Virgin Media Community

[Gratch]

Hi

I've had Virgin internet at my home since we moved in 2 years ago with minimal issues.

Recently I've started playing Albion Online and usually have no issues with that either, apart from during the weekends (Friday evening and Saturday evening being the worst).

At those times I've run Speedtests and everything seems as normal but I believe the issue is with virgin due to:

1) it working fine at other times

2) my friends also based throughout the UK with other ISPs, who have 1/10th of my usual speed, don't have any issues playing at those times.

How can I / we / you fix this?

Thanks

[Martin_N]

Hi Gratch, 

Thank you for your post and welcome to the community. 

I'm very sorry to hear about the issue you're having. 

Can you confirm for me if you play other games at those times do they have the same issue?

^Martin

[Gratch]

Hi

That is the only online game I play these days.

As it is a full loot pvp game, having a slow / unresponsive connection isn't a good thing 🙂

From the Albion Online forums there are a few comments about people experiencing similar things, suggesting that it is the route certain ISPs use to connect to the server that is the issue, but I don't know enough about this to be able to test / know what the test results would mean.

Some suggest using a VPN to pick a different route but again, that's outside my knowledge base

Thanks

[Martin_N]

Do you experience general service issues during the times you have advised? Or at any other point during the week?

Do you have any other online games you'd be able to test so see if the issues repeats? 

Is this on a Wired or Wireless connection?

^Martin

[Gratch]

I can try another game at the weekend and let you know.

There are no other issues as far as I can tell. Discord still works fine at that time, as do websites, and speed tests. Everything works fine the rest of the time.

Its installed on an SSD with plenty of free space, so it's not an FPS drop, more like a packet loss issue, but only during busy times.

It's on a wired connection.

Thanks 

EDIT: I possibly should add that at the best of times my ping to the server is about 115, and at busy times it goes to about 140. The bad evenings where the game becomes unplayable it is still at about 120-140.  If I didn't have a powerful computer, and if it didn't work fine at other times I'd have thought it was a PC issue, rather than connection.

[Martin_N]

From what you have advised it sounds like peak times in your area could be Friday/Saturday Evening which means that when you're playing at those times it is affecting the game play. 

If you can try another game that would be great. 

^Martin

[Gratch]

I agree that something is affecting my connection speed at peak times.

The Albion server is in Washington DC, so for my friends and myself (all UK based) the end section of the route will be very similar, with the main difference being the local route near our homes. 

On Friday and Saturday evenings, the game becomes unplayable for myself, but my friends experience no issues or slowdowns or jitter whatsoever.

Therefore, I believe it to be an issue with my local ISP ... hence making this post, as for the price I pay, I don't expect to suffer any bandwidth throttling (or similar) 

I'll update when I test another game, but is there nothing you can check in the meantime?

Thanks

[Martin_N]

Thank you for that. 

^Martin

[Gratch]

Hi

My friends and I tried a couple of other games last night and I was the only one who experienced lag spikes and connection issues.

We all live in the UK, but I live in the Midlands whilst they are mostly based in the South East, and I am the only one on Virgin.

What do I need to do now?

Thanks

[Gratch]

Hi

A further update. We played Albion on Saturday evening from circa 9pm to 11pm (UK time).

From 9pm to 10pm, I was still experiencing large lag spikes and jitter etc, but my friends weren't.

At about 10pm, it was as if a switch had been flicked, as virtually instantly everything was fine and back to normal.

To me it seems fairly clear cut that somewhere along the route from my home to the server in Washington DC, an ISP or server or connection is having issues or throttling my speed.

Thanks