While connected to Fox Junkies server on my new PC, I am getting lots of lag and my car keeps jumping its position slightly on the track every few seconds.

I am trying to migrate from my old PC to my new. LFS on both get 90+- fps. They are both connected to the same Netgear DG834 ADSL Router.

My old PC (Windows 2000 SP4, Athlon XP 3200+ (32bit), 1.5Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce 6800 GT, Gigabyte nForce mobo and built in nVidia NIC) has no problems at all and is smooth with Network Diagnostics reporting "TCP AV" with +/- 1

However, my new PC (Windows XP Pro SP3 (32bit), Intel i7 860, 3.5Gb (4Gb) 1666 running at 1333 RAM, ATI Radeon 5770 (Latest drivers 9.12), Gigabyte Intel mobo with Realtek NIC) reports, with Network Diagnostics on, "TCP ER" with range of around -200 up to -1000.

I have tried a dedicated Intel PRO 100 PCI card (just in case the onboard NIC was at fault) but this has made no difference.

Background processes on both PCs are at a minimum with the same firewall software and config and same antivirus.

I've also tried setting LFS on the new PC to the same detail and resolution of the old but that makes no difference either.

I am therefore quite confident it is not the network card, graphics driver, nor background process conflict and wonder if it is now processor related??

Would appreciate your help....

does it still lag when you watch old (before new pc) / downloaded replays?

Check your power options for the OS and bios, maybe check affinty on all cores.

Firstly thanks for your feedback...

Gener_AL:

Tried affinity to just 1 core - PC shows 8 (4 cores + 4 per hyper threading) but unfortunately still get the same TCP Er values. Did this by changing the affinity in the windows task manager against lfs.exe at the windowed part of startup. Checked Power Options and they are set to 'Never'.

bunder9999:

I don't have any replays unfortunately. What is your thinking because surely that will play back from a file? Anything local seems to be fine. Do you mean check a remotely stored replay and see how that plays back on the new PC?

I assume that both of your PCs are connected to the router by an ethernet cable. Maybe you should try swapping these cables to rule out a cable damage.

good point MadCat. Alos try removing and reinstalling the IP4v protocol for network adapter.

Quote from d66n :

bunder9999:

I don't have any replays unfortunately. What is your thinking because surely that will play back from a file? Anything local seems to be fine. Do you mean check a remotely stored replay and see how that plays back on the new PC?

basically, yeah. i have a hard time believing it's a hardware problem, or at least a CPU problem.

if you don't have any replays stored up, try downloading one from the spdo racing database.

if a replay works fine, then so should the computer.

Quote from MadCatX :

I assume that both of your PCs are connected to the router by an ethernet cable. Maybe you should try swapping these cables to rule out a cable damage.

this is a more plausible cause, but i'm still more inclined to say it's his internet.

Thanks MadCatX, Gener_AL and Blunder9999 for your thoughts. Yes, I am using ethernet cables and I tried the cable attached to my old pc in the new and that made no difference. I then looked at the NIC settings to see if there was any new fangled 'green' feature or likewise that could be messing it up and disabled those that weren't necessary and altered to auto negotiate rather that fixed on 10/100 full duplex (although I think this all made little difference, bearing in mind I'd already tried a totally separate NIC). However, when I next connected again, it was at the point when the server was changing track. On first connection diag had reported TCP Er of - 200+ as the previous track ended. Then, as it loaded the next track, the network diag showed that it was levelling out and then settled at AV -+1 and I was able to race. So, it seems it is a matter whereby I need to let the software settle its server connection before getting involved, but why this isn't necessary on the old PC I don't know.

Anyway, thanks all for your kind attention. Much appreciated.

I've just had another go and it would appear that this has been the scenario all along.

If I join and spectate with Network Diag on, I get TCP Er -300 +/- and then it may start to rise in 300s until it gets so bad, eg - 6000+, that I will get dropped completely. There will be the occasional MP Time Speed Adjust but this seems to make little difference.

However, if I can wait until or connect at around the time the track changes and is loaded, Even if the Er initially shows around -300, at the track load it reports that it is down to -40 then -20 and before you know it, it is at Av 1 -+ by the time it is 'ready' and I can then take part.

This is not the case with my old PC.

To me this sounds like a hardware environment sync issue that the software is not handling too well until the track loading stage.... unless you guys have a better idea ??

Mmm maybe.. did you have to port forward your router for LFS for the last PC, it may be that the router is forwarding for a static IP asigned to MAC address that no longer exsists on the network.

e.g. old pc 192.168.1.4 and new pc 192.168.1.5

Check MAC filter also.

*edit also check for other process that might be spiking*

No forwarding, filters or anything else in place on the router....

I don't have many other processes running but just to be sure none of them are 'spiking', killed off as many as I could and tried again but there was no change.

Hi all
I totally missed this thread until now and it seems I am having a very similar problem.
My problem manifests itself identically to yours except most times I can join a server and spectate until the cows come home However if I join to race, I can get anything from 5 to 10 mins before I lose connection, this happens 80% of the times I want to drive some LFS.
The other 20% I can connect and drive as normal without issue.

This has been going on for me since December
Things I have tried are;
Re-installing LFS, re-installing OS, reconfiguring router and updating routers firmware, swapping and changing cables, changing ADSL filter (Z blocker) I even took my BT telephone master socket off and re-terminated all the wires

Hardware we, d66n and I, have in common;
Intel cpu (but mines an older model)
The DG834GT << This is my main suspect and next item on my list to change.
I connect to the router via cable, but I do have the wireless enabled as my wife and 2 daughters all connect their laptops via wireless (yes I am surrounded by screaming females & not in the Tom Jones kinda way :schwitz
I've yet to disable the wireless in the router for an evening to test if this is the prob, but I value my life too much hrmm, maybe a "atmospheric" issue will come up over the weekend? we'll see.

