I thought I ought to put something up here, in case anyone is having the same problem I did, namely that with Windows Vista connected over a wireless network, every 60 seconds on the dot I would get a massive lag spike.
This is what worked to solve the problem for me. YMMV.
...
0. What this looks like in game
In game, if you type /netgraph 1 in chat you'll get a graph of ping time to the servers, and you'll see a big blob where the graph spikes up for a few seconds every minute. Invariably you'll get powers refusing to activate during this time, and be rubber banded back to where the server thinks you are once the lag has cleared.
You can type /netgraph 0 to turn off the graph.
1. Confirming you have the same problem I did rather than something else.
If you're seeing something like this, then to make sure you have the same problem rather than a different one, first find the IP address of your wireless router, and then continuously ping it from for a few minutes. You should see a big spike of up to 1500+ms happen every 60 secs. This confirms the problem is at our end, not something at your ISP, between your ISP and the game servers, or with the servers themselves. You can repeat this test to confirm that any fix you try actually worked.
- To find your router's IP address:
<ul type="square">[*]Right click the network connection in the system tray on the right of the task bar.[*]Choose 'Network and Sharing Centre'.[*]Click the 'View Status' link next to where your wireless connection is listed.[*]Click the 'Details' button[*]The number you want is the one listed for 'IPv4 Default' Gateway[/list]- To do a continuous ping
<ul type="square">[*]Close any applications that might try to use the network so we don't skew the results.[*]From what used be the Start Menu in XP, type 'cmd' in the search box[*]Click the 'cmd' icon that appears under the programs section.[*]At the prompt in the window that comes type: ping -t <ip address you got above> and press enter. For instance mine was:
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>ping -t 10.0.0.1</pre><hr />[*] You now should see a bunch of ping times scroll down the window. If you don't have anything else wrong they should be all be somewhere between 1ms and 10ms assuming no-one else is using the wireless network at the same time. However every minute or so you'll get a line that reads something like 1500ms. That's the problem.[*]Press Ctrl-C to stop the pings once you've seen enough to show you what's going on.[/list]2. First Fix that worked for me
I downloaded and installed WLAN Optimizer. It tells Vista to stop doing the thing that causes the lag every 60s on your Wireless Network interface.
You can run it manually or you can set it to start up with Windows. This did fix the problem for me, no more lag spikes, however I found it just a bit squirelly when set to run at startup with not everything always being nicely hidden away despite being set to hide it's windows, so I kept looking...
3. Second Fix that worked for me (specific to my hardware)
...and found the following fix.
HOWEVER this one seems specific to my wireless network interface, so probably isn't applicable unless you're using a Ralink RT73 chipset based wireless adaptor like I do. However it's possible there's a similar option in your network hardware's driver so you might still want to have a poke around for something equivalent if you're not happy with WLAN optimizer, or it doesn't work for you. Here's what I did:
<ul type="square">[*]Right clicked the network connection in the system tray on the right of the task bar.[*]Chose 'Network and Sharing Centre'.[*]Clicked the 'View Status' link next to where the wireless connection was listed.[*]Chose 'Properties' and accepted the UAC prompt.[*]Pressed 'Configure'.[*]Went to the 'Advanced' tab.[*]Switched 'SmartScan' from Disabled to Enabled. (it's here would being changing some other setting if you had different hardware but it still an option that solved the problem)[*]Okayed the changes.[/list]4. Obvious fix that should work, but I couldn't personally use.
Switch to a wired connection to your router.
Yes, not always an option, it wasn't for me as something seems to interfere with network cabling at my location on multiple different machines with different operating systems, that's actually why I'm using wireless.
5. Other possible solutions
Google for Vista "Lag Spike" and you should find a number of other possible things to try. Some of them include things like installing XP drivers for your wireless adaptor on Vista before using WLAN Optimizer. There's an alternative WLAN Optimizer type program called Vista Anti-Lag, and there are various shell commands to try. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to a guarenteed always works for everyone solution, and for some people nothing seems to work.
