r0ing almost every other minute sometimes...

[Agent.N13]

For some reason while playing FFXI I d/c quite often. I don't d/c from the game but I red dot and r0 on a constant basis. There are no other computers networking on this connection and my connection doesn't act sporadic when FFXI isn't on but during the game it does. I'm using Comcsat High-Speed Internet. It's really frustrating because it's hard to do sky this way and during a Kirin fight I couldn't cast a single ballad without r0ing. The game doesn't just r0 in high populated areas, it does the same in places like Windurst as well. Any help I can get on this subject would be greatly appreciated.

[LadyKiKi]

Re: r0ing almost every other minute sometimes...

Hmm, do you use a router? I know you said no one shares the connection but just to clarify...

[TheGrandMom]

Re: r0ing almost every other minute sometimes...

How Comcast blocks your Internet traffic - Machinist - Salon.com

"OK, but so what? Even if Comcast is blocking peer-to-peer traffic, that doesn't affect me -- all I'm doing is browsing the Web!

Sure, this only affects peer-to-peer transfers -- at least, as far as we know. The most alarming thing about this scheme is that Comcast is conducting it on the sly. It didn't alert anyone to its filtering mechanism -- not its customers, not other ISPs, nobody.

Indeed, Comcast is still not coming clean. A company rep tells the AP: "We rarely disclose our vendors or our processes for operating our network for competitive reasons and to protect against network abuse," he said.

And then there's the sheer dishonesty of the practice. Comcast's system is silently listening in to your Internet traffic and inserting itself into the communication in order to shut it down.

If the company feels justified doing this on peer-to-peer connections, what's to say it wouldn't feel similarly justified shutting down or slowing down your communication with Amazon.com, or NYTimes.com, or YouTube or any other online service (whether because it doesn't like the content, or because it's got an economic incentive, or because it's just mean) -- and all without telling us?"

[Evion]

Re: r0ing almost every other minute sometimes...

I never had any problems playing Halo2 on Comcast...

[TheGrandMom]

Re: r0ing almost every other minute sometimes...

The guys down at Comcast must like Halo too and were probably playing it. LOL

I just put up the article because there are a lot of people on various forums complaining about interruptions with Comcast. Just food for thought.

[Agent.N13]

Re: r0ing almost every other minute sometimes...

Hmm, do you use a router? I know you said no one shares the connection but just to clarify...

Nope I don't use a router. It goes stright from the cable to the comcast box to my computer..

[LadyKiKi]

Re: r0ing almost every other minute sometimes...

Ok, next to ask would be, do you run any P2P programs on your computer? And bittorrent too.

From my experience Bittorrent absolutely rapes the game's connection unless the upload is reduced/limited.

[Agent.N13]

Re: r0ing almost every other minute sometimes...

I'm not using any kind of torrent program. I have one installed but it's never on.

[Effedup]

Re: r0ing almost every other minute sometimes...

A friend of mine lives in Detroit and uses Comcast, and he gets strange lag issues, as well. It's never enough to lag him out completely as in your case, but definitely enough to cause some issues. He's been through his computer many many times to eliminate any non-essential programs and services from running, running a direct connection, and he has lag issues as well...so I'm betting it's an issue with Comcast. How does your connection perform outside of FFXI?

[Kyleet]

Re: r0ing almost every other minute sometimes...

You should probably contact Comcast. It sounds like an isp problem. But good luck with it. I haven't heard anything good about them. :/ Otherwise if you're savvy with stuff like that, you could use one of those isp/route tracer programs to see where the connection is getting mangled at. Never used anything like that myself though.

[Lunaryn]

Re: r0ing almost every other minute sometimes...

I'll note that if you have a bittorrent program installed and configured to seed stuff, and you've ever retrieved anything with it, it may be starting automatically and sending out data. I know a lot of people have had problems with the reference implementation on Windows, at least. You may want to check the configuration and make sure it doesn't start in the background.

It's also possible that you're having issues based on traffic problems on your subnet. Also some malware can interfere with FFXI (we caught a keylogger used for hijacking MMORPG account creds on someone's system precisely because the way it interfaced with the system broke the way FFXI uses DirectX).

Some possibly useful links:
Wireshark: Go deep. -- Wireshark is a Network Protocol Analyzer. It's a powerful tool that will let you take a look at the traffic on the network. It's not the easiest thing to work with, but it can be extremely helpful in verifying whether your problems are network-traffic-related.

The home of Spybot-S&D! -- SpyBot S&D is a well-known anti-spyware/malware/adware program, and its use is highly recommended for Windows systems. I recommend not enabling the TeaTimer component, however, as it tends to cause more problems than it solves, and produces noticeable lag in FFXI.

TREND MICRO HouseCall 6.5 -- an online virus/malware scanner, this is a good supplement to the likes of anti-virus software and SpyBot S&D, and can be useful in isolating problems that may not be detected/handled elsewhere.

Free Antivirus for Windows - Open source GPL virus scanner -- Free software anti-virus program for Windows. Not as featured as some, but has the advantage of not having to struggle with registration processes, non-transferable update rights, etc. from certain other 'free' AV... This has the disadvantage of being fairly slow, especially if you don't exclude various file types from scanning, so you should set this to scan automatically at a time you know you won't be using the computer. On the plus side, it is pretty thorough and the virus database is updated frequently.