Fiber Optic Internet made SL Worse

[CandyCole]

I used to have a wired internet connection which gave me about 75Mbps down / 22Mbps up / ping = 10ms (locally). I can't remember what ping to Arizona was.
In Preferences my bandwidth was set to 1250. SL ran very well. I was happy.

Now I have fiber optic installed and now have 315Mbps down / 95Mbps up / ping = 1ms (locally). Ping to Arizona (8550 miles away) is 220ms.

I have tried different bandwidth settings bringing it down, as that's what I read somewhere ..

.. but my SL is now terrible!

The rest of the internet works perfectly and my ping to Arizona can't have been better than now, surely.

Can anybody help me. What can I do to make it better again, please?

[Love Zhaoying]

Idea: SL may be trying to use maximum bandwidth. Find that setting and try turning it down.

[Alwin Alcott]

3 hours ago, CandyCole said:

I used to have a wired internet connection which gave me about 75Mbps down / 22Mbps up / ping = 10ms (locally). I can't remember what ping to Arizona was.
In Preferences my bandwidth was set to 1250. SL ran very well. I was happy.

Now I have fiber optic installed and now have 315Mbps down / 95Mbps up / ping = 1ms (locally). Ping to Arizona (8550 miles away) is 220ms.

I have tried different bandwidth settings bringing it down, as that's what I read somewhere ..

.. but my SL is now terrible!

The rest of the internet works perfectly and my ping to Arizona can't have been better than now, surely.

Can anybody help me. What can I do to make it better again, please?

there have been more posts like this, most showing a huge packet loss caused by ISP side. Have a look at your stats if there's something to see there
(about or help menu, depending on viewer / about)

[bigmoe Whitfield]

That's a routing issue, you will need to ask your isp about it as it sounds to me right now.  it's taking several routes that are slow and with how the world is right now, things are very slow in certain areas and crossing the big pond between places it's getting even slower.  

[Lindal Kidd]

It's not the change to fiber optics per se...we've had fiber optic internet at our house for years, and the performance increase over DSL (including for Second Life) was remarkable.  But it could be many other things, some of them associated with the change-over.

Nalates Urriah has a great essay on things to check: http://blog.nalates.net/2011/10/26/troubleshoot-your-sl-connection/

And it could be related to the increase in web traffic due to so many more people staying at home.  For example, I've had to disable my VPN when using SL lately.  Normally, it does not introduce any problems other than a minor performance hit.  But the last few days it's been causing severe connection problems with SL, and sometimes with the rest of my internet.

[Ardy Lay]

I have seen issues like this caused by overrunning a residential router/firewall with more traffic than it can deal with.  Pipelined HTTP asset delivery uses TCP, can be really fast, and has it's own error recovery.  Some other communications SL uses are UDP without OS/STACK level error recovery.  If SL's HTTP traffic fills a buffer in a router/firewall, causing an overrun, or exceeds a committed information rate, triggering a discard policer to discard traffic, then UDP communications can suffer, resulting in SL's own error management incrementing a packet loss error counter.

Suggestion: Connect computer upstream of residential router/firewall and test SL.  I find that often solves the problem, prompting the user to replace their router/firewall with something that can keep up with their new committed information rate.

[CandyCole]

Thank you all so much for replies. It is always relieving to know people try to help others when things are not good.

I don't know why but I had not considered the increase in internet traffic during these 'stay at home' times, although the the clunky performance of SL was happening before that. I think. Yes, I'm pretty sure it was but I had recently taken a break from SL and with it clunky like this makes it more difficult to remotivate again.

A little more information:

The fiber router I use is new and provided by my ISP, on loan.

I have NordVPN and tried several USA connections and there was no noticeable difference in SL performance, but the connections are to USA, cannot choose specific cities or regions within.

The Nalates Urriah list of things to try looks intense, but thorough. At first glance it looks beyond my abilities, but I will endevour to do my best and follow the steps. I will set some time aside soon to work through the tests and checks listed.

Same as in real life. When times are tough is when we learn most about ourselves and our environment.

