High ping to a certain server only from a certain ISP

[zombified94]

Hello!

Here's my problem: I'm using the most popular and largest ISP available in my country (UPC Hungary) and my internet speed is flawless. So is the latency to most of the servers in the world.

However, there is a certain one, that I'm connecting to quite often that has a huge ping value compared to how much it should be. It's an online game's server (CABAL Online EU) that i play almost every day and that latency is extremely annoying. I've done everything possible to decrease my ping (for example disabling Nagle's algorithm), but this is something that is apparently out of my reach.

The game's server is in Luxembourg, and I'm in Hungary. Pinging a random server in that country gets me a result of 30-40 ms, which is normal. However, that single server, the game's server gets me 120+ (with just a few bytes of data) and when playing the game itself the ping counter shows 150+. That is very...very annoying and makes the game much less enjoyable to play.

I've searched around the internet for possible solutions and was able to diagnose where the problem is, and was also able to get some friends to help me with a few tests. Using trace route in the command prompt provided me with the following information: my connection is flawless right up until the game's server.
There suddenly from 40 ms it jumps to 130 in 1 hop. Some other people who get their internet from the same company had similar values (except a few milliseconds higher because they did not disable Nagle's algorithm). However, doing the same from another connection that is from a less popular ISP, one of my friends had a ping of 30ms to the server. Even using mobile internet connection (which is legendarily slow) my ping was considerably lower! I even tried to ping the server from a random free wifi hotspot around and it was around 40 ms.

Most people say that a VPN /proxy greatly increases my ping when playing games. Well in this case it's the opposite. With the free trial version of certain VPN providers I was able to get a latency of 50-60 ms even with some pretty slow connections. But a free trial lasts only a few days and it's against the term of service of the game to "redirect the communications protocols used by us.. incuding... tunneling...". So that's not an option and paying to connect through a VPN would defeat the purpose of a free to play game.

So the problem is definitely something that happens only with my ISP, and with this server. My ISP said there's nothing that can be done from their part since that is out of their reach. The game's support said they are "investigating" the issue and that they were not aware. And also pointed out that they have no idea what it is and I should provide any information that I figure out regarding this issue.

So here I am asking, if there is anything you can tell me about it. How to fix it if it's possible to fix it from my part (other than switiching ISPs) or what to tell them that might help them in fixing it.

Sorry for the long post... I was trying to be as detailed as possible

Any help is really appreciated! That ping is killing me while playing 🙁
Thank you in advance

And here's a picture of the tracerts that I was able to get my hands on including my own.

 

[crystal_tech]

try a vpn and see if that might route around that hop. might be a weak (over saturated) connection.

 

[bill001g]

The ISP is correct there is little they can do. This is why a larger ISP in general has better connectivity. Large ISP peer with many other ISP. The more peers you have the more likely you will take the most effective path. They would in effect have to buy services from a better partner to get you better service...not like they will even consider that.

If you really spend the time you can figure out which ISP each hop is and likely which location. Part of the problem is traceroute only shows your path TO the location. The path coming back is many times very different. It can even go though different countries. You would have to have a trace from the far end.

If you care to dig you need to search the ISP names and the term looking glass. This gives you the ability to issue ping and traceroutes from ISP routers if they allow it. It will just be for your education though there is nothing you can do to fix this since it is based on agreements between the ISPs themselves.

 

[zombified94]

Well thank you for the replies.
So according to that, it's likely that the problem with this connection is not that the game's server doesn't like my ISP and adds some extra ping due to some configuration issues (or something like that, that they could just fix if they cared to move a finger and help their costumer) but that the route back to me from the server probably has a bad hop that ruins it.

If that is so, then I suppose the only solutions are to change ISP, or use a VPN service. Changing ISP is not a considerable option for me, so can you recommend some VPNs that could be used? (or any other solution that might help)

The only criteria I have is that it should have a free version (even if limited to very basic features only) with servers in EU. And of course some level of security/trustworthiness... it wouldn't be fun to have some of my data stolen while trying to reduce my ping.

 

[bill001g]

VPN is trial and error since most VPN services will not tell you much about which ISP they partner with. Obviously the best would a VPN service that has a direct connection to your ISP and a direct connection to the game company ISP. The VPN service would in effect create a connection between these ISP even if they themselves did not have a connection. How you would find one of these magically VPN services since you are lucky if you can even get the VPN service to identify the list of cities/countries they have data centers in.

The best of course are free trials. Other than that you are going to have to try to get some of the VPN service providers IP and run pings to see how far away they are. Does not do a lot of good for you for example to use VPN sites located in the USA or Australia.

What may be a valid option is to see if you have a friend that has a better ISP in the same city as you and put a VPN router in their house. You of course would have to have good latency between your house and his....which is not always true when you deal with different ISP since they may not have a connection in the city near you.