High Ping on COD Servers

[m4rc3_AVL]

Hi guys, how are you doing? I'm just wondering if it's possible that my ISP is having some bad routing or something specifically with the Brasil COD Dedicated Servers. I'm from Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the only dedicated servers that are located in South America are usually in Sao Paulo, Brasil, for what I understand. I get like 40 / 50 ms ping in every game that has dedicated servers in Brasil (Fortnite, BF4, BF1, BF5 Beta...) and I used to get the same ping on COD but for some reason days ago I started to get like +100 ms ping. I noticed that it depends on the time: around 3 am to 10 am I get the 40 ms ping mark, past that it goes up to 60 ms ping, and later on through out night time it goes up to 100+ ms ping. The weird thing is that this doesn't happen on the other games where I get 40/50 ping constantly all the time through out the day, and my friends that have other ISPs don't get this problem, they constanly get 60 ping all the time which is normal for them. Any help? Thanks.

[Netduma Jack]

Hi, welcome to the forum! I have a theory about why this could be happening.

The thing that makes CoD stand out from the other games you've mentioned is that CoD also runs on peer-to-peer (P2P) matchmaking. There are some CoD dedicated servers, but you can also connect to other players ('peers') who can act as the host of the game. The host of the game in CoD can switch mid-game, which is called host migration.

I reckon at certain times of day, CoD switches in your area from the dedicated server in Sao Paulo to a P2P matchmaking system. Something along those lines will be happening.

This means that your connection is more reliant on the other players acting as the host of the game, meaning later in the day you're getting more distant or just higher ping peer hosts.

In Fortnite or Battlefield however, they run purely on dedicated servers so the connection should never change or be altered by time of day. I hope this helps!

[abc123]

If you are using GeoFiltering you shouldn't be having too many high ping issues, no matter dedicated or p2p.  Although with p2p it is possible to be closer to the host and still have a high ping

[m4rc3_AVL]

On 9/13/2018 at 8:23 AM, Netduma Jack said:

Hi, welcome to the forum! I have a theory about why this could be happening.

The thing that makes CoD stand out from the other games you've mentioned is that CoD also runs on peer-to-peer (P2P) matchmaking. There are some CoD dedicated servers, but you can also connect to other players ('peers') who can act as the host of the game. The host of the game in CoD can switch mid-game, which is called host migration.

I reckon at certain times of day, CoD switches in your area from the dedicated server in Sao Paulo to a P2P matchmaking system. Something along those lines will be happening.

This means that your connection is more reliant on the other players acting as the host of the game, meaning later in the day you're getting more distant or just higher ping peer hosts.

In Fortnite or Battlefield however, they run purely on dedicated servers so the connection should never change or be altered by time of day. I hope this helps!

Sorry for the late response! I don't think this is what's happening to be honest. I've made some tests thoughtout these days and I'm really sure that it doesn't switches to P2P matchmaking on certain times of the day. They're still the same dedicated servers all along, the Netduma recognizes them as such (I get the red botton which says "Temp Ban", I understand that means it should be a dedicated server) and I saved them on my Deny & Allow list to be sure that they were the same dedis all this time. Maybe it's just a problem on my ISP end. 😕 Imma try to get some screenshots for the next time!

[Netduma Jack]

Definitely let us know what goes on. What ISP are you with out of curiosity? Might be able to recall if there's been any issues with them in the past. If you get any screenshots also feel free to drop them here

[m4rc3_AVL]

6 hours ago, Netduma Jack said:

Definitely let us know what goes on. What ISP are you with out of curiosity? Might be able to recall if there's been any issues with them in the past. If you get any screenshots also feel free to drop them here

I have Movistar Argentina (their FTTH service) and I'm aware that they're well known for having bad routing to Brazil sometimes, but I find it weird that it's only happening with the COD Brazil dedicated servers and it started like a week or so before the Blackout Beta, first I thought it might be that something was going on with the servers because of the beta preparation. Here I got some screenshots:

- First and second screenshot is from one of the four Brazil dedicated servers that I could find on COD: WWII and my ping at 00:37 a.m which is the ping that I get all they long, everyday.

- Third screenshot is my ping to a Fortnite Brazil dedicated server (which doesn't actually show up as such on the Netduma) around the same time, to show that it's a problem I have specifically with the COD servers.

- Fourth screenshot is my ping to the same COD: WWII Brazil dedicated server as the first and second screenshot but at 2:13 a.m, this is what my ping used to be always before this started a week or so before the Blackout Beta as I said. Around 9 - 11 a.m is when the ping starts to go up and stays at 70 - 100 ms until 2 a.m.

[Netduma Jack]

What you really need to do is use Pingplotter at both times of day. This will prove whether the fault is with Movistar or with the game servers. I can't see why there would be such a drastic ping difference to the game servers, so you might find that your ISP line becomes worse at that time of day, which can happen if your area is oversubscribed or there are other complications.

