Gamers With Ms Vista

[Wolfie]

I'm running Vista Ultimate, so far very pleased with it...

Just started playing a new MMO (Pirates of the Burning Sea) and was getting horrible horrible lag. Ping's seemed normal, their devs claimed nothing was wrong their end. We tried all kinds of things, in the end i just put it down to the cable problem in the middle east, but that apparently got fixed last weekend, but my lag problems continued. PotBS uses UDP instead of TCP, for what ever reasons.

Anyhow, i was browsing around their forums yesterday and i stumbled across a post which said that Vista has some bugs in the UDP functionality and this was related to TCP/IPv6. As nothing really uses TCP/IPv6 yet, the recommended hack was to disable it in the network settings along with the other two options that go along with TCP/IPv6 (cant remember the names off hand) I remembered seeing the settings for TCP/IPv6 in my network connection settings, so i had a look, i disabled the TCP/IPv6 and the two other entries in the list, bringing my network settings back to the same as i used to have on XP (TCP/IPv4, File Print sharing, client for MS Networks and QoS Packets) - apparently having v4 and v6 running along with the other protocols Vista sets up as part of its default network are very 'chatty' on the network itself, which can cause delays and packet loss, so disabling what you dont need/use reduces the amount of outgoing communications. Or something like that

Now, my lagg problems have dramatically been reduced, the whole game play is a lot smoother and also as an added bonus my xbox360 doesn't 'loose' the connection to my PC as much, films stream to it first time (previously it could take many attempts to get them to stream to the Xbox/TV)

So i thought i would share this tip with anyone who's got Vista, if your having any networking issues, try disabling TCP/IPv6 and the other two new protocols.

[dsys]

Could you post a link to that forum please, thanks for the info above

as an side note the correct way to disable IPv6 in vista is detailed in KB929852

[Guest Reimar]

Could you post a link to that forum please, thanks for the info above

as an side note the correct way to disable IPv6 in vista is detailed in KB929852

Links to other Forum's NOT allowed on public forum in Thaivisa! If you need a link to an other forum, please use the Message system.

Thanks and Cheers.

[dsys]

fair enough OP any chance you could PM me the link please.

[onethailand]

I went and looked - doing a search on the forum is of no use. if the OP could quote the relevant parts, though, I'd be most appreciative.

dsys, google "pirates of burning sea forums" and you'll find it.

[Wolfie]

Goto the forum in question, goto known issues / troubleshooting and check out the thread entitled "Losing It" and check out the post number 15

But to save some of you a little time hunting down the thread/post in question, here it is... in all its glory

Ok. I came up with something interesting.

Try disabling IPv6 support (you cannot uninstall it).

Quoting an article I read:

A default installation of Vista has the standard Windows networking protocols and clients installed and enabled – Client for Microsoft Networks, QoS Packet Scheduler, File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks and Internet Protocol TCP/IP – but it also features some extras. Namely Internet Protocol TCP/IP Version 6 and the two components of LLDP (Link-Layer Discovery Protocol) – the Discovery Mapper and Discovery Responder.

Or to put in another way, that’s one client, two services and four protocols in Vista versus one client, two services and one protocol in XP.

Common sense would dictate that Vista is, by default, going to be a lot chattier on the network than XP. By and large, that’s not too much of a problem. Most home networks are running 100Mb or even 1000Mb wired ethernet, which has plenty of bandwidth to cope with excess chatter without degrading performance. But consider 54Mb or 108Mb shared wireless connections, or business environments which have not one or two, but dozens or hundreds of PCs/devices on their network, busily chattering away. Under these conditions, increased network traffics isn’t something which can simply be absorbed – it’s a definite problem.

TCP/IPv6 seems to have quite a substantial impact, and while it’s nice that Vista has IPv6 support built-in, it would be better if it was an optional add-in as with Windows XP, rather than something you have to live with and manually disable.

On how to manually disable IPv6 --

In the Connections and Adapters folder, obtain properties on all of your connections and adapters and clear the check box next to the Internet Protocol version 6 (TCP/IPv6) component in the list under "This connection uses the following items."

[prallo]

Wolfie said he disabled the TCP/IPv6 thing and the two other new protocols.

In the last post of him it says only uncheck the TCP/IPv6 part.

So what is right ?

[Wolfie]

Wolfie said he disabled the TCP/IPv6 thing and the two other new protocols.

In the last post of him it says only uncheck the TCP/IPv6 part.

So what is right ?

Why not try both and see which works for you? Easy enough to re-enable them if you decide you want/need them.

I disabled the following services/protocols

Internet Protocol TCP/IP Version 6

LLDP (Link-Layer Discovery Protocol) – the Discovery Mapper and Discovery Responder.

My net connection to PotBS has been stable ever since, my XBox360 behaving itself, it seems this tweak/hack works for me

[Simmo]

All client-server games use UDP for networking, it doesn't have the connection overhead of TCP.