Jump to content
Erkki

Damn it, but computers have become really complicated

Recommended Posts

Yeah, I've tried that and even managed to find a nice utility someone made that lets you test your bitrate and latency to every possible Twitch server. These tests actually reflect what I am seeing with my streams. My best two connections are to LA and San Francisco and the results that I get with the Twitch connection test come out to 1500 kb/s or less which is extremely low compared to the 8-9 mb/s that I get on my internet speed tests (and I've tried about 7 or 8 different speed tests). This utility also rates the quality of your connection to the Twitch servers based on these parameters and mine comes out to 0% quality across the board every single time. Something just seems wrong and from what I've researched, it doesn't sound like I'm being throttled, but that there is some other factor at play that I am missing. I thought at first that maybe it was just my timing and Twitch servers were overloaded but after seeing this issue for so long that is obviously not the problem.

 

I'm also going to try flushing my DNS to see if that helps but I doubt it will since restarting my computer didn't have any effect either. Thanks for the response Jon.

 

My money is on your ISP doing some QoS on your outbound traffic to Twitch and putting a bandwith limiter on it. You'd be surprised how much they do traffic shaping these days, especially AT&T and Verizon. 

 

Is it possible that port forwarding could help?

 

Doubtful. Port forwarding just lets you forward inbound traffic to the right PC inside your network. I don't think Twitch needs to initiate a connection to his PC for anything.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

So I did another round of testing last night with my work laptop and pretty much narrowed it down to it being on Cox's end. Plugging in directly to my modem and restarting it a couple times in the process gave the exact same results that I was getting on my home PC. So it has nothing to do with my computer hardware and nothing to do with my router.

 

I took it one step further and logged into my modem to check the status and signal levels. Everything checked out with the exception of the SNR on one of the channels being below the acceptable level. According to the documentation I read, each of those 7 or so channels needs to be at a minimum of 35 dB and one of my channels was at 32 dB. I don't know enough about what kind of impact this type of discrepancy would have and I assume it just means I'm going to have a slightly higher packet loss. I feel pretty confident though that my modem is fine after checking these values and the reported status.

 

So I think one of two things is going on here: either Cox has stepped up their traffic shaping and it is having much more impact on my streams now than it did in November (doubtful) or I am just getting a shitty signal and I need a technician to come out and look at it. The second option seems like the most obvious way to go at this point as I'm doubtful that my sustained upload bandwidth would be getting impacted so badly by traffic shaping (and we are on the second to highest speed tier too so 1500 kb/s sustained upload just seems ludicrously low when you consider all the other millions of people that have Cox/Comcast/Whatever and can stream at much higher bitrates). So I'm gonna call Cox after work today and hope that I can cut through their bullshit and get them to send someone out.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I finally resolved my shitty connection problems and it is running super smooth now. We ended up having a Cox technician come out and tweak the signal levels to see if that was the issue and once everything was in spec we ran the test again and saw the exact same results. So that pretty much narrowed it down to the modem (which was a new Motorolla Surfboard with great reviews) that we had purchased in November. Luckily, we still had the box and receipt so I was able to exchange it for another one at Best Buy and after activating the new one, upload and download speeds are right where they should be and I'm a happy dude.

 

So I guess my main take away from all of this is that you can't necessarily trust what it says on the modem status page. In my case, everything checked out and the modem reported that everything was working properly when in reality, something was wrong with one or more of the upload channels and the problem only became apparent during sustained uploads.

 

And for the record, if you are ever checking your internet speeds, use testmy.net over any of the other speed tests. It allows you to specify file sizes for upload and download tests and gives a much more accurate portrayal of what your real speeds are. And thanks to the graph that that site provided, I was able to get a clear profile of what was happening during my uploads and saw big gaps of massive packet loss which gave me an overall upload speed of 650 kb/s versus the 9 mb/s that all the other speed tests reported.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

So my computer's been randomly failing on me for a while, and I figure it's about time I replaced it. I can salvage most of the parts, but I'll definitely need a new CPU and motherboard; they're what's been dragging this one down for so long. I have no clue what to replace them with though. I use my PC primarily for Photoshop, gaming, and opening hundreds of tabs in Chrome; so go nuts with suggestions. Just be aware that I'd rather buy from trusted sites (namely Newegg) and that I've got a limited income at the moment. Also feel free to suggest anything else I might need. RAM would be good; my graphics card is a little dated but fairly beefy.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

So my computer's been randomly failing on me for a while, and I figure it's about time I replaced it. I can salvage most of the parts, but I'll definitely need a new CPU and motherboard; they're what's been dragging this one down for so long. I have no clue what to replace them with though. I use my PC primarily for Photoshop, gaming, and opening hundreds of tabs in Chrome; so go nuts with suggestions. Just be aware that I'd rather buy from trusted sites (namely Newegg) and that I've got a limited income at the moment. Also feel free to suggest anything else I might need. RAM would be good; my graphics card is a little dated but fairly beefy.