[m4rc3_AVL]

5 hours ago, Netduma Jack said:

What you really need to do is use Pingplotter at both times of day. This will prove whether the fault is with Movistar or with the game servers. I can't see why there would be such a drastic ping difference to the game servers, so you might find that your ISP line becomes worse at that time of day, which can happen if your area is oversubscribed or there are other complications.

Ok I just downloaded Pingplotter. What should I make the tests on? My own IP? Is there a way to find out the IP's for the Brazil COD dedicated servers that I'm connecting to? I think that DumaOS shows you the IP's of the servers but I don't have it, I got the regular Netduma software on my R1.

[Netduma Jack]

18 hours ago, m4rc3_AVL said:

Ok I just downloaded Pingplotter. What should I make the tests on? My own IP? Is there a way to find out the IP's for the Brazil COD dedicated servers that I'm connecting to? I think that DumaOS shows you the IP's of the servers but I don't have it, I got the regular Netduma software on my R1.

Best thing to use Pingplotter for is finding out your line quality - you shouldn't ping game servers using it. I usually recommend either Twitter.com or a local news site, they provide pretty accurate results. Let us know how it goes

[m4rc3_AVL]

On 9/21/2018 at 6:44 AM, Netduma Jack said:

Best thing to use Pingplotter for is finding out your line quality - you shouldn't ping game servers using it. I usually recommend either Twitter.com or a local news site, they provide pretty accurate results. Let us know how it goes

Sorry it took too long! Wanted to make sure I understand how the program works and if results were consistent. The images I'm sharing are tests I made to 2 local sites and Twitter. These are tests I made just a few minutes ago from writing this. However I've been making tests all these days at every day times that I could and for much longer periods than the images I'm sharing (3-4 hours continuously sometimes) and results were pretty much consistent. There's specific moments where the connection jitters quite badly as seen in the images. There's always the same hops where the connection losses a lot of packets but almost never at the final target, this happens very rarely and just for a second. The ping to the COD Brazil Servers still goes up when it's late, while ping to other game's Brazil Servers stay just fine. Just to add: my ISP has been recently installing their TV service through FTTH, I don't know if that might have something to do. Again, sorry for taking me too long!

[Zennon]

The plots on the whole are good apart from the odd jitter, the packet loss is just a hop not responding to ICMP pings as you have no packet loss on the destination hop.

Are these plots taken while the test machine is the only device on the network or while using congestion control?

[m4rc3_AVL]

 

The plots on the whole are good apart from the odd jitter, the packet loss is just a hop not responding to ICMP pings as you have no packet loss on the destination hop.

Are these plots taken while the test machine is the only device on the network or while using congestion control?

There were other devices connected too but none of them were using a lot of bandwidth I think (my ps4 although I wasn't playing or downloading/uploading anyhing, my phone just for Twitter and Whatsapp, and my parent's phones - the most they use bandwidth on is YouTube at 720p / 480p). And no, wasn't using congestion control. I've noticed that now the ping to the COD Brazil Servers doesn't goes up at night and stays high, now it goes up for like 1 minute or 2 and then stabilizes at 40 ms, and then again goes up for like 1 or 2 minutes and stabilizes at 40 ms again. xD So it got a little bit better

[Zennon]

 

There were other devices connected too but none of them were using a lot of bandwidth I think (my ps4 although I wasn't playing or downloading/uploading anyhing, my phone just for Twitter and Whatsapp, and my parent's phones - the most they use bandwidth on is YouTube at 720p / 480p). And no, wasn't using congestion control. I've noticed that now the ping to the COD Brazil Servers doesn't goes up at night and stays high, now it goes up for like 1 minute or 2 and then stabilizes at 40 ms, and then again goes up for like 1 or 2 minutes and stabilizes at 40 ms again. xD So it got a little bit better

For devices to be on with no congestion control the plots are good I use congestion control 24/7 to stop any jitter spikes caused by devices sending packets and have my console with traffic prioritisation so my gaming packets take priority.

[m4rc3_AVL]

 

For devices to be on with no congestion control the plots are good I use congestion control 24/7 to stop any jitter spikes caused by devices sending packets and have my console with traffic prioritisation so my gaming packets take priority.

Last night my ping to the COD Brazil Servers went up again so it seems I jinxed myself for saying it was a little bit better than other times xDD It's just so inconsistent. But oh well... I'll just stick to using Geo-Filter when playing COD to avoid the dedicated servers and play on P2P. Thank you all for the help. One more question: is it better to change the ISP router to bridge mode and have the Netduma R1 as the principal router? I don't have any problem with NAT luckly as I have the Netduma R1 on the DMZ of the ISP Router, but would it be better to have the R1 as the principal one?

[Zennon]

 

Last night my ping to the COD Brazil Servers went up again so it seems I jinxed myself for saying it was a little bit better than other times xDD It's just so inconsistent. But oh well... I'll just stick to using Geo-Filter when playing COD to avoid the dedicated servers and play on P2P. Thank you all for the help. One more question: is it better to change the ISP router to bridge mode and have the Netduma R1 as the principal router? I don't have any problem with NAT luckly as I have the Netduma R1 on the DMZ of the ISP Router, but would it be better to have the R1 as the principal one?

