Months ago, before the last few patches, my latency was usually hanging around 105-130ms. Recently, though, it had gone up to 235-250ms. Found this on the tech forums, tried it, and now my latency is 60-72ms! Hyooooge difference.

Latency fix (XP)

HOLY SHIT!

I usually see about 400-500ms latency at my office. After making this change I'm down to 80ms. What a difference.

I can't wait to see how I am at home tonight. I'm usually between 100-200ms from there. This should get my down < 50ms.

WORDS OF CAUTION: DO NOT F*CK WITH YOUR REGISTRY TOO MUCH. IF YOU FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS EXACTLY YOU WILL BE OK. IF YOU START SCREWING AROUND WITH OTHER SETTINGS YOU CAN EASILY WIND UP WITH A VERY EXPENSIVE PAPER WEIGHT.

NICE!! I am so going to try this when I get home.

Edit: Geeky Network talk to follow

I would venture to say, the way Blizzard calculates latency is ghetto. This probably fixes what the game reports. I don't believe it actually lowers your latency. I wandered over to the IP RFC(yes I really did....shoot me).

In addition, on some large multi-user hosts, a delayed ACK can substantially reduce protocol processing overhead by reducing the total number of packets to be processed . However, excessive delays on ACK's can disturb the round-trip timing and packet "clocking" algorithms ."

Note the last line. Blizzard doesn't use ICMP to determine your latency but in fact the time it takes game data to travel back and forth, using their own timing algorithm. If you really wanted to see if this made a difference, you could run a packet capturing tool to see the time it's taking a tcp segment to bounce between you and blizzard and then try this and see if those times change. What you will probably see is an ACK for every single TCP segment and not every other which is the windows default.

Weee.

Um, yeah I'll get right on that.

Edit: Geeky Network talk to follow

I would venture to say, the way Blizzard calculates latency is ghetto. This probably fixes what the game reports. I don't believe it actually lowers your latency. I wandered over to the IP RFC(yes I really did....shoot me).



Note the last line. Blizzard doesn't use ICMP to determine your latency but in fact the time it takes game data to travel back and forth, using their own timing algorithm. If you really wanted to see if this made a difference, you could run a packet capturing tool to see the time it's taking a tcp segment to bounce between you and blizzard and then try this and see if those times change. What you will probably see is an ACK for every single TCP segment and not every other which is the windows default.

Weee.

Is it wrong to find technical/geeky talk attractive? o_0 That sounds weirdly sexy.

that setting breaks multiplicity.

Is it wrong to find technical/geeky talk attractive? o_0 That sounds weirdly sexy.

Is it wrong to find people, that find technical/geek talk sexy, sexy?

I'm missing some form of punctuation in there.

Actually its too much.

Actually its too much.

Moderation, does! not. have? any" factor,, in.!.punctuation??.?,?,,.

Moderation, does! not. have? any" factor,, in.!.punctuation??.?,?,,.

I'm an English major! I can docreativethings with pun.cu.a.tion and call it! Art. Toilet seat. Dog, licking itself. Hmmmmm; m. I do like ice--cream.

Hmm, this might truly decrease latency. From this article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/328890

"TcpAckFrequency is a new registry entry in Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 that determines the number of TCP acknowledgments (ACKs) that will be outstanding before the delayed ACK timer is ignored."

What this entry appears to be doing is forcing messages to go out immediately, without waiting to be queued up. Seems like this would be great for games!

I'm gonna try this when I get back to Atlanta, as my laptop is Vista but my home game PC is XP.

Hmm, this might truly decrease latency. From this article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/328890

"TcpAckFrequency is a new registry entry in Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 that determines the number of TCP acknowledgments (ACKs) that will be outstanding before the delayed ACK timer is ignored."

What this entry appears to be doing is forcing messages to go out immediately, without waiting to be queued up. Seems like this would be great for games!

Forces ACK messages to go out immediately, not messages.

So rather than:
IN: message message message message
OUT: got 4 messages

It goes
IN: message message message message
OUT: got one!
OUT: got another one!
OUT: got another one!
OUT: got another one!

(Or maybe they interlace, depending on your point of view.)

Results in faster acknowledgment of messages received, but more overall network traffic because each ACK has an associated overhead. In this case, it will APPEAR to make your latency lower, but you'll still be getting messages in and out at the same speed - it's just that your computer will acknowledge receipt of them faster (immediately, rather than in batch) and so the game will report lower latency.

Forces ACK messages to go out immediately, not messages.

So rather than:
IN: message message message message
OUT: got 4 messages

It goes
IN: message message message message
OUT: got one!
OUT: got another one!
OUT: got another one!
OUT: got another one!

(Or maybe they interlace, depending on your point of view.)

Results in faster acknowledgment of messages received, but more overall network traffic because each ACK has an associated overhead. In this case, it will APPEAR to make your latency lower, but you'll still be getting messages in and out at the same speed - it's just that your computer will acknowledge receipt of them faster (immediately, rather than in batch) and so the game will report lower latency.

so, it's like a woman.

so, it's like a woman.

Torrin, Torrin, you are so in trouble!

And why should today be different than any other day??

And why should today be different than any other day??

Because he actually got a reply out of me.. normally I am immune!

Forces ACK messages to go out immediately, not messages.

Ah.. that makes sense - I didn't read it closely enough this morning in my haste :)

Thanks, Fren!