Virgin Media Community

[James178]

Hi 

I know there is work going on around my area and its meant to be fixed by the 17th of June but does anyone know if the ping will be lower/better then the 14ms (Speedtest.net) after the work is complete? people that I play with seem to always have a better ping from different ISPs 

Broadband called Ghost gaming is saying very low ping and minimal latency and no bandwidth throttling. 

Don't want to move over to Ghost gaming and find out it isn't as good as they say 

Thank you 

James 

[jpeg1]

Virgin Media uses a different technology to the other major ISPs.  It has much faster download speeds but rather longer ping times. It's your choice.

[James178]

Hi,

Thank you for your reply. 

In other words, once you have downloaded all the games really quickly once you start playing you get high ish ping then other people.

Not a responsive gaming experience as other people on different ISPs. I know what I am doing now regarding switching ISPs

Thank you for your help 

James 

[jpeg1]

Depends how often new games are released. 

[Riece]

Hi, im just down the road from yourselves and virgin is a absolute joke at the moment gaming is unplayable any time of day apart from 1am it gets better. Never heard of ghost gaming broadband so i cannot comment 🤔 virgin is brilliant when it works which hasnt been since february for me and im near tesco copdock. I myself have been considering switching but speeds i can get are poor. Your ping is brilliant compared to me also as i get 20ms best! Other isp will only get that down by 1 or 2ms which wont make a huge difference especially for drop in speeds 👍

[James178]

Hi Riece

Yeah, about 1 am gaming is the best but some days it just doesn't work..packet loss and all sorts. They have had this issue for months! high utilization its called. The way I see it is once you have downloaded all the files/games.. that's it. The speed isn't going to make you have a better gaming experience. It's the low ping you want. To be honest I would rather wait an extra 10 to 20 minutes for a game to download knowing once I start playing it will be a good experience 

Broadband Company I was talking about: https://www.ghostgb.co.uk/

James 

[Riece]

Havnt heard of them before, mine is apparently a issue i have engineer tomorrow but then again i also get told high ultisation i just think they are bluffing just to keep you waiting for others to leave. For me 350mbps down to 35mbps is a huge drop not sure what speeds are available to you through a different isp as i know open reach exchange is on belstead road

[Eeeps · Accepted solution]

Pings to local DNS on VM DOCSIS are typically 10ms but with spikes to 20ms.

PING 194.168.4.100 (194.168.4.100): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 194.168.4.100: seq=0 ttl=61 time=12.122 ms
64 bytes from 194.168.4.100: seq=1 ttl=61 time=12.684 ms
64 bytes from 194.168.4.100: seq=2 ttl=61 time=12.496 ms
64 bytes from 194.168.4.100: seq=3 ttl=61 time=8.793 ms
64 bytes from 194.168.4.100: seq=4 ttl=61 time=10.018 ms
64 bytes from 194.168.4.100: seq=5 ttl=61 time=11.387 ms
64 bytes from 194.168.4.100: seq=6 ttl=61 time=11.546 ms
64 bytes from 194.168.4.100: seq=7 ttl=61 time=11.048 ms
64 bytes from 194.168.4.100: seq=8 ttl=61 time=8.239 ms
64 bytes from 194.168.4.100: seq=9 ttl=61 time=7.516 ms
64 bytes from 194.168.4.100: seq=10 ttl=61 time=10.214 ms
64 bytes from 194.168.4.100: seq=11 ttl=61 time=10.167 ms
64 bytes from 194.168.4.100: seq=12 ttl=61 time=10.700 ms
64 bytes from 194.168.4.100: seq=13 ttl=61 time=7.704 ms
64 bytes from 194.168.4.100: seq=14 ttl=61 time=9.987 ms
64 bytes from 194.168.4.100: seq=15 ttl=61 time=8.894 ms
64 bytes from 194.168.4.100: seq=16 ttl=61 time=8.933 ms
64 bytes from 194.168.4.100: seq=17 ttl=61 time=10.238 ms
64 bytes from 194.168.4.100: seq=18 ttl=61 time=8.304 ms
64 bytes from 194.168.4.100: seq=19 ttl=61 time=7.907 ms
64 bytes from 194.168.4.100: seq=20 ttl=61 time=8.962 ms
^C
--- 194.168.4.100 ping statistics ---
21 packets transmitted, 21 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 7.516/9.898/12.684 ms

On VDSL lines, ping can be a little better - 7ms but jitter is much better.
But that's only on very good lines. Most lines that can support higher speeds have greater interleave (to allow FEC to work effectively) leading to higher pings.

[James178]

HI Eeeps,

Is there any tests I can do? Don't know a lot about the internet but I do know ping is your best friend when it comes to gaming!

Did you ping in cmd?

Thanks

[Eeeps]

---

@James178 wrote:
HI Eeeps,

Is there any tests I can do? Don't know a lot about the internet but I do know ping is your best friend when it comes to gaming!

Did you ping in cmd?

Thanks

---

I actually did the ping from a Linux system but you can do it from a Win10 cmd prompt.
Typically it's as simple as issuing the ping command followed by the ip address or name of the server you want to get an timed echo from.

So for the Dots2 server in Luxembourg simply type 'ping lux.valve.net'.
This simply sends a data packet to the remote server and times how long it takes to echo back.
However, it only does this 4 times on Windows cmd.

Spoiler

C:\>ping lux.valve.net

Pinging lux.valve.net [146.66.152.2] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 146.66.152.2: bytes=32 time=34ms TTL=53
Reply from 146.66.152.2: bytes=32 time=33ms TTL=53
Reply from 146.66.152.2: bytes=32 time=40ms TTL=53
Reply from 146.66.152.2: bytes=32 time=30ms TTL=53

Ping statistics for 146.66.152.2:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 30ms, Maximum = 40ms, Average = 34ms

If you want to carry on pinging (until you stop by pressing control c) then add the -t parameter...
ping lux.valve.net -t

Whilst how long the packet takes to get to the server is important for gaming it is actually more important that this doesn't vary too much.
So a constant ping of 50ms +/-1ms is better for gaming than 35ms  +/- 5ms.

To constantly monitor how good your ping response is I'd recommend setting up a BQM at ThinkBroadband.
This sends a ping packet to your router every second and then gives you a graph of the results; like this

Spoiler