LD while porting?

VidX · Post by **VidX** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 3:03 pm

Since I finally got back online on Monday night I've been running around a bit solo and trying to get back into the swing of things.

However, on my main PC I seem to be going LD every time I port somewhere. Whether it be from housing to Ligen or using the teleport stones in the keeps. I can still see chat going on around me and people moving around (moving unlike the normal LD, they actually stop, turn round, etc.) but none of my actions do anything. I can be running a second account at the same time on another PC but it isn't affected so it's not a network based issue.

I only experience this on my main PC and not on the other 3

Drivers: most up to date ones available for sound, gfx, NIC and system.

However, one thing that's different on this PC is that I'm running dual screen, only single screen on the others but I was running dual screen a year ago with no problems.

System: AMD FX60 CPU, 7900 SLi and WinXP (hate HATE this OS but no SLi support in 2k), Audigy 2 Sound.

Using the Catacombs client atm, should I try another?

Anyone know any fixes or workarounds?

Any help appreciated as I'd really like to get back into some regular play when work allows

Post by **Xest** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 3:06 pm

3com Nic?

VidX · Post by **VidX** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 3:19 pm

hell no, wouldn't touch them with a barge pole

4-port D-Link server card (DFE-580TX).

Gahn · Post by **Gahn** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 3:22 pm

Wtf Da Man is back!
Disable Checksum from network card driver settings.

Post by **Xest** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 3:23 pm

Are you able to try a diff. NIC? I know when I played euro I had major problems with my onboard 3COM so I stopped being lazy and just bought some random Netgear and it worked fine.

For me it was random LDs literally after about 2mins of play, the odd thing was that it only effected one of my computers and it only effected euro DAoC, everything else including US DAoC worked fine. I scratched my head for ages not thinking for a second it could be the NIC when the NIC worked fine with everything else but it was, arguably one of the most obscure IT problems I've ever dealt with

VidX · Post by **VidX** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 4:24 pm

Checksum is disabled, aye. I can play constantly with no LD but if I port then I disconnect. I'm gonna try the on-board (eek!) NIC later to see if it's a system or a NIC issue I guess

Quinlan · Post by **Quinlan** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 7:42 pm

[quote="Xest"]arguably one of the most obscure IT problems I've ever dealt with ]

I would argue you are the most obscure IT problem

Post by **Xest** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 8:15 pm

Very true

VidX · Post by **VidX** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 9:46 pm

Swapped over to the on-board card for DAoC traffic, seemed to run ok tonight, nearly 2 hours with no LD

Cheers Xest, wouldn't have thought of that, I'll need to look into the hardware setup on the other card and figure out what's happenned

Post by **Xest** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 8:51 am

Well let me know if you do figure it out because I'm still stumped

AFAIK DAoC just straight uses plain old winsock as it's network library so I can't see that there's anything wrong with DAoC itself, winsock doesn't even allow raw sockets again anymore although it did for a while with 2k so I can't see that it's building any erroneous packets and I can't see any reason why they'd want/need to anyway + the US client works fine. I can only guess it's something lower level that some network cards slap onto the datastream (I honestly don't know what, I'm fine with the transport layer and I'm fine with IP/DHCP but the rest of the network layer isn't something I know much about). I'm not trying to slag GOA off again but the only thing I can put it down to is a misconfigured router at GOAs end that chokes on additional data that some network cards send.

Just another note btw, when I used to play euro with my old machine many years ago (unfortunately I can't even remember what NIC I had in that) I used to have an issue where I'd lag out literally for about 10 secs before I could do anything every time I changed weapons on euro, I'm guessing it's related.

It's definetely a weird one as I say, game events causing problems suggests an issue with the client itself but again why isn't everyone affected by it? Why would the client need to alter the underlying datastream when all it should need to do is send packets? There are other possibilities than a misconfigured router at GOAs end of course but that seems the only real plausible explanation.