I thought I ought to put something up here, in case anyone is having the same problem I did, namely that with Windows Vista connected over a wireless network, every 60 seconds on the dot I would get a massive lag spike.
This is what worked to solve the problem for me. YMMV.
...
0. What this looks like in game
In game, if you type /netgraph 1 in chat you'll get a graph of ping time to the servers, and you'll see a big blob where the graph spikes up for a few seconds every minute. Invariably you'll get powers refusing to activate during this time, and be rubber banded back to where the server thinks you are once the lag has cleared.
You can type /netgraph 0 to turn off the graph.
1. Confirming you have the same problem I did rather than something else.
If you're seeing something like this, then to make sure you have the same problem rather than a different one, first find the IP address of your wireless router, and then continuously ping it from for a few minutes. You should see a big spike of up to 1500+ms happen every 60 secs. This confirms the problem is at our end, not something at your ISP, between your ISP and the game servers, or with the servers themselves. You can repeat this test to confirm that any fix you try actually worked.
- To find your router's IP address:
<ul type="square">[*]Right click the network connection in the system tray on the right of the task bar.[*]Choose 'Network and Sharing Centre'.[*]Click the 'View Status' link next to where your wireless connection is listed.[*]Click the 'Details' button[*]The number you want is the one listed for 'IPv4 Default' Gateway[/list]- To do a continuous ping
<ul type="square">[*]Close any applications that might try to use the network so we don't skew the results.[*]From what used be the Start Menu in XP, type 'cmd' in the search box[*]Click the 'cmd' icon that appears under the programs section.[*]At the prompt in the window that comes type: ping -t <ip address you got above> and press enter. For instance mine was:
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>ping -t 10.0.0.1</pre><hr />[*] You now should see a bunch of ping times scroll down the window. If you don't have anything else wrong they should be all be somewhere between 1ms and 10ms assuming no-one else is using the wireless network at the same time. However every minute or so you'll get a line that reads something like 1500ms. That's the problem.[*]Press Ctrl-C to stop the pings once you've seen enough to show you what's going on.[/list]2. First Fix that worked for me
I downloaded and installed WLAN Optimizer. It tells Vista to stop doing the thing that causes the lag every 60s on your Wireless Network interface.
You can run it manually or you can set it to start up with Windows. This did fix the problem for me, no more lag spikes, however I found it just a bit squirelly when set to run at startup with not everything always being nicely hidden away despite being set to hide it's windows, so I kept looking...
3. Second Fix that worked for me (specific to my hardware)
...and found the following fix.
HOWEVER this one seems specific to my wireless network interface, so probably isn't applicable unless you're using a Ralink RT73 chipset based wireless adaptor like I do. However it's possible there's a similar option in your network hardware's driver so you might still want to have a poke around for something equivalent if you're not happy with WLAN optimizer, or it doesn't work for you. Here's what I did:
<ul type="square">[*]Right clicked the network connection in the system tray on the right of the task bar.[*]Chose 'Network and Sharing Centre'.[*]Clicked the 'View Status' link next to where the wireless connection was listed.[*]Chose 'Properties' and accepted the UAC prompt.[*]Pressed 'Configure'.[*]Went to the 'Advanced' tab.[*]Switched 'SmartScan' from Disabled to Enabled. (it's here would being changing some other setting if you had different hardware but it still an option that solved the problem)[*]Okayed the changes.[/list]4. Obvious fix that should work, but I couldn't personally use.
Switch to a wired connection to your router.
Yes, not always an option, it wasn't for me as something seems to interfere with network cabling at my location on multiple different machines with different operating systems, that's actually why I'm using wireless.
5. Other possible solutions
Google for Vista "Lag Spike" and you should find a number of other possible things to try. Some of them include things like installing XP drivers for your wireless adaptor on Vista before using WLAN Optimizer. There's an alternative WLAN Optimizer type program called Vista Anti-Lag, and there are various shell commands to try. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to a guarenteed always works for everyone solution, and for some people nothing seems to work.