Whats causing my lag issues?

If you have bad internet connection, then you still can move for some time (about 5 seconds) then the game kind of resets when it receives new info, and you are reset back into your previous location. That is there is no freeze per say, just very jumpy behavior of the world, lag.
If you are actually having freezes, then it is an indication that something wrong with your PC. It could be some program running in background (antivirus) or it could be hard drive going to sleep mode and you have to wake it up or something like this.

hey.

yes the first option seems the most likely because it doesnt really freeze but just jumps like a car doing a kangaroo. My internet on my pc stopped working altogether last night anyway so Im going to try re install some things tonight! bloody computers! lol

Its your connection; my old NVIDIA 5500 FX could handle WoW almost maxed out.

after alot of digging around people suggest turning off the encryption which i have done and internets working again.

I wonder if this may also help sort the lag a bit as i would be surprise if it was system issues cos wow isnt the most taxing of games.

I think its time to end the rubbish service BT give us and switch isp!

easy way to find out -

if it does it in single player - then its issues with your hardware not being powerful enough for whatever settings you're running.

if it only does it in single player id guess its a lag/bandwidth issue - especially if you have a laptop on aswell - you have no idea whats running in the background - autoupdates, virus scanner, etc etc all periodically search for and access your internet connection - this is doubly obvious when it happens over a wifi connection.

im guessing you meant "if it only does it in Multi player id guess its a lag/bandwidth issue".

I havent really played a huge amount of cod4 sinc egetting the latest wow expansion and any i have played was just multiplayer so i will try some singleplayer out as that seems to make sense. on wow i do sometimes get the lag spikes even when im questing alone.

Ive checked BTs "what speed can i get?" tester and says 0.5mbps which is unbelievable considering im sure a year or two ago they said we could get 2mbps!! downside to living in the country and miles away from nearest exchange though i guess! but even then it should be more the consistancy of the line than the max speed i can get surely?

If i had a smooth running 0.5mbps connection it should make things better.

Both laptop and pc have next to nothing running in the background. the pc is just used for gaming so the only thing on it are cod4, wow and the basic windows normals (autoupdates turned off).

I think after all this it seems 99% thats its down to having crap internet and living "in the sticks"

thanks for help

If you're miles from the exchange then no ISP is likely to give you a dsl connection thats any better. Can you get cable where you are? or maybe satelite broadband?

BT themselves arent that bad, Ive been with them at home and at work for years had a few issues at times with the business broad band during maintenance etc, but no issues with connection drops on the home connections.

Maximum broadband speed is directly affected by the length of cable between your computer and the exchange.

You need to find out how to displays WoW's network analyser, that will report ping rates and packet loss. If you see high packet loss reports it might be worth calling their technical people (a case of cross your fingers and hope for a good one) It might also be worth looking at cable routing in the house, long extension leads etc etc. How are you connecting to the internet? are you using wireless to a hub? are you using a usb modem? a network cabled router? How close is your router to the master socket etc etc.

to be fair the support at BT has usually been good so i think it seems like a case of just sticking with it as its the best we can get. have had aol and plusnet at different address and both were worse the BT from most angles.

The cable and satelite broadband sound expensive but maybe its worth looking into if not.

WoW usually runs at 100-140ms (which i think is higher than when i lived in town) and when i get the lag spikes its more like 200 upto 400ms+. peak hours seems to be the worst i.e. 5pm-9pm.

The master phone socket i believe is in the kitchen and in total we have 5 phone sockets in the house (not all in use).
The BT hub (similar to their latest black one but ours is white and stands upright. not at home so cant get serial number) is in one bedroom above the kitchen and there is an ethernet cable going into the pc next to it (mums pc).
There is another 20m cable going a long way under various carpets into the office itno my dads pc (where there is also a phone socket with just a phone attached.
I then have my pc in my room which has a netgear dongle connected to the wireless as well as my laptop which is also connected wirelessly.

The general usage is my pc and laptop on when ever i am home! (lol) and my parents pc's are on occasionally but rarely used.

Whenever i download i do it via laptop and i never dowload while im gaming as the lag just goes through the roof! although it may be crazy im anti norton and similar "anti-virus" programs so theres next to nothing running in the background. (AVG i usually turn off when gaming).

The hub has a WEP key set up for security but if someone wanted to crack it they would have to physically trespass to get within wireless range as we are in a sparsely populated area.

sorry for the essay but wanted to be thorough

Might be some hassle but its well worth as an experiment trying the router connected to the master socket and your pc connected by ethernet cable to the router to see what happens to ping and lag then! This will tell you how much is the line to your house and how much of it is the network layout. Also have the sockets with just phones on them got filters as well? really connecting to a uk server you should be seeing a ping around 50 or so. Ive found downloading stuff on a wireless device causes really bad connection issues for other computers on the network even if they are wired, theres something the router doesnt seem to like about it...

Im pretty sure all the sockets have filters on but ill have to check that tonight. My room and my dads office are next to each other so i may try using his ethernet cable and see if that lowers my lag a bit.

cod4 multi is always 100+ lag which makes playing it tough and getting high on the scoreboard tougher. I went out last night so didnt get chance to check the fps on single player but i will tonight.

the trouble is because most games i play are competetive (multiplayer cod or pvp on warcraft) it makes getting good so much more difficult. Before it was my laptop letting me down and now its the internet!

Its going to be alot of playing around at the wknd!