Again, thank you all so much for your help and suggestions. I very much enjoy SL and hope not to slip away due to poor connecting.

Stay safe.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

1 hour ago, CandyCole said:

Thank you all so much for replies. It is always relieving to know people try to help others when things are not good.

I don't know why but I had not considered the increase in internet traffic during these 'stay at home' times, although the the clunky performance of SL was happening before that. I think. Yes, I'm pretty sure it was but I had recently taken a break from SL and with it clunky like this makes it more difficult to remotivate again.

A little more information:

The fiber router I use is new and provided by my ISP, on loan.

I have NordVPN and tried several USA connections and there was no noticeable difference in SL performance, but the connections are to USA, cannot choose specific cities or regions within.

The Nalates Urriah list of things to try looks intense, but thorough. At first glance it looks beyond my abilities, but I will endevour to do my best and follow the steps. I will set some time aside soon to work through the tests and checks listed.

Same as in real life. When times are tough is when we learn most about ourselves and our environment.

Again, thank you all so much for your help and suggestions. I very much enjoy SL and hope not to slip away due to poor connecting.

Stay safe.

is the vpn nesscary?  lots of vpns tend to slow connections down.   it's why when I use SL it's off.

[CandyCole]

7 hours ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

is the vpn nesscary?  lots of vpns tend to slow connections down.   it's why when I use SL it's off.

I have no idea, but I thought I'd give it a try. 

Regard VPN slowing my internet down the ping was the same and the down/up speeds lower but still better than my old wired VDSL connection where SL ran nicely.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

10 minutes ago, CandyCole said:

I have no idea, but I thought I'd give it a try. 

Regard VPN slowing my internet down the ping was the same and the down/up speeds lower but still better than my old wired VDSL connection where SL ran nicely.

vpns can have issues with routing,  the one I use tells me "10gbit speeds!"  but I'm never going to get those speeds,  my internet is capped at 600mbit down,  and then there is still the routing issue, I can connect to it right now and start SL,  it will have to go across the pond to sweden and then back, which knocks my ping/ms up to around 300ms,  if I keep the vpn off and use it, I get around 13 to 22ms ping times to every sim I'm in,  I live right outside LL's dc in arizona and my isp uses some of the same back haul that runs into the data center. 

 

[Oz Linden]

16 hours ago, Ardy Lay said:

I have seen issues like this caused by overrunning a residential router/firewall with more traffic than it can deal with.  Pipelined HTTP asset delivery uses TCP, can be really fast, and has it's own error recovery.  Some other communications SL uses are UDP without OS/STACK level error recovery.  If SL's HTTP traffic fills a buffer in a router/firewall, causing an overrun, or exceeds a committed information rate, triggering a discard policer to discard traffic, then UDP communications can suffer, resulting in SL's own error management incrementing a packet loss error counter.

Suggestion: Connect computer upstream of residential router/firewall and test SL.  I find that often solves the problem, prompting the user to replace their router/firewall with something that can keep up with their new committed information rate.

This is a great suggestion. For more information on how this problem occurs, google "buffer bloat".

There's info on tests to see if this is your problem at https://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/bloat/wiki/Tests_for_Bufferbloat/
 

[CandyCole]

Thank you for the links.

I must be honest, I had and still have no idea what Ardy Lay was saying and how to proceed. It just didn't compute with my brain, but I appreciated that it clearly triggered something with Oz Linden and I followed that link given.

My speed test result at DSLreports .com is: -

This all looks good and positive to my eyes, but I am no expert. It seems it is not bufferbloat. 

Maybe I need to start digging for clues inside Firestorm.

[Qie Niangao]

5 hours ago, CandyCole said:

Maybe I need to start digging for clues inside Firestorm.

Maybe start with the easiest: Help / About Firestorm, scroll to the bottom and see what "Packets Lost" looks like. It should be very close to zero. If it's not then that's the problem -- we just have to figure out why. @Alwin Alcott mentions that this has come up before with brand new Fiber-to-the-Home installations, and as I remember those threads the ISP will point to the great, stable bandwidth, but the fix ends up being a new router anyway. But first let's see if it's packet loss.