ISP? This is another suspect, I am with Nildram, who unfortunatly were purchased by Tiscali a couple of years back
I have been told by my ISP's tech support chaps some different storys about "packet inspection" and "traffic shaping" so I'm not sure if its an ISP issue or not.
Just out of interest, is your ISP part of Tiscali? (it lets you know on most bandwith speed test sites) I am very interested to find out

Anyway I hope you can find some clue maybe in our similar issues and I will report back the results of swapping the router when I can get hold of one.

Just a thought my router does get a bit warm, and the kids often complain about slow internet, only to find they left the PS3 switched on, pumping out heat, that sits right next to the router in an often closed underTV cupboard, right next to our consumer unit, master BT point and electrical intake all in the same cupboard

Good luck.

SD.

SparkyDave,

I have a dual booting PC with Windows 7 (64bit) and XP Prof (32bit), but use XP most, for reasons I won't go into, so I wanted LFS on that. However, I installed LFS afresh under Windows 7 at the weekend, downloading from the web. I also set it up from scratch. Attempts so far to connect to Fox Junkies has been OK under Windows 7, but under XP remains the same. The jury is still out on this one.....

I notice you have reinstalled both the software and the OS, but I still suspect my install and/or os/software/hardware incompatibility.

I am on ISP VirginMedia - I wouldn't be surprised if the ISP is partly the problem here, but as I mentioned before, my old PC was working fine as opposed to XP on the new machine which was not, at around the same time. Wireless is enabled on the router, likewise for use by the rest of the family, while I prefer good old cat5

I will give feedback when I have tried both a few more times....

I was with Tiscali and had similar issues a while ago, i moved to Sky and it was cured for 4 weeks when it started happening between 7:00pm and 9:00pm, I then changed to entanet and its been ok

Check if your router is close to a sky box, that can cause problems as can a cordless phone nearby, they need to be at least 3 mtrs away.

However saying all that i bet its something Mr Gates has some part in

Now to the serious problem

In SparkyDave's case, sorry mate but there is nothing can be done about 3 females in one house. You could try earplugs, getting a garden shed, The UN may be able to help or you could announce you are gay ......... It may work but not for long.

The only other thing you could try is GIVE THEM A CREDIT CARD, you will find that they will all vanish so you can race. But this only helps until you run out of money.

Best of Luck but I dont hold out much hope

Quick suggestion as I also had lag problems with my Netgear DG834 router around Chrismas; I fixed it by disabling part of the firewall, not the whole thing, just the state-packet-inspection (SPI) bit. This is done by going to the WAN setup page & putting a tick into the 'Disable Port Scan and DOS Protection'. I only do this when playing LFS, I put it back on otherwise.

I half suspect the router slows down the packets when it is busy inspecting them, it just can't do it quick enough. This doesn't really explain why one PC is bad & the other isn't, but actually my situation was the same for some unknown reason, althout the one PC that was good evenatully started to lag also for some unknown reason but it is behind second router.

EDIT: I also tried a different PCI network card in the lagged PC first, but it didnt improve things.

In case nobody of you tought about that already, disabling QoS both in windows and router (is applicable) could improve thing a lot.

Hi again all,
D66n I also have dual boot (xppro/w7/xp64) and another seperate older xpPC, on the older PC lfs seems to work fine but fps is very bad online with alot of cars so not really usable other than for testing, on the multiboot PC I get the same TCP ER -=300+ on all os's what I did notice is after the TCP ER climbs over -=500 everyones cars dissapear and the (LAG XXs) appears at the cars last position (this is in spec mode) but the timer keeps split and lap times for all the cars. after the race finishes and restarts most of the time I don't see the cars, just the lagg messages, but if i go to my replay of the same race (autosave is on) the replay plays perfectly and I can watch the action that I couldn't when on the server!! very strange.

So I've been doing some more testing.....

Swapped the filter and lan cables around a few times, no better, then a day or so later the router started to drop the internet conn intermittently so I thought maybe the router is overheating and/or on the way out
So now trying a new router I got a belkin (N wireless modem router) when I first set up (one evening last week) it would not connect to the adsl at all, oh dear thought I and put back the DG834, the next day out of curiosity I tried it again and it connected straight away, whoohoo I thought and tested LFS straight away it looked really good for around 1/2 hour before the same lagg started again
Checked everything again before phoning the support peeps.
Support said noise on the line was high and that could be the prob, so started a cat and mouse game of trying different S/N ratios and error correction profiles, over the course of a week, nothing worked and yesterday I asked them to try a 2meg profile (I was on upto 8meg) as with slower speeds the effects of noise can be reduced, last night around 5pm the router started its little connect/disconnect, rinse/repeat dance and I went to bed feeling deflated.
This morning 8am turned router on connected 1st time and stayed on all day with still the TCP ER's but not too bad.... until 4:39pm when the router dance alll started again

Next step for me will be moving the BT master and router to another room in the house away from the Sky and TV etc, there is a good possibility that this is external problem and needs BT to sort out the faulty line.

d66n, some interesting info, see if any fits your prob and let me know
also whats the S/N like on your conn? (router connection or info page should show adsl noise in db)

Good luck

SD.