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Sympatico Online Game freezes after about 20 minutes of play

1K views 6 replies 4 participants last post by  rockhard1963 
#1 ·
I live in Newmarket and have become somewhat frustrated with sympatico.
I have experienced hiccups, lag while gaming that eventually freezes. Games seem to run well for approximately 20 minutes and then the symptoms occur.
This started about 5 months previous when for some unexplained reason I was now experiencing difficulty connecting to gaming servers. This had never been an issue nor has anything changed with my system.
I rarely play online games but would like them to work when playing.
Games I play are Brothers in arms and Red Orchestra
Anyone experience similar problems?
Is this service issue as nothing has changed on my end?
Any ideas?
 
#2 ·
I am not familiar with these games.
But can you play these games offline, i.e. not connected to the internet?
If you play offline and still have the same issue, I would suspect something in your computer and not your connection.
If this is the case it could be as simple as you computer is overheating. This is something you would not notice during normal operations and only while "stressing" the computer while gaming. But it could be something else.
More details would be narrow the issue.
 
#3 ·
Thank you for your reply!

I have not considered that and will certainly pursue that avenue as well. WHat is odd is that the game Brothers In Arms had been running well without a problem for at least a year prior.
Medal of honour does not cause any problem.
BIA is more labour/resource intensive for the computer compared to MOH so I am not sure if that is an issue.
Here is what I am running
P4 3.2 cpu
1 meg of Ram
ATI 1650 Vid card
Sympatico ultra high speed connection
through a linksys 2102 voip/router
 
#4 ·
It sounds like you may the "victim" of bandwidth throttling by your ISP. I have been hearing similar reports with VOIP apps like Skype. All goes well for about 20 minutes and then it quickly degrades to the point of being unusable.

If you have Skype installed on your PC, you could do a test. After about 20 minutes, if the audio quality starts to degrade, that is likely the problem.

I have heard reports that some people have had success with encrypted connections. The ISP can't know what is in the encrypted stream, and it is not throttled. (requires Network Voodoo) ;)
 
#5 ·
Great Feedback and thanks

Great point! It seems that you may have hit the proverbial nail on the head. I have had some excellent suggestions both on this forum and with friends that are in the computer field. Over the past day or so you are the second person to suggest a bandwidth issue. I will look into this for sure. Its good to know that there are great people out there to offer great ideas.

My previous post I mentioned what I was running for my system. Looks like I should have also included info for my VOIP phone.

My service is Acanac which of course is tied into Bell sympatico via my linksys 2102 voip/router unit.

One question....Can this problem be fixed? ANy suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers
Rock
 
#6 ·
The first thing to do if you haven't done it already is to double check the overheating issue.
I use to get disconnected back in the day when I played EQ. It wasn't my internet connection though, it was my videocard overheating. (let me tell you what a pita that was....)
If you rule out the video card or overheating issue:
Next, try connecting to a server that is not as populated or do a direct connect with a friend who has the game if the game allows that, and see if you still see the problem while the phone is connected.

Last thing, disconnect the router and run the Smpatico straight through without the phone connected and connect to your usual server. If you don't get the issue than we can go from there...

Nem, who did these things, back in the day
 
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