(If not, somebody is going to ask for a traceroute. I wish we had one from before, to compare, but it's probably the next simple thing anyway.)

[ETA: If you don't have a specific reason to use a VPN, don't. Especially not while trying to figure out what's hurting network performance, because it adds a big layer of complication to figuring that out.]

Edited March 24, 2020 by Qie Niangao

[CandyCole]

10 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

Maybe start with the easiest: Help / About Firestorm, scroll to the bottom and see what "Packets Lost" looks like.

I don't have a home, so was at my usual fairly quiet landing spot and Packets Lost was 0.0%

I went to Blueberry as it is always packed with people and slow, especially now people spend a free giftcard. It was 0.0% packet loss there too, but it was painfully slow and things not rez. I was using Default graphics settings.

Maybe I am expecting too much as packet loss is 0%. Also, with many people stuck at home and internet usage more at this time means SL and some other internet places are very, very busy.

I never updated my Firestorm for BoM because I don't need or want BoM. Plus my Windows is not fully up to date, nor my graphics drivers or system BIOS because my battery bulged in my laptop and I had to remove it. ASUS will not allow BIOS update without min. 20% battery. Windows 10 cannot update until ASUS BIOS updates as it is queuing. I cannot move on without buying a new battery. Maybe this is causing my clunky SL and there is nothing wrong elsewhere. I have resisted buying a battery which I don't need as my laptop never moves, but I guess I need to buy it so I can move forward. I wish it had a battery monitor override. In one year it will be faulty again. Laptop batteries suck if they don't get used because your laptop never moves.

 

Standing at the busy Blueberry CAM sim.

Help - About Firestorm: -

Firestorm 6.0.2 (56680) Feb  9 2019 18:55:39 (64bit) (Firestorm-Releasex64) with Havok support
Release Notes

You are at 5.2, 134.6, 22.6 in Palau located at sim10730.agni.lindenlab.com (216.82.56.20:12035)
SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Palau/5/135/23
(global coordinates 232,709.0, 276,103.0, 22.6)
Second Life Server 2020-03-17T20:08:11.538605
Release Notes

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8750H CPU @ 2.20GHz (2207.98 MHz)
Memory: 16307 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit (Build 17134.1130)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 1060/PCIe/SSE2

Windows Graphics Driver Version: 24.21.13.9924
OpenGL Version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 399.24

RestrainedLove API: (disabled)
libcurl Version: libcurl/7.54.1 OpenSSL/1.0.2l zlib/1.2.8 nghttp2/1.25.0
J2C Decoder Version: KDU v7.10.6
Audio Driver Version: FMOD Studio 1.10.10
Dullahan: 1.1.1080 / CEF: 3.3325.1750.gaabe4c4 / Chromium: 65.0.3325.146
LibVLC Version: 2.2.8
Voice Server Version: Not Connected
Settings mode: Firestorm
Viewer Skin: Firestorm (Grey)
Window size: 1920x1060 px
Font Used: Deja Vu (96 dpi)
Font Size Adjustment: 0 pt
UI Scaling: 1
Draw distance: 120 m
Bandwidth: 1000 kbit/s
LOD factor: 4
Render quality: High-Ultra (6/7)
Advanced Lighting Model: Yes
Texture memory: 2048 MB (1)
VFS (cache) creation time (UTC): 2020-3-11T10:6:59 
Built with MSVC version 1800
Packets Lost: 5/101,075 (0.0%)
March 24 2020 23:23:27 SLT

[bigmoe Whitfield]

Bandwidth slider at 1500 there is still a bug in the viewer code (all of them) that anything below really or higher than 1500 causes connection issues. 

[CandyCole]

48 minutes ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

Bandwidth slider at 1500 there is still a bug in the viewer code (all of them) that anything below really or higher than 1500 causes connection issues. 

Thank you for replying.

Are saying to set my Bandwidth slider to 1500?

