Sesitivity to lag spikesFollow

Hi,

Over the last few days I have been having lag spike problems, often leading to LDs. I have two computers and both suffer spikes at the same time, so definately a network issue rather than anything local to (one) computer. During some of these periods I have done some investigation with tracert and it seems there is a (far) downstream routing issue deep in the infrastructure somewhere between my ISP and Sony.

Obviously there is not much I can do about downstream routing issues (and hopefully it will clear up again in a few days) but I have noticed that when I get spikes of around the length needed to cause an LD (seems to be about 10 seconds) sometimes one machine will recover and only one go LD (not always the same one tho). Also, when one is LD the other does not see the first one's toon as being LD in game for some considerable time (another 30 seconds or so typically). This suggests that the client's threshold for LD detection is lower than the server's. What I want to know is whether there is any setting that can decrease the client sensitivity (say so that it will lag out for 20 seconds before declaring an LD rather than 10 seconds), up to the same sort of values used by the server. I figure that even a long spike followed by recovery is better than a spike followed by an LD! (especially since the last time it happened I was fighting the fabled AC and wound up dead as a result).

My setup is ADSL routed to a local ethernet. Both machines are running XP Home. I have just lowered the datarate setting in datarate.txt from 8.0 to 7.0 to see if that helps any, but I'm clutching at straws a little really!

Look in your EQ directory and find a file called "DataRate.txt." Edit the file with notepad. It will contain only a number (5.0 by default). This number represents the maximum kilobits allowable per packet that your PC will take from the servers at SoE. This number (x 1000k) can be seen on the right side of the lag meter on your in-game screen. If this number goes over the number in your DataRate.txt file x1000k (5.0 in datarate.txt = 5000 on meter), you will usually go linkdead. Change the setting in datarate.txt as follows;

If you are on dial-up change it to 7.0
If you are on DSL change it to 8.0
If you are on cable or higher make it 9.0

This may help you recover from some of this.

mtardy