Extremely slow downloads

[Lujan]

Its not the biggest deal as the rulesets are only updated occasionally, but I can't seem to get more then about 20 or 30k download speed, even tho I am using a cable connection. Any recommendations as to how to speed up the download speeds?

[jthm0138]

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[Lujan]

well when I do downloads on anything else, I end up with 600k/s speed. SOmetimes my FG slows all the way down to 2 or 3, then jumps to 100 for a second or so, then right back down into the teens. It takes me about an hour to download a ruleset on average

[jthm0138]

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[Griogre]

It is typically even slower because of overhead and if you have a voice connection going also – voice typically is a huge high priority bandwidth hog. The host's up is the real speed limit, as jthm0138 said. Home Internet connections are simply not optimized for servers use. The bigger a group the more a GM should try to minimized the size of his transfers ruleset and otherwise. It can make a big difference with a ruleset transfer if you can get people to log in early or on a different day so the ruleset does not have to be transferred at once to everyone at the same time.

[Bumamgar]

I'm the DM in Lujan's case, and I actually have business FiOS (20 meg down/5 meg up) and can easily saturate any regular cable/DSL connection. However, FG is the slowest transferring application I've ever encountered.

Even on my local LAN, it takes forever to transfer maps and ruleset information, and I'm running GigE locally. I'm not sure what the logic is internally, but I believe there must be some sort of cap hard-coded into FG, because there is no reason it should take as long as it does to transfer maps and rulesets.

As an aside, however, of the 6 players in my gaming group, it always takes about 2x as long to transfer ruleset updates to Lujan, so there must be something additionally weird going on there.

[jthm0138]

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[joshuha]

I believe FG also does file checksums and integrity checks while downloading which may cause it to appear to be slow as well.

[Griogre]

Bear in mind we are also talking optimal conditions. For some reason Lujan may not have a "clean" connection and may not getting a good download speed. IE he might be on wireless router and at the edge of range or sharing a home connection. He may also just be on a crowded cable loop (the real bane of cable) at the time you play.

Out of curiosity, just how big are those maps, Burmangar? I am surprised you are noticing much lag on a local LAN if someone has connected to you via your interal IP address.

[Bumamgar]

They range from 500k to ~1 meg, jpegs.

I'm beginning to suspect that FG sends uncompressed image data and not the jpegs. Large dimension images seem to take a lot longer than smaller dimension images, regardless of the filesize. I'll have to do some testing to verify if this is true.

[Lujan]

Like I said, aside from FG my file transfers are nice, quick and consistent. I always am the last one to get a shared image to load in the game, and one of our players is from the Netherlands. My computer is relatively state of the art, so that isn't the limfac. I was just wondering if there was a setting or something that I screwed up along the way.

[Griogre]

You are streaming a large amount of data. It does cache but the initial send is large. Probably Lujan has the worse through put of the group for some reason.

Personally I try to keep maps smaller than 300k and like less than 150. I'll admit my maps aren't always very pretty and I do use a smaller than 50 pixel square for medium.

[Griogre]

Like I said, aside from FG my file transfers are nice, quick and consistent. I always am the last one to get a shared image to load in the game, and one of our players is from the Netherlands. My computer is relatively state of the art, so that isn't the limfac. I was just wondering if there was a setting or something that I screwed up along the way.
He is streaming a large amount of data. It is probably your connection speed compared to the others. It doesn't mean your speed is necesarily slow just slower than the others relatively speaking. There may be a problem where someone who gets the map first does something to change it which may cause a refresh and resend to you because the map you are still getting is no longer correct. You could ask the DM to preload a map (where no one but he can see or change it while it is being sent) and then see if it seems to decrease the time between you and the others getting it.

[jthm0138]

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[Bumamgar]

Which does nothing to explain why when I post the maps to my website (hosted on the same internet connection), Lujan can download them in seconds...

[Oberoten]

If nobody is tweaking the map it does not have to restart uploading.

[jthm0138]

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[jthm0138]

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[Bumamgar]

Wow, my sarcasm detector went through the roof on this post...