[Lindal Kidd]

4 hours ago, CandyCole said:

Thank you for replying.

Are saying to set my Bandwidth slider to 1500?

Yes.  Also, I'd lower your draw distance, especially in busy stores.  Try 64m.  Lower your LOD setting from 4 to 2.  You don't say what Graphics/Complexity is set to, but I'd try lowering it to about 100,000 if there are a lot of avatars about.  This may turn a bunch of them into colored "jelly dolls", but it should help your performance.  If Shadows are enabled, try turning those off.  The specs of the computer itself look just fine for SL.

Edited March 25, 2020 by Lindal Kidd

[LittleMe Jewell]

5 hours ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

Bandwidth slider at 1500 there is still a bug in the viewer code (all of them) that anything below really or higher than 1500 causes connection issues. 

Odd - I have been getting better performance lately with my bandwidth dropped to 1200, and I've not had any connection issues at all.

[Nalates Urriah]

On 3/23/2020 at 8:15 PM, CandyCole said:

Thank you all so much for replies. It is always relieving to know people try to help others when things are not good.

I don't know why but I had not considered the increase in internet traffic during these 'stay at home' times, although the the clunky performance of SL was happening before that. I think. Yes, I'm pretty sure it was but I had recently taken a break from SL and with it clunky like this makes it more difficult to remotivate again.

A little more information:

The fiber router I use is new and provided by my ISP, on loan.

I have NordVPN and tried several USA connections and there was no noticeable difference in SL performance, but the connections are to USA, cannot choose specific cities or regions within.

The Nalates Urriah list of things to try looks intense, but thorough. At first glance it looks beyond my abilities, but I will endevour to do my best and follow the steps. I will set some time aside soon to work through the tests and checks listed.

Same as in real life. When times are tough is when we learn most about ourselves and our environment.

Again, thank you all so much for your help and suggestions. I very much enjoy SL and hope not to slip away due to poor connecting.

Stay safe.

Performing the steps and providing us information from them will let us help you. You don't have to understand it all.

Max Bandwidth is dependent on your computer and connection. The value is a piece of information provided to the SL server. It affects the size of the UDP packet the server sends and how fast it sends them. At least it used to. Now that most of the communication is via TCP the UDP settings are being depreciated.

For a high speed connection 1500 is the recommended max setting. To know the best setting one has to experiment.

 

Edited March 26, 2020 by Nalates Urriah

[CandyCole]

Over the past few days things went from bad to worse.

I'd log on and be a cloud. I had to Google how to fix that and nothing seemed to change to I closed it and gave up.

I saw something in a Facebook group and thought I must have that. I logged in and everything seemed perfect. When I say perfect it is about equal to the best I remember even before my fibre install. The best it has been easily in two months. I didn't do anything.

Something in SL has happened. Happened for the better. 

I don't know what is was, but I am glad it is like it is now.  Maybe they just turned something off and on again.

[Lindal Kidd]

Most likely it's something your ISP did, rather than LL.  In any case, I'm glad your problem has gone away!

[Ardy Lay]

It’s difficult to troubleshoot these things as an edge subscriber.  It doesn’t get much easier as an access provider serving the edge.  I have had to refer these things out to carriers connecting the edge network I work on to the rest of the network.  Some are willing and able to adjust routes with their peers to correct these issues.  Others refuse to, as their networks are over committed and they classify SL’s UDP traffic as superfluous garbage, either relegating it to lowest priority as-available transport or simply discarding it like they do bittorrent traffic.

[CandyCole]

Thank you for your replies.

In my mind I always refer to the issue being with SL beacuse my eyes tell me so, but yes, I see. I grasp now how you describe it as not being SL but rather my ISP or some carrier inbetween me and LL servers which causes this problem.

I hope things stay as they currently are, the difference when playing SL between good and bad is like chalk and cheese. I am at their mercy.  It is only SL where I see problems, the rest of my internet usage is very good and is generally all or nothing. Nothing being my router needs a reset or the network cable to my laptop needs a jiggle.