Online gaming - Connection Interrupted

[bongo]

I have a 56kpbs dial up internet connection with AOL as my ISP. I play quite a few games online but suffer bad connection problems. Alien Vs Predator works fine but Quake3 and Jedi Knight 2 give me 'Conection Interrupted' messages all the time. I have updated games with all the currently available patches and choose local UK servers for best connection but still have problems. Is there anyway to rectify this? Is it a problem using AOL that would be better if I changed ISPs? I am considering getting ntl broadband but cannot afford it yet! Any help would be appreciated.

Greg

[MySt]

the connection interrupted you are getting in these games is called "lag".

best way to over come this as u said is get a broadband connection.

if you cannot.

find the servers that have the lowest ping.

changing ISP's can help improve the ping times.

and also playing when internet traffic is low (late @ night)

there are sum tweaks and stuff i have treid none seem to do much at all.

seeing i connect @ 28.8 bps or lower , and the best pings i can get are 600 -800.

i suggest hunting through the servers find one that gives the least amount of "lag"

and put it in your favorites list.

or record the IP number.

and play at that server.

oh and make sure your have the latest modem drivers.

,if anything i am saying does not make sense , just ask :) .

Lata.

[PcKiller]

You could try getting DSL or Cable interent connection. That will lower your ping.

[Pure Luck]

and Quake3 doesn't have the best netcode for 56k'ers. JKII uses the Q3 engine so the same applies to it. I'm on cable and often get connection interrupts also. But, sometimes it's from the server end and there's nothing you can do about it. I know one thing that helps is to set you /rate at whatever the servers rate is set at or keep it at 10000 - 15000. The command would be /rate 10000 and you would hit the ~ key and type it in the console that drops down. Also, one way to tell if it's server lag or your connection is to watch the lagometer. Don't know much about JKII so this applies to Q3. If the lagometer's not showing in the bottom right corner of your HUD, pull down the console and type in /cg_lagometer 1
then watch it when you start getting interrupts. If the top line spikes, it's the server lagging, if the bottom line spikes, it's your connection.
More on the lagometer <a href="http://www.gameadmins.com/guides/q3/q3lagometer.htm" target="_blank">here.</a>

[bongo]

Cheers for help peeps. I guess the only way to really improve situation is to get broadband connection. I already get low pings (100 -200) which are pretty decent really. I will try suggestion given about /rate. By the way what is 10000 - 15000; Avg packet size?

By the way a tip for others (not sure for Windows XP) Windows has MTU size set for maximum LAN configuration (~1500) changing this to be suitable for TCP/IP connection to distant servers it needs to be smaller. This definitely improved performance with me. A simple google search on MTU and tweak guide should give you a run through of how to change MTU in registry keys.

Greg

[bongo]

Oh by the way which are goog ISPs for gaming connections - I dont like AOL anyway :( . I was sucked by the free 100hours thing and couldnt be bothered to change it :o

[PcKiller]

ATT World Net. I used them before I got my DSL. If you are only pinging at 100 to 200 with dail-up, you are doing great. Don't know what there is in the UK, so you may want to check it out at your end.

[TLr]

Hey bong-go,
BT offering their Home 500 DSL connection cheaper than it was. Mega simple to set up.
Not sure about NTL as they seem to have money woes but cable is probably faster.
Depends what you want to spend.

Deliberately mis-spelt your name to go with your sig' :)