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My Xbox One ping is 167ms, my home wifi ping is 7ms. What gives?

Chittagong

Gold Member
On the back of the biggest losing streak I have ever had in Halo 5, I started to suspect lag was to blame - after all, I rarerly got the kills, just ton of assists, lost duels, grenades wouldn't leave, I'd just get surprised constantly.

So I found out that my Xbox One ping is 167ms. No wonder I get my ass kicked. I have BT Infinity fiber that is pretty damn competent. Even my iPad has a 7ms ping.

gKhUzyM.jpg

My basic setup is

DSl - BT Openreach modem - Ethernet - TimeCapsule 3TB - Ethernet - Xbox One

I have also tried

DSL - BT Openreach modem - Ethernet - TimeCapsule 3TB - Wifi - Xbox One

Both have the same issue. I have tried to reboot everything, but my Xbox One gives me always an 150ms ping no matter what.

Needless to say, it makes playing Halo 5 pointless. I am a very patient man and nearly soloed to Platinum with this ping, but there's only so much punishment I can take.

Any ideas?
 

Syriel

Member
Why isn't your MTU set at 1500?

Have you checked your router settings to ensure you're not getting hammered by buffer bloat?
 

morpix

Member
That's usually the latency to Microsoft's Azure (Xbox Live) platform. It's different systems in different locations.It won't affect your actual ping to other players.
 

BahamutPT

Member
Xbox One should be pinging a MS server (not necessarily nearby)
Speedtest would be pinging your ISP (or a server from another ISP fairly nearby since it's London)
 

Ferrio

Banned
You are pinging two completely different servers in 2 different locations.

This.

The biggest factor of ping will be distance between you and whatever server you're connecting to. Speedtest defaults to the closest speedtest server to you, so it's always going to be super low. Select a server location near where the Azure servers are and you'll get something more accurate.
 

Chittagong

Gold Member
Well, it seems Speedtest to Comcast Seattle gives me 160ms too. I learned that Seattle is further away from London than Ulanbataar. Mad.

So, I guess I can't conclude that there is anything wrong in my connection, just the game.
 

xylo

Neo Member
So I found out that my Xbox One ping is 167ms. No wonder I get my ass kicked. I have BT Infinity fiber that is pretty damn competent. Even my iPad has a 7ms ping.
Lots of ideas. What BahamutPT said is basically correct. Can you please download the Network Speed Test App from the Windows store and confirm you get the same results as you do from your xbox? Either versions (desktop or phone) will work as long as your testing over wifi/wired.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/store/apps/Network-Speed-Test/9WZDNCRFHX52#app-details
https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/store/apps/Network-Speed-Test/9WZDNCRFHX5F#app-details

This will help confirm, but I suspect you just have a bad route/overloaded link to the nearest azure datacenter.

E: Just saw the reply above after I posted. If you're in London you should be getting sub 50 easy as there are speed test servers very close to you there.
 

Chittagong

Gold Member
Lots of ideas. What BahamutPT said is basically correct. Can you please download the Network Speed Test App from the Windows store and confirm you get the same results as you do from your xbox? Either versions (desktop or phone) will work as long as your testing over wifi/wired.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/store/apps/Network-Speed-Test/9WZDNCRFHX52#app-details
https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/store/apps/Network-Speed-Test/9WZDNCRFHX5F#app-details

This will help confirm, but I suspect you just have a bad route/overloaded link to the nearest azure datacenter.

E: Just saw the reply above after I posted. If you're in London you should be getting sub 50 easy as there are speed test servers very close to you there.

Yeah 50ms sounds like something I could live with. Don't have any other W10 devices than Xbox One to test with, just OSX and iOS I'm afraid.
 

Syriel

Member
Yeah 50ms sounds like something I could live with. Don't have any other W10 devices than Xbox One to test with, just OSX and iOS I'm afraid.

What kind of speed do you get without the Time Capsule?

Just plug your Xbox One directly into your modem and test.
 

xylo

Neo Member
Yeah 50ms sounds like something I could live with. Don't have any other W10 devices than Xbox One to test with, just OSX and iOS I'm afraid.
There is a Windows 8/8.1 version also if you are running that.

If you can't do that, please do a nslookup/dig/traceroute on "networktest.windowsphone.com" and post the results.
 
On the back of the biggest losing streak I have ever had in Halo 5, I started to suspect lag was to blame - after all, I rarerly got the kills, just ton of assists, lost duels, grenades wouldn't leave, I'd just get surprised constantly.

It's you buddy.
 

Noobcraft

Member
Pop in Titanfall and get a ping to the nearest azure server. The Xbox dash one isn't representative of what you get in actual games. It's probably pinging to Washington or something.
 