Since I have been informed by the powers that be that I am not aloud (ed: it's allowed) to tell you what we think. here is the bottom line. We have read through your entire thread. We have also offered the knowledge required to fix your issue. But none of us can help you till you help yourself. Since it has come to my attention that what you want is a walk through on how to fix your issue this is what I will need from you.
Nope, all you've done is made smart-alek comments. I haven't found anything but a condescending attitude in your posts. Certainly nothing that would come close to 'knowledge'. However, since I love to feed trolls, here you go...


1. I need to know what make and model of modem you are using.
None, I have FiOS business service as I've stated in an earlier post

2. I need to know what make and model router you are using.
I use a P4 2.8ghz Linux machine as my server/firewall/NAT router

3. I need to know how many computers you have connected to your router (including gaming consoles if any)
I run a GigE LAN (using a linksys gigabit switch, not a hub) with the above mentioned server, 3 Windows PCs, 1 PS3, and 1 buffalo linktheater connected (yes, I know the linktheater and PS3 are 100megabit only)

4. I need to know what region you are hosting from.
Near Trenton, New Jersey

5. I need to know what regions you are hosting to.
Let see, for FG, my party has a members in San Antonio, Texas; Ottowa, Canada; Phoenix, Arizona; Brugge, Belgum; and Portland, Oregon. It's the member in Texas who's having the problems with speed.

6. The web address to the alternate server you were using to host pictures would be VERY useful.
https://www.cyberdeck.org (Which is the above mentioned Linux box)

7. I need a trace resolution from your server to yahoo.com. You can do this in windows Xp by clicking "start->run" then type "cmd" in the run prompt. This will open a command line, type "tracert www.yahoo.com" and hit enter. It will dump a string of information onto your screen. That information will be invaluable in my ability to track down rout issues.
Yeah, I know what traceroute does and how to use it...


From the Windows machine I actually host FG on:
tracert www.yahoo.com

Tracing route to www.yahoo-ht3.akadns.net [69.147.114.210]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.127
2 3 ms 4 ms 5 ms L301.VFTTP-10.CMDNNJ.verizon-gni.net [72.82.231.1]
3 4 ms 4 ms 4 ms P3-2.LCR-01.CMDNNJ.verizon-gni.net [130.81.55.0]
4 11 ms 12 ms 12 ms so-6-0-0-0.ASH-PEER-RTR2.verizon-gni.net [130.81.17.177]
5 11 ms 12 ms 27 ms 130.81.15.170
6 11 ms 12 ms 12 ms ge-3-1-0-p140.msr1.re1.yahoo.com [216.115.108.57]
7 12 ms 12 ms 12 ms gi1-23.bas-a1.re3.yahoo.com [68.142.238.67]
8 11 ms 12 ms 12 ms f1.www.vip.re3.yahoo.com [69.147.114.210]

Trace complete.

From my Linux server:
-<countzero@cyberdeck>-*-<Mon Mar 10 20:14:45>-
~ -> /usr/sbin/traceroute www.yahoo.com
traceroute to www.yahoo-ht3.akadns.net (69.147.114.210), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 L301.VFTTP-10.CMDNNJ.verizon-gni.net (72.82.231.1) 4.504 ms 4.726 ms 4.975 ms
2 P3-2.LCR-01.CMDNNJ.verizon-gni.net (130.81.55.0) 5.008 ms 4.793 ms 5.011 ms
3 so-6-0-0-0.ASH-PEER-RTR2.verizon-gni.net (130.81.17.177) 12.378 ms 12.372 ms 12.443 ms
4 130.81.15.170 (130.81.15.170) 22.555 ms 12.258 ms 12.540 ms
5 ge-2-1-0-p140.msr1.re1.yahoo.com (216.115.108.17) 12.442 ms ge-3-1-0-p140.msr1.re1.yahoo.com (216.115.108.57) 12.401 ms ge-2-1-0-p150.msr2.re1.yahoo.com (216.115.108.21) 12.207 ms
6 gi1-22.bas-a1.re3.yahoo.com (68.142.238.65) 12.249 ms gi1-23.bas-a2.re3.yahoo.com (66.196.112.55) 12.375 ms gi1-22.bas-a2.re3.yahoo.com (66.196.112.27) 12.266 ms


I will also need to know what your system resources are looking like. Again in Windows XP you can get me this information by hiting "ctrl+alt+del" ONCE!
On the bottom of the Task manager it will tell you Processes and CPU Usage.
If you click on the Performance tab I will also need the information listed under Physical Memory.
https://www.cyberdeck.org/fantasygrounds/cpu.jpg


Once I have all of that information, I can help you get your end fixed. I would need all the same information from each of you users, in order to help them fix their end.
There you go... Lets see what you can come up with :)

[jthm0138]

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[jthm0138]

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[Bumamgar]

Since you know so much, please explain why I need an 'interpretation device' when FiOS business service simply drops a Cat-5 connection on my wall? The only interpretation device is the ONT (Optical Network Terminal). Seriously, no router required with my business service and static IP.