 

the more info you can offer the better tbh Tegan, but Quick Essential Q's would be:

 

-what size case do you have?

-what rating/wattage PSU do you have?

-are you currently using the intel stock Heatsink or do you have a custom one?

 

the GPU/RAM/HDD details would also be groovy but wouldn't make or break any recommendations (unless your GPU is a insane power leech)

 

edit: if you want to look at a ok mid range build for parts ideas you could take a look at this http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/pq7vcf which i built as a office/ lite photoshop pc for my parents. Though obviously ALOT of that was based on the case size i was working with

 

you might even want to put the parts you have and want to keep into http://pcpartpicker.com/ and then see what are the recommended/popular choices for the bit you want to replace

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

This is mostly a prefab unit, the stock parts and case from an Acer AM5811-E1512. I've replaced the graphics card with something from the AMD Radeon HD 6700 series, although I can't find the specific model anywhere. It's one I got from miffy495. The current HDD is a Seagate Barracuda Green ST1500DL003 1.5TB 5900 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" internal drive; the original drive died a while back and the DVD drive has been disconnected for ages.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

So my computer's been randomly failing on me for a while, and I figure it's about time I replaced it. I can salvage most of the parts, but I'll definitely need a new CPU and motherboard; they're what's been dragging this one down for so long. I have no clue what to replace them with though. I use my PC primarily for Photoshop, gaming, and opening hundreds of tabs in Chrome; so go nuts with suggestions. Just be aware that I'd rather buy from trusted sites (namely Newegg) and that I've got a limited income at the moment. Also feel free to suggest anything else I might need. RAM would be good; my graphics card is a little dated but fairly beefy.

 

To add onto PC Part Picker, I am a big advocate of TechReport's system guide, not necessarily to choose specific hardware (although I've used it a half-dozen times in the past four years to that end), but just to get an idea of where the state of the art is in budget, mid-line, and high-end PCs.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

My semi-cheap PC is starting to fall short of system requirements for upcoming games (mostly The Witcher). I'm thinking of upgrading my graphics card to keep up, but I'm not sure if my motherboard can handle it. I'm looking at a GTX 970, hoping that it will be future-proof for the next several years, but the specs say it uses PCI-E 3.0, and my motherboard only has PCI-E 2.0. Will that make it incompatible? Will it lose a ton of performance? Did I buy a stupid motherboard? Damn it, this is complicated.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

PCI-E is backward compatible, a 3.0 card would work on a 2.0 mobo. The spec of the motherboard governs the transfer speed, so it'll be a little bottlenecked from it's true potential but it'll definitely still work.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It's really a minimal difference. I wouldn't give it much thought in deciding what video card to get. I don't know what you already have so I don't know if it'd be "worth it", but if you're upgrading from anything older than a 2-year equivalent (GTX 670 or AMD 5950) or just plain weaker you'll probably be well suited with a GTX 970. I upgraded from a AMD 7850 and I saw a lot of improvement since it was just a higher class of card + about 1.5 generation difference.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I have a 7850 now, so I'm glad to hear I'd see a good amount of improvement. I'm thinking that if I do that, and swap out my AMD FX-6300 for an 8350, I could leave my PC alone for the rest of this console generation. I can dream at least.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hmm, it might be time to update my card as well. Talos Principle was chugging pretty hard.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I was really happy with my 970 purchase. I used to get mid-range cards because I thought that "can handle everything" was what I wanted, but "can handle everything well" is way better and worth the ~$75ish difference.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I just bought a Raspberry Pi 2 on an impulse after seeing it advertised in an electronics parts shop. Was able to stream some 3D movies even, but not all HD movies. Should it be able to do that, in 1080p? Seems to depend on codec or bitrate. I'm using OpenELEC.tv as the OS, and Universal Media Server as the server. Both computers are wired, but maybe the UMS is not re-encoding the best way for the Kodi running on the Pi.

