Vista - Age of Conan problem after going to Vista 64

Hey guys, i'm new to vista (about 3 days into it so far)

This week I decided to take the plunge and install vista (ultimate x64). Everything in the install went fine and I proceeded after install to set up my computer to access my wireless router, which it for the life of me would not connect to. It took me about 4 hours of disabling things I had read to do in Vista if you had these kind of problems I also upgraded the firmware in my router to the latest version (and also learned that D-Link says this model of router is Vista Compatible). I also disabled all the security on my router during this time so I knew it wasn't to do with WEP keys or anything.

After about 5 hours with zero success, I decided to change the Wireless NIC to a D-Link card that I had, and sure enough I grab the 64 bit drivers and bang everything connects and works fine.

So I installed all the updates + SP1 and begin to install Age of Conan (AoC) and let it update itself (2gb worth of patches to download) so I could play. I get into the game and every 1-2 minutes now my latency jumps up to 10k ms then back down to 300ms (which is about normal for connecting from Australia to East Coast USA).

So my guess is that this is due to packet loss, but I need to do more testing to figure out whether this problem is isolated to AoC or my system in general. While I was under XP i never encountered this problem frequently, the only times that it did happen everyone else on the server got the same problem too and it only really every occured every hour or more.

I thought I had it nailed down last night when I was doing some reading through the forums and tried some things that have been suggested there which were open ports for AoC (I actually opened up all the ports for my machines IP, cause i'm lazy ) and run a little program called Vista Anti Lag.

Now this worked great in AoC the lag spikes were gone and I played solidly for 2 hrs without any dramas, however today I went back into AoC and the problem had returned.

So far I think it's something to do with the fact Vista seraches for new wireless networks every minute creating this lag spike, which can't be disabled like it can in XP (gg Microsoft)

Things I've done:

disabled Vista's TCP auto tuning
removed TCP Ack Delay in the registry for my Wireless NIC
opened up ports on the router
upgraded routers firmware
tried Vista Anti-Lag

Thing's I haven't done yet:

Tried wired conenction to router (no cable at the moment)
Tried another game (will install World of Warcraft and see if the problem persists)
Gone back to XP to see if it still occurs with same hardware (last resort)
Tried WLAN optimizer (doing this next)
Tried different NIC + router (been thinking about buying a new card + router)

System Specs:

Router D-Link DI-524
NIC: D-Link Air Plus G DWL-G510 (rev. C)

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6700 @ 2.66GHz, 2667 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)
RAM: 3GB
Mainboard: Gigabyte P35-DS3L
GFX card: 8800 GTS 512 MB


Vista Version: Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Ultimate
Version 6.0.6001 Service Pack 1 Build 6001

Any light you guys could shed on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

*EDIT*

Have since gone back to XP, the problem was still there, though not as rampant. I ahve since overcome it by disabling Wireless Zero Configuration under XP and the problem has gone.

Another thing I have learned is taht Vista anti lag and WLAN optimizer will rarely if ever work using vista 64/32bit drivers for some reason, there's been reports of people loading XP 32/64 drivers into vista and having much success, it's just a shame that my NIC does not have 64 bit drivers for XP (only Vista).

I believe at a later a date I shall endevour to install 32 bit vista and roll back to XP 32 drivers and see if I can overcome this issue, because I was starting to warm up to vista.

If you could sticky this well detailed anti lag gaming *kind of( fix taht would be helpful to anyone else here, before it gets buried!

That really sounds like a Firewall issue.

Packet loss in games manifests itself as rubber-banding... in that you'll walk around a corner, stutter a bit, then have to walk around that corner again. I've never seen pings spike to 10k because of packet loss; however, I have seen pings spike that high due to Firewall settings.

I don't know anything about that particular game, but if there are ad-servers you've blocked, or PunkBuster which you haven't fully allowed, then I can easily see spikes like that.

Are you running a third party firewall, like ZoneAlarm or Comodo?

No I don't run a firewall (not even windows firewall)

If you read through my post, you will notice that I also tried opening up all ports.

I have done nearly 6 hours of research on this matter, in fact I got so sick of starting this game each time that all I did was open an elevated command prompt then ping -t my router and watched the packets bounce back for a few minutes and saw that periodically one ping would take 1.5k ms as opposed to <5ms or whichever it displays.

The latency spike is actually not from packet loss directly, it's actually the fact that Vista will use your wireless network card, interrupting any data that is streaming through every 1-2 minutes to check for other wireless networks to connect to. This cannot yet (but hopefully soon) be disabled in Windows Vista.

I really should update the post a bit if it were to be a sticky post (which I would be glad to do, should it happen). I've put a lot of reading and research into this issue to try and overcome it because:

1) I would have liked to run Vista
2) This problem affects a lot of online gamers using wireless nics
3) this problem is in XP as well, but can be disabled
4) Microsoft needs to make an option for home wireless network users that disables searching of new wireless networks every 1-2 minutes

I read your post, hence the suggestion, no need to be curt. I recognize you're frustrated; I'm just trying to help. That you opened ports is meaningless if your firewall blocks the app in the first place... but as you say, not the problem here.

I would be looking at FUNCOM, , makers of AOC. Probably the buggiest game release in recent memory. Literally thousands of people are having issues with this game, constant memory leaks and BSOD ad nauseum, look at ther forums, bug posts dominate. Unfortunately until that company gets their act together, I'm afraid your wasting your tme here.

I've since gone back to XP and the frequent lag spikes have stopped.

Not an AoC issue really, which is outlined in my edited OP

The game works fairly well really... It's not without issues, but I can't say I have constant memoryleaks and BSOD... The main issue really is about graphics drivers, on MANY (not all, there are issues that ARE because of the game client too.) cards a rollback to an older driver solves most problems. People aren't ready to do that though, because they want those 7-8 fps they gain from the latest driver. The constant "what's the fastest card today" battle make ATI and NVIDIA prioritize speed over stability. And it's actually WE who chose it... I've seen a lot of polls stating that the main reason people update is because they want better performance.

And most people who get crashes use nvidia cards... ATI users mostly complain about bad performance.

I reinstalled AOC on 64bit premium with M3A mother, 6400+, 4 gig, 4870 x2, same system that I was getting the BSOD and frequent memory leak. Only difference is I removed my SB xfi extreme and now use onboard realtek with the 2.02 drivers that came out yesterday. I played today for 4 hours (every thing maxed - 3 shader, 8 antialiasing, 16 antistrophic and shadows and water reflection at full), without a single glitch. Nom memory loss, grey map, or BSOD. Come to your own conclusions, but this is the longest I have ever played without mishap and they didn't patch anything to help, go figure....

Day 5, not a single memory leak, grey map, or bsod, playing average 5 hours a day. No tweeks, still maxed. I also pulled out my old cambridge sound works 5.1 and configured in realtek manager - sounds fantastic! I feel for the people with problems, went through it for 2 months constantly crashing and bsod every 20 minutes... What more can I say...