Chittagong

Gold Member
Pop in Titanfall and get a ping to the nearest azure server. The Xbox dash one isn't representative of what you get in actual games. It's probably pinging to Washington or something.

Ha, this I can do, since I have Titanfall. Will check after this match and report back.
 

xylo

Neo Member
As others have said, you are probably connecting to two different servers in different locations. In my experience, that time is pretty average when connecting to a server overseas. Try running the Speed Test app again and select a server near Washington - you'll probably end up with a similar result.
I'm not 100% certain the ping would go to Washington. I am not sure about the new dash, but before the speed test app calls went to the normal Network Speed Test servers I linked above.

In the Azure sense, there are two datacenters near him which calls should be going too (North Europe and West Europe) -- they almost certainly will for the upload/download unless there is a geo ip route mistake. If there is a misroute there (which would show from the traceroute/nslookup for the address I listed above) there is a good chance it will show there.
 

Chittagong

Gold Member
Pop in Titanfall and get a ping to the nearest azure server. The Xbox dash one isn't representative of what you get in actual games. It's probably pinging to Washington or something.

Titanfall results seem fine right?

West Europe 17ms
North Europe 17ms
East US 88ms
North Central US 100ms
South Central US 115ms
West US 150ms

So probably a Halo specific issue. They had big lag problems for EU players in January but they did something to the MM to fix it, Feb was pure bliss. It seems they re-broke it then.
 
I can confirm as other people have. The dashboard Ping is to Redmond for some strange reason regardless of your location.

I live in Ohio and it's always around 100ms ping. Black ops 3 and titanfall are always sub 30ms ping to the Chicago servers for me.
 

Akai__

Member
Well, it seems Speedtest to Comcast Seattle gives me 160ms too. I learned that Seattle is further away from London than Ulanbataar. Mad.

So, I guess I can't conclude that there is anything wrong in my connection, just the game.

There is nothing wrong with the game, but with 343i, because they think 125ms pings are acceptable.

At a worldwide level, 95% of the Halo 5 matches played since launch have taken place on servers with 125ms ping or better

If you are in Europe and you connect to a West Coast Server, you will always have a 150ms ping, because it's not only the netcode that matters, but the actual distance the signal has to travel arround the world. You will have this with any game and not just Halo. The difference is, that you can choose the data center/server in some games.
 

Chittagong

Gold Member
There is nothing wrong with the game, but with 343i, because they think 125ms pings are accetable.

If you are in Europe and you connect to a West Coast Server, you will always have a 150ms ping, because it's not only the netcode that matters, but the actual distance the signal has to travel arround the world. You will have this with any game and not just Halo. The difference is, that you can choose the data center/server in some games.

That I really don't get. I mean, they are so serious about making Halo 5 a competitive game. The MP balance is sublime. It's an amazing game. Why not give players who are serious a chance to only play on local servers. My mind was blown when I opened up Titanfall just now and saw what they are doing. I'd kill for a 17ms ping like on Titanfall, that's less than the input lag in my tv...!
 

MrBenchmark

Member
I can confirm as other people have. The dashboard Ping is to Redmond for some strange reason regardless of your location.

I live in Ohio and it's always around 100ms ping. Black ops 3 and titanfall are always sub 30ms ping to the Chicago servers for me.

that's weird I'm in Plano Il 50 miles west of chicago and my dashboard ping is always high teens. Comcast 105Mbps extreme Netgear nighthawk router and my whole network is wired Gigabit.
 

xylo

Neo Member
Here's my trace route fwiw:
Yep you're going to the correct datacenter (West Europe). Notice your ping is 13-15ms at the last visible hops -- those are just a few away from where the testing servers are located it. You're ping will be equal to that there. The fact that the U/D speeds match from both tests means that local latency is not an issue (adding 150ms to every ACK packet would lower your throughput.)

This means that either NXE/etc may be pinging something else (could be geo ip misroute, restricting ping servers in other datacenters, etc etc -- whole bunch of things.) I don't know where the 343i guys place servers, but if they have them in the same DC and your match was there you could potentially get pretty good pings.

tl'dr, doesn't look like your network/router.
 

Chittagong

Gold Member
Yep you're going to the correct datacenter (West Europe). Notice your ping is 13-15ms at the last visible hops -- those are just a few away from where the testing servers are located it. You're ping will be equal to that there. The fact that the U/D speeds match from both tests means that local latency is not an issue (adding 150ms to every ACK packet would lower your throughput.)

This means that either NXE/etc may be pinging something else (could be geo ip misroute, restricting ping servers in other datacenters, etc etc -- whole bunch of things.) I don't know where the 343i guys place servers, but if they have them in the same DC and your match was there you could potentially get pretty good pings.

tl'dr, doesn't look like your network/router.

Thanks for the insight. At least now I know there's nothing I can do but wait and hope.
 
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