Methods for Determining your Lag, Ping/Tracert instructions, By Zarquon (AE Developer) Options

[FujiQ]

You are lagging. Let's first determine if its graphics lag, memory caching, or internet lag.

First, when in Ashen Empires, type /debug two times in the chat window. This will return your FPS in the upper left corner of your screen and three red columns that show your memory usage.


Graphics Lag

If your FPS is less than, let's say 20 fps, when you are moving around, then you might want to upgrade your video card.


Memory Caching Lag

If you are greater than 20 fps, next focus your eyes on the 3 columns in the center of the screen...sprite memory, paperdoll memory, and string memory. If those numbers are changing a lot, that means you are low on memory and cycling objects in and out of memory...possibly time to upgrade the RAM.

Another solution is for you to modify your paperdoll cache size and/or your sprite cache size in the ashenempires.ini file located in the directory [install directory]/ashen empires (ex: C:\Program Files\Iron Will Games\Ashen Empires\ashenempires.ini)

There are two lines in that file that you can modify:

PaperDollCacheSize = "128" (32-128 meg is default, depending on current memory size)

SpriteCacheSize = "128" (32-128 meg is default, depending on current memory size)

Internet Lag

If the first 2 tests didn't help, we can now look at the internet as a possible cause.

First, if you are on dialup, you will have to learn to live with it. Second, if you are on dialup and in India, you will have to learn to live with it.

Next, let's see how your connection is doing to the AE servers.

Go to start / run and type cmd (windows 98 and earlier, type command) and hit <enter>. At the command prompt, type "ping ping.pixelminegames.com" (no quotes). You should get something like the following..

C:\Documents and Settings\username>ping ping.pixelminegames.com

Pinging ping.pixelminegames.com [71.41.150.33] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 71.41.150.33: bytes=32 time=7ms TTL=255
Reply from 71.41.150.33: bytes=32 time=7ms TTL=255
Reply from 71.41.150.33: bytes=32 time=6ms TTL=255
Reply from 71.41.150.33: bytes=32 time=5ms TTL=255

Ping statistics for 71.41.150.33:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 5ms, Maximum = 7ms, Average = 6ms

You need to look at the time=XXms. If that is greater than or near 300, you might have an issue with your provider or somewhere in the connection to our servers.

Next you should type the following at the command prompt:

C:\Documents and Settings\username>tracert ping.pixelminegames.com

This will return something like:
"Tracing route to ping.pixelminegames.com [71.41.150.33]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 2 ms <10 ms <10 ms 192.168.1.1
2 11 ms 7 ms 7 ms 10.39.224.1
3 8 ms 7 ms 8 ms gig2-1.limaoh1-rtr2.woh.rr.com [24.29.160.181]
4 14 ms 13 ms 13 ms son3-0-2.mtgmoh1-rtr0.columbus.rr.com [65.25.128.157]
5 21 ms 21 ms 19 ms ae-4-0.cr0.chi30.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.68]
6 44 ms 45 ms 45 ms ae-2-0.cr0.dfw10.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.22]
7 47 ms 46 ms 46 ms 66.109.6.89
8 45 ms 45 ms 44 ms gig1-3.dllatxl3-p-rtr01.texas.rr.com [24.93.60.61]
9 51 ms 53 ms 51 ms gig2-0-0.wacotxmhe-pe-rtr01.texas.rr.com [24.93.60.130]
10 51 ms 51 ms 52 ms gig3-0-0.wacotxmhe-p-rtr01.texas.rr.com [24.93.60.128]
11 49 ms 55 ms 51 ms gig2-0-0.austtxa-pe-rtr01.texas.rr.com [24.93.60.158]
12 63 ms 68 ms 53 ms rrcs-71-41-150-33.sw.biz.rr.com [71.41.150.33]

Trace complete."

If the IP begins with 192.x.x.x. or begins with 10.x.x.x, that is your internal network, this should always be <10ms. A tracert will ping each router that it goes through three times and display the results.

If you see one of the ping times in a router in the list jump drastically, that is where the problem currently is located. If you see the jump near the end of the list, it could be our problem. At that point, we would like to see your tracert. (email to support @ ashenempires.com with subject line "TRACERT")

You can copy and paste this information out of the command prompt window (push alt-spacebar, choose edit, choose mark and highlight by left click+drag what you want to copy and press enter...this will copy it to the clipboard and you can paste it in an email).

If support needs to see your ping/tracert information or you would like to send yours in, you can create a file with the info by doing the following:

Ping Information

Type ping ping.pixelminegames.com > c:\ping.txt. This will create a notepad file in your C directory which you can then save and email.

Tracert Information

You can do the same with the tracert: tracert ping.pixelminegames.com > c:\tracert.txt.

Other Methods to try
1) Defrag your hard drive, fragmentation could slow down the fetching of assets for the game.
2) If you do not force sync before you play, you might consider it, as the game will pause when it requests and transmits a file from the patch server.

-Zarq

** edited paperdollcachesize and spritecachesize modifications

[Tellah]

ping.pixelminegames.com can not be found. Is 71.41.150.33 still correct?

[Ertzel]

It's just pixelminegames.com now that you type in which is using IP 173.201.141.1 since the server move, not 71.41.150.33 anymore