 

We have a Raspberry Pi running Kodi. We have a networked drive as the file source, with Kodi opening and playing the file. It plays just fine at 1080p if there's little network traffic, otherwise it gets chuggy. Streaming I don't know about.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I was really happy with my 970 purchase. I used to get mid-range cards because I thought that "can handle everything" was what I wanted, but "can handle everything well" is way better and worth the ~$75ish difference.

 

What kind of CPU do you have? I am looking to pick up a GTX 970 next paycheck. I am rocking a GTX 580 which still runs everything on medium/high, but would like to play Witcher 3 at more like 30fps. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The latest update of Avast, which is rapidly becoming the worst best free virus-scan software out there, has made their "file shield" feature a lot more aggressive. As far as I can tell, and I can't tell much, it prevents programs from writing files to disk without a brief interpolated scan, which apparently works fine for most programs but makes Bittorrent, which I guess has a more complex system for disk caching, choke and die in a matter of seconds. Solution? Go to Avast's "file shield" options, add *.!bt to the list of exceptions, and make sure that the corresponding option is activated in Bittorrent's options. The system will still poop itself a bit when Bittorrent flushes to disk, but at least it doesn't stop your torrent every fifteen seconds.

 

Seriously, between this and Avast's "secure virtual machines" feature creating massive restore points regardless of whether that system's even turned on in Windows, I'm beginning to question my continued use of it. But what's the alternative? AVG's also terrible and that's the only one with nearly the same ratings.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

But what's the alternative? AVG's also terrible and that's the only one with nearly the same ratings.

 

I use Avast as well and haven't really noticed the problems you're having, but if you're serious about looking for an alternative, AV-Comparatives does a summary report each year.  They do independent testing of anti-virus software.  Their report is rather comprehensive, even going into detail about the usability of each one.  I'd give it a look.  Their 2014 product of the year pick, above both Avast and AVG, was Bitdefender, which has a free version.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You should also check with your ISP to see if they offer a free pro version of AV software, I know that in my area Comcast offers Norton Internet Security (which is AV + Spyware protection) for free and my parents get McAfee for free. You get it as part of any internet package, so it's worth a try. I actually used Norton for a while and it was way better than the late-90's super-resource-intensive reputation that held in my mind would have anticipated. I did switch to ESET and I like it a lot better, but Norton Pro for free beat all of that other free stuff in my mind.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

What kind of CPU do you have? I am looking to pick up a GTX 970 next paycheck. I am rocking a GTX 580 which still runs everything on medium/high, but would like to play Witcher 3 at more like 30fps. 

 

I also have some worries about the viability of my CPU going forward. I have an AMD FX-6300, which seems to be a bit underpowered judging by the recommending specs of some upcoming games. Then again, I looked at the Tom's Hardware CPU hierarchy chart, and it looks like it's only a tier below the best CPU that my motherboard supports. I'm not exactly sure if its worth the upgrade, given that Tom's claims that you'll only really see performance improvements with a CPU three tiers higher. Maybe I'll just try getting a better cooling system and give overclocking a shot. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I was using an Ivy Bridge i5, but I recently gave it up to my wife so she could play The Witcher 3 along with her new GTX 970. That setup is pretty solid, I was watching her play Shadow of Mordor last night and it looked better and ran more consistently than what I saw on PS4. Right now I'm using a dual-core Pentium Haswell chip that I've OCed to 4.2ghz and it handles most things fairly well. I mostly got it as a stand-in until I can afford either a Core i5-4690k or a Core i7-4790k, for the next few months I'm just going to play most AAA games on my PS4.

 

I've gotta give my wife the better rig for now because she pretty much exclusively games on her PC. Also, it makes her happy so that's great.

 

As for the FX-6300, it probably will leave you wanting for an upgrade but AMD doesn't give you much upgrading room. You won't see a large increase in performance if you go to a 8000-series 8-core, plus they do a really good job of binning their chips so you won't get spectacular overclock potential from the cheaper 8320/8350 versus the 8370 (in other words, they really do make the better chips into different SKUs, so it's not like the good old days of finding a gem that OCs like crazy from a cheaper SKU). For now, I'd just recommend OCing the 6300 as much as you can and saving up for a switch to Core i5.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I use Avast as well and haven't really noticed the problems you're having, but if you're serious about looking for an alternative, AV-Comparatives does a summary report each year.  They do independent testing of anti-virus software.  Their report is rather comprehensive, even going into detail about the usability of each one.  I'd give it a look.  Their 2014 product of the year pick, above both Avast and AVG, was Bitdefender, which has a free version.

 

Hey, I've been thinking about junking Avast after it silently and aggressively failed installs on me, and I'm sick of how chatty it is.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×