Source of latency spikes

[OP jazzkingrt 0]

I've just moved into a new appartment in Lausanne, Switzerland, where I like to play a game, Savage XR, on a server hosted at 87.117.228.107 .

 

Whenever my roommate comes home and gets on the internet, I start getting latency increases to 300-800ms (from the usual 60ms), making my game unplayable. I'd like to know if this is caused by our low bandwidth or maybe I just need to replace the crappy thomson router. I looked at the router settings but they are extremely limited, no QOS, etc.

 

 

[Nick H. 6,595]

First off, welcome! I'll be passing through Lausanne on my way home in Fribourg in a few hours. ;)

What is your roommate doing online? Is it network-intensive stuff?

[sagum 171]

With such a slow internet connection, just browsing webpages can cause your latency to go up as he starts to download the images. 

 

I had a D-Link 615 that would cause havoc on quake 3 when people were browsing webpages, and that was on a 10Mb/s connection. Flashed with DD-WRT and setup QOS fixed that.

 

But, also ensure he's not using torrents, or any uploads... they will pretty much kill your connection @ just 0.38Mb/s until the upload completes.

 

Best thing to do is talk to him and ask him what his habits are. Might be time to invest in a cheap router that you can stick DD-WRT on to, or ask him to install traffic limiting software so he doesn't hog the upload bandwidth.

 

 

Lastly, make sure you're not using wireless connection, they're terrible.

[Nick H. 6,595]

I hadn't even seen the speedtest, that's very low. I'm in Geneva at the second and my mum has the following connection speed with Bluewin:

Goodness knows why, I'm sure she isn't using it. :laugh:

I'm with Cablecom in my apartment in Fribourg, and I believe I get even higher speeds for about 80CHF a month. Might be worth considering if you and your roommate like to do intensive stuff. As a bonus, for that cost you also get TV and a phone line...if you want them. :)