Net Tweaking Freeware
I have wifi. That enough is a death warrant for me everytime I play online shooter games. Considering that I play a three-year old game that is thought to be dead and where 75% of the remaining players are pros I get my a$$ handed to me everytime I play. But hell it’s fun. I play for the rush, the catharsis I get everytime someone ragdolls and cartwheels in the air after catching a well-led spinfusor round. I get a high when I successfuly penetrate an enemy base and launch mass-driven mortar rounds at their electronics, my sub-woofer faithfully emulating the sound of shaking foundations as explosions wail and hammer away at tortured concrete and screaming warped metal.
Still, the high ping caused by my connection shows; I only get 0-16 kills in 10 minutes. Compared to my Americans and Australian competitors who have sub-100 pings, this is very low a kill count. I started surfing the information superhighway for something that might fix this.
I found the site www.speedguide.net, which offers a freeware that optimizes one’s TCP settings. TCP Optimizer enables users to get 90% of the rate their ISPs promise them.
I downloaded the freeware, didn’t quite go for the automated "optimal settings", instead opted to read the individual definitions of the alien terms, tweaked the fields and voila! I got:
(click to see image)
…which was even lower than my previous speed I was getting. While it was disappointing — and a bit alarming —- OMG, what did I do?! —- I didn’t freak out and studied some more. I sifted through the site’s forum again, browsed through the results their online TCP Analyzer gave me (whose link can be found in the aforementioned site) and found the phrase "Reccomended RWINs: 64240, 128480, 256960, 513920 ". I grew puzzled as the freeware set a number that was very low compared to what was recommended. I posted a query which read:
0…..kay.
(click to see image)
That is terrible. I suspect it’s because of this:
Why did TCP Optimizer register my TCP Receive Window as 24820? Now my results are:
« SpeedGuide.net TCP Analyzer Results »
Tested on: 05.19.2007 23:30
TCP options string: 020405b40103030001010402
MSS: 1460
MTU: 1500
TCP Window: 24820 (multiple of MSS)
RWIN Scaling: 0
Unscaled RWIN : 24820
Reccomended RWINs: 64240, 128480, 256960, 513920
BDP limit (200ms): 993kbps (124KBytes/s)
BDP limit (500ms): 397kbps (50KBytes/s)
MTU Discovery: ON
TTL: 41
Timestamps: OFF
SACKs: ON
IP ToS: 00000000 (0)
Why is my RWIN now so low? Is this a glitch? Because I didn’t manually set the values.
So I’ll try this instead:
FORMER RWIN/1460 >>> this will give me a number that if rounded up/down and multiplied by 1460, will yield another number that is a multiple of 1460.
So
65535/1460 = 44.89
Rounding this off to the nearest even number gives me 44 (a forum thread did give instructions that you have to round off to the nearest EVEN number). So
44 * 1460 = 64240
Surprisingly (for me) I got a number that is one of the figures in the "Other RWIN values that might work well with your current MTU/MSS: " list given by TCP analyzer and is nearer than my former RWIN, which was relatively optimal than the one made by this freeware. I’m going to try this figure now…..
These are the results I got when I inputted the recommended figures:
(click to see images)
My ISP advertised 384Kbps so the results are nothing short of spectacular considering I was averaging 260Kbps in the past weeks. I’m currently using the second highest RWIN value. (you want the rationale? Read and post in the forums or better yet, do some research)
The TCP Optimizer. Get it fellas. (A note of warning though: back up your registry before using this; I take no responsibility if anything adverse happens to your system)
And no, it doesn’t fix ping. I kind of knew that before I used the thing but well….. it doesn’t hurt to dream of miracles. In the meanwhile, I hope I helped your browsing/streaming needs and as for me:
Zero. To. Sixteen.
