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# Improving ping times in Linux w/ 56K modem

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Doc    586
I''ve been playing Enemy Territory lately and have consistently been getting >200ms pings, which worries me. I just did a bit of investigating with ping and traceroute and it seems that the packets are taking an awfully long time to leave my computer and arrive at the remote host at the other end of the PPP connection. To that host (which has no other hosts in between) I''m getting avg 190ms pings, and I reckon they should be somewhere between 20 and 40 max. Here''s how I figure that: I usually connect at 48000bps, thats 4800Bytes/s (8 data + 2 stop & parity bits) Ping claims to send 64 bytes each time, then at 4800 Bps: 64B/(4800B/s) = 0.01333s = 13.33ms Of course that''s optimal, and I assume a similar return packet, so I figure best 20ms or more, which is nowhere near what I''m getting. Does anyone have any idea what I can do or where I can look? I''ve had a bit of a google, but with minimal luck. Peace The following statement is true. The previous statement is false.
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Interim    122
190ms sounds about normal for a modem connection.

Been a long time since I even touched a modem, let alone used one, but why don''t you try ping -s 4800 . See what the difference is.

Have you ever seen better numbers than this?

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C-Junkie    1099
that sounds about right for dialup.

never seen a dialup user on counterstrike with less that 200ms ping before anyway... probably not even less that 250...

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wunderk1nd    122
I generally get pings between 170-180 in counterstrike..

Some things you might check, what kind of phone lines you have and what kind of modem you''re using.

The phone company, only required to keep static down in analog voice calls, may replace phone lines with a cheaper metal, resulting in lower speed connections.. A trick i''ve heard people have used, if you do have a crappy phone line, is to call the phone company several times a week and complain about staticy phone conversations. This might get them to replace the line with the higher-quality metals..

The modem may well also play a part. I used to get the $60-80 US Robotics hardware modem (as opposed to software winmodems which might also be your problem, but probably not if you connect through linux). But after frying two of them, i went with a cheaper$40 modem. This modem was probably 50% slower than the USR modems, even though it was V.92 and hardware and all that.

Hope that helps

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Doc    586
Dang. I guess I''m just expecting too much. I''d get something better than dailup if it wasn''t so bloody expensive here in Au. Stupid monopolies.

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Interim    122
Now you know why everyone curses modems =)