Please stop with all the threats, all it does is make you look even more childish. You aren't scaring me with your ultra-leet knowledge of the whois service (Why yes, my name is Steve, as anyone with 5 seconds to kill can easily find out). You especially aren't scaring me by bragging about getting your posts deleted by the mods. Clearly you didn't learn your lesson the first time.

I shouldn't have to tell someone as knowledgeable as you, but a cyberdeck is a console used to access the matrix in William Gibson's (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gibson) literature.

[jthm0138]

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[Callum]

As an aside, however, of the 6 players in my gaming group, it always takes about 2x as long to transfer ruleset updates to Lujan, so there must be something additionally weird going on there.
I had a similar problem with one of my players, who was using a very high spec machine that had no problem with download speeds when running any other app. However, in FG it took minutes for him to receive a 200K map, when all the other players received it in seconds. We spent weeks going back and forth trying to work out what the issue was. In then end, he deleted all his registry entries relating to FG (even his original install of FG1), and then reinstalled FG2. He now transfers files in FG at the normal speed - hurrah - but we still don't really know what caused the problem!

[Bumamgar]

Callum: I'll suggest that to Lujan, see if it helps. Thanks!

[Lujan]

I had a similar problem with one of my players, who was using a very high spec machine that had no problem with download speeds when running any other app. However, in FG it took minutes for him to receive a 200K map, when all the other players received it in seconds. We spent weeks going back and forth trying to work out what the issue was. In then end, he deleted all his registry entries relating to FG (even his original install of FG1), and then reinstalled FG2. He now transfers files in FG at the normal speed - hurrah - but we still don't really know what caused the problem!


Thank you for the useful post Callum. I tried that, and will test to see if it fixed things next time I can get Bum to load up FG for me.

[Callum]

Thank you for the useful post Callum. I tried that, and will test to see if it fixed things next time I can get Bum to load up FG for me.
Did you guys have any luck?

[Lujan]

We haven't had a chance to try it yet. Our session for this week was canceled.

[Lujan]

Callum,

Thanks for the suggestion. It didn't fix the problem. I am still getting on average 10kb download speed from FG. It has sped up to 2000 temporarily, but would soon crash back to 10.

While doing the FG download, I can still get full cable speeds on any other site, or download managers. For instance, just to test it, I ran a couple tests by downloading the same file from fileplanet from the various servers around the world, and I can get between 900 and 1500 download speeds from those servers (I am premium so I can select any server I want). It had no effect on FG download speeds. I also had the host boot everyone but me from the server to see if that had any effect, and no change again in download speeds with only me on, and with up to 8 other people on.

At this point I am at a loss as to what is causing only FG to be extremely slow. Its not only being a "little slow"... its 10 kb... that is absurdly slow.

Thanks again Callum for actually offering a constructive idea to fix the issue. If anyone else has any ideas, please let me know.

[Oberoten]

Have you tried disabling QoS packet scheduling? It sounds like something is actively capping FG. It has after all been established allready that the program itself is capable of much greater speeds...

[richvalle]

Any firewall or anti-virus checking going on? If so, maybe try turning it off and try a download and see if its faster.

rv

[Lujan]

no firewalls or anti-virus stuff, and I tried the QoS thing. I will let you know if this helps at all.

[Lujan]

The QoS thing seemed to fix my speed so far. I haven't had to download any rulesets yet, but the map sharing has sped up a ton. Thanks for the tip

[Oberoten]

Dang I am good ;)

Nah, seriously, just glad I could help. And add another tidbit of knowledge to help people with. It was mostly a guess after all. Next time it comes up I will actually KNOW.