with server load. You'd be better off doing a traceroute. I suspect you will find that the time spent on the extremely fast fiber optic backbone that carries your packets from your local area to either Seattle or Dallas is insignificant. (After all, the speed of light travel time around the world is something like 30 ms.) The real delays happen in the local networks and on the servers.

[Bovidae]

I'm not sure if this is common knowledge or not, but the US servers are not necessarily located in their 'game time zone.' Here's the list of the US servers by datacenter from the wowwiki:

http://www.wowwiki.com/US_realm_list_by_datacenter

I'm in North Carolina, as you can tell, and my ping to the Seattle servers is around 200ms with this TCP Ack Frequency fix in Vista64. Before, it was around 280ms-300ms. However, my ping to the Dallas servers and sometimes the Boston servers is 40-55ms. I use Quartz for a cast bar as it has the lag built into the casting display (great feature!) and have easily hit 450-500 ms in instances on the Seattle servers, but rarely see it over 100 on the Dallas servers. Quite a difference!!

Check each data center and choose a server based on those results if you're really looking to improve your ping.QFE

If you're looking to reduce your latency, THIS is the biggest factor. I live on the west coast, chose a mountain time server, and years later found out it was located in Boston. FAIL. My latency had always been around 300ms, after I disabled Naggling, I saw a huge improvement (by about 50%), but that change was nothing compared to playing on a local server.

Now I play on a server located within 70 miles of my home, and regularly enjoy sub-20ms pings =P (but server time is Central...)