[darkpl]

Hi,
As some of you might know, OnLive has launched in UK last Thursday. I have created an account there, launched it and started to have problems, connection seemed to drop any time I launched a game. Menus worked fine, watching other people play works fine, just launching the game fails.
So, I have contacted their support and they told me, that as soon as I start a game, my packet loss is up to 30%
They advised me to contact my ISP and ask if they are restricting UDP traffic in any way, because apparently they rely heavily on UDP when a game is launched. Below is a fragment of my conversation with them:

Quote:

Berret: Ok, so when your sessions start, I see that your packet loss goes up to over 30%
me: Sometimes I get just glitchy screen after I
launch a game. Figures that something is interrupting my connection when running a game
me: Yesterday it was quite OK
Berret: It looks like there may be some interference with our traffic, blocking the UDP
packets we are sending.
Berret: Do you know if your ISP has any restrictions
me: I;ve opened up all the ports required. Hm. I
do know, that they are restricting torrent traffic during peak times. I haven't tried to play
anything in the morning yet
Berret: Maybe you can call them, and ask them about UDP traffic
Berret: We use a lot of it, and it can get blocked it they think there is too much of it.

Question: Do you block any UDP traffic that OnLive is sending to me? If yes, why? And I wish to have it unblocked, otherwise I cannot use a service that I am paying for.
Normally I do not experience any problems with any other service, let it be Youtube, BBC iPlayer, or other streaming websites, pingtest is showing no packet loss. Only problem is with OnLive

[jcampy]

nothing is blocked on TT p2p traffic is throttled during busy times at the exchange this may be what is causing the issue if the service is using 0p2p packets

[magus2000]

from my conversations with Onlive support and checking here and discussions with TT support, it does look like they are restricting the connection, i was receiving a high packet loss when connecting after 6pm. Was coming over here to let an OCE know (as jcampy had suggested) when i found this thread, so i'll ask here if an OCE can look into this please. I can help with any logs etc. if they are needed as I have them from running Onlive system tests.

[darkpl]

Hi again.
So, TT is basically blocking P2P traffic during high congestion hours right? I think OnLive is being throttled because of that as well. I gave it a try after twelve o'clock tonight and everything was working fine. Had no hiccups, no lag, video feed was smooth.
I think TT needs to do something about it if they don't want to get angry customers. Not to mention, that I'm on 'unlimited' package, so I shouldn't get any problems with that in the first place.

[jcampy]

being throttled and the conection being blocked are differnt what is most likly is happning is the packets are getting delayed then because of this the onlive server is dropping them because they are too delayed

[darkpl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jcampy

being throttled and the conection being blocked are differnt what is most likly is happning is the packets are getting delayed then because of this the onlive server is dropping them because they are too delayed

Either way, TalkTalk is making hard to use legitimate service. Let's wait for response from them.

[craiga79]

Quote:

Originally Posted by darkpl

Either way, TalkTalk is making hard to use legitimate service. Let's wait for response from them.

Agreed,the onlive service is clearly unusable for me between 6pm and midnight and perfect at all other times. These restrictions render the service unusable for me and are disappointing after I upgraded to Talktalk plus specifically to use Onlive without worrying about download limits.

This is a legitimate gaming service and therefore according to Talktalk plus traffic management policy, it should be a prioritised service. Talktalk, please adjust your treatment of Onlive traffic during peak hours to match your traffic managment policy.

[SJM]

My tuppence worth, On-live UK plays brilliantly In the daytime on my TalkTalk essentials package, After 18.00 Its completely unusable

[illuminati2012]

I have same problem and as of yet still no reply to my answers The tech team at the call center done little to help me either very very frustraiting indeed i have to say.

[fred sheehan]

P2P also uses UDP packets, so if the traffic is filtered based on protocols, then indeed the game would suffer due to the traffic shaping policies for this protocol.

In order to help find a solution, can you also list the port numbers that the games need, there was a similar issue some time back with XBox Live that also uses UDP, so it can be solved, however you need to supply a bit more information than just, 'it uses UDP'

In the meantime, unless it is to add useful info, best to not to keep posting on the topic, otherwise it will never get an OCE response......