Having problems with frequent disconnects

[Thief13x]

Okay, some days its worse than other, like today. I can't play for 5 minutes without getting booted from a server, and its not my dialup connection either. When i disconnect, its actually somthing in Thievery disconnecting me, because when i close tut, my dialup is still connected. I will be playing along, and this little box appears on the rightmost part of the screen, its like a little lightening bolt. Then, i can't open doors, or scroll through my inventory, and frobbing anything is pretty much useless. Then, i spot a guard running into a wall, and BAM CONNECTION FAILED

ouch


help anyone?


Timmy

[LaughingRat]

Just because your dialup is still connected doesn't mean your connection is good. In fact, from what you described, it's not. That icon you mentioned is TUT's disconnect icon, and means there's no data flowing between your machine and the server, usually as the result of massive packet loss. That's not too uncommon on dialup (or any analog line) but to the degree you're experiencing it, it is.

[LeatherMan]

Most likely it is your connection speed or network traffic. Dial-up is only a theoretical 56k (FCC limits it to 53k anyway) and most users probably don't even hit 50k. It's also possible that the ISP you have doesn't even have 56k modems to connect to. Double-check your connection speeds (up and down) and if it isn't sufficient get a new ISP.

It could even be that you don't have a sufficient amount of RAM for the programs you are using. If this is the case it would be the ocassional hard-disk swapping causing the disconnects. Close all background apps before you play (you will want your firewall and/or virus scanner running, though) or get more RAM.

[Zidane]

Just blame it on your dial-up... that's what i always do

[BiG_D]

That's the exact same problem I have. A temporary fix is to raise the timeout values in THAux.ini, that way you won't get disconnected, you'll just have periods of extreme lag.

[Thief13x]

how do i do that big d? i would rather have extreme lag, than to get booted after 10 minutes of ghosting into guarded territory (which happens more frequently than i like to stomache).

Also, i know when i'm downloading stuff, my average speed is about 2.5, i think kps. Probably to explain why my ping averages out at 450. By the way, i always do close all programs in the toolbar prior to entering tut. So, you're saying lr, that even though my dialup remains connected to the internet, technicaly i can still get disconnected from games?! :x :?

[BiG_D]

1. Create a backup copy of ThAux.ini (found in your UnrealTournement/System folder) I personally skip this step, but this way you can't get mad at me if you mess something up
2. Open the original ThAux.ini in notepad or some other text editor.
3. Scroll down to the [IpDrv.TcpNetDriver] section (about a quarter of the way down
4. Here's where things get interesting: there are a few values here called "timeout." I honestly don't know what most of them do. Just change them to a higher value. This is what I use, and I manage to stay connected most of the time:
[code:1:639f3c2f53]...
[IpDrv.TcpNetDriver]
AllowDownloads=True
ConnectionTimeout=60.0
InitialConnectTimeout=500.0
AckTimeout=2.0
...[/code:1:639f3c2f53]

Test out Thievery. If a new problem pops up, restore the backup file, and try again with less drastic values...

[Thebos]

Is the modem connection speed set to max. possible (Have a US robotics modem that allowed this)? If so, take it down a notch. The automatic setting seems fine for netsurfing, but for gaming, the surges that occur result in an unstable connection. Used to have a problem simlar to yours. That helped me, though it I still have problems. I can play now anyway.