If the router / modem will go into bridge mode then yes I would give that a go, also if it is working out as is sometimes it better not to fix what is not broken

[m4rc3_AVL]

So I got to download DumaOS today and I wanted to give this a go. Since DumaOS shows you the IP address / domain name of the dedicated server you're playing on, I ran some tests on PingPlotter. First image is a test to a local site, one that I've shown before. Second image is to one of the COD Brazil dedicated servers (all of them that I found work like that when it's late). And third image is to one of the Fortnite Brazil dedicated servers. 

[m4rc3_AVL]

Just now, m4rc3_AVL said:

So I got to download DumaOS today and I wanted to give this a go. Since DumaOS shows you the IP address / domain name of the dedicated server you're playing on, I ran some tests on PingPlotter. First image is a test to a local site, one that I've shown before. Second image is to one of the COD Brazil dedicated servers (all of them that I found work like that when it's late). And third image is to one of the Fortnite Brazil dedicated servers. 

Images didn't upload in the order I thought they would xDD eltrecetv-com-ar is the local site. 189-1-164-207 is the COD Brazil dedicated server. And the other one (too long to type xD) is the Fortnite Brazil dedicated server.

[Netduma Jack]

As you might have gathered by now, Zennon is a god with Pingplotter so he might have better input here than I will!

In my opinion your line seems pretty good from these readings. Whilst that test to .207 seems (the dedicated server) seems terrifying, that looks to me like a really bad server. Definitely nothing to do with your local network. You can see the packet loss is originating from the last few hops, so it's clear to me that the CoD Brazil server is absolutely diabolical.

The other two plots seem fine - not really concerning in any way. There's a bit of jitter, but overall I'd say those results are promising.

I'd recommend signing up to the DumaOS beta and seeing if you can just block that CoD server once you've received the download link. That might work against you though if the game can't connect you to another server. Really shoddy server!

[Zennon]

 

I totally agree with Jack  your line is very stable, when pinging the game server 189.1.164.207 the packet loss starts from hop 195.22.219.73 which is owned by TELECOM ITALIA SPARKLE S.p.A. in Italy.

We know this is real packet loss and not just ICMP pings being dropped because there is red dropout lines in the plot graph.

[m4rc3_AVL]

Unfortunately every single dedicated server for COD on Brazil starts working like that for me when it's late. Black Ops 3, Infinite Warfare, WW2, and even the Blackout beta (don't have BO4 yet but it surely will be the same story). And I don't think I can convince my ISP to just give me another routing path to avoid the Telecom Italia thing, which is the reason of the problem it seems. I'm just gonna stick to use Geo-Filter and leave the servers out of range and play on P2P, I often get good pings playing P2P.  Again, thank you guys for the attention! Very appreciated. BTW, I found some mislocated servers for Fortnite, they show up as if they were in the United States but I'm actually playing on Brazil servers, I have to give you guys the ID's right? Gonna make a different post for that soon sharing all mislocated servers I can find.

[Zennon]

2 hours ago, m4rc3_AVL said:

Unfortunately every single dedicated server for COD on Brazil starts working like that for me when it's late. Black Ops 3, Infinite Warfare, WW2, and even the Blackout beta (don't have BO4 yet but it surely will be the same story). And I don't think I can convince my ISP to just give me another routing path to avoid the Telecom Italia thing, which is the reason of the problem it seems. I'm just gonna stick to use Geo-Filter and leave the servers out of range and play on P2P, I often get good pings playing P2P.  Again, thank you guys for the attention! Very appreciated. BTW, I found some mislocated servers for Fortnite, they show up as if they were in the United States but I'm actually playing on Brazil servers, I have to give you guys the ID's right? Gonna make a different post for that soon sharing all mislocated servers I can find.

Yes it the route your ISP is taking that is the issue, you could mention it and show them your plots I would say it is worth a go.

[Sci0n]

10 hours ago, m4rc3_AVL said:

Unfortunately every single dedicated server for COD on Brazil starts working like that for me when it's late. Black Ops 3, Infinite Warfare, WW2, and even the Blackout beta (don't have BO4 yet but it surely will be the same story). And I don't think I can convince my ISP to just give me another routing path to avoid the Telecom Italia thing, which is the reason of the problem it seems. I'm just gonna stick to use Geo-Filter and leave the servers out of range and play on P2P, I often get good pings playing P2P.  Again, thank you guys for the attention! Very appreciated. BTW, I found some mislocated servers for Fortnite, they show up as if they were in the United States but I'm actually playing on Brazil servers, I have to give you guys the ID's right? Gonna make a different post for that soon sharing all mislocated servers I can find.

Its not just your ISP the DumaOS isnt all that, also COD supports very high ping players and trhe deadicated servers it runs on are still like 50-80ms, that with high ping = shit games.