A Bug fix from Microsoft

[Philip]

Microsoft has finaly introduced a fix for a bug in all Windows 9x versions, which caused a lower throughput and higher retransmissions. The fix hasn't been completely tested, however anything should be better than the "math error" in the original Vtcp.386 file.

For more details and the file itself, check out the Cable/DSL patches section at http://www.speedguide.net/Cable_modems/cable_patches.shtml

[Philip]

I'd appreciate any feedback regarding this fix, how/whether it affects your throughput and overall TCP/IP performance.

[This message has been edited by Philip (edited 01-05-2000).]

[packetloss]

Philip, I am one of the "elders" at AnandTECH and though you might like to read one of the threads about the MS patch.

http://anandforums.gisystech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=27&threadid=102385

Regards,
John


[This message has been edited by packetloss (edited 01-05-2000).]

[Philip]

Thanks John, both for the link and the post on the AnandTECH forum.

[Brent]

heh, I posted about this earlier today ;-)

But does this thing really increase your speeds on Cable or DSL??????

Anyone?

------------------
Brent a.k.a Borg Drone
Owner/Webmaster
The websites:
eXplosive3D up soon www.mngamers.com/explosive3d (http://www.mngamers.com/explosive3d)
Gamers Reality up soon www.gamersreality.com (http://www.gamersreality.com)

Out the 100TX, through the switch, down the cable modem, over the fiber optics, off the bridge, past the head end office....nothing but Net




[This message has been edited by Brent (edited 01-05-2000).]

[PhoneTech]

Well Philip I guess my Win95 OS2 is one of the ones it won't work on. I tried the zip file one also and it just gave me an error on reboot and sent me into safe mode. Luckily I had renamed the first one like you suggested. Oh well, my tuff luck. Any input on why it won't work or if maybe it might in the future? Thanks

[Raos]

Ok, I installed the thing hoping to fix my packet loss problem.

First here are the comparision of before and after.

Before:
UDP Statistics

Datagrams Received = 34205
No Ports = 83028
Receive Errors = 14
Datagrams Sent = 29487

After:
UDP Statistics

Datagrams Received = 51344
No Ports = 14320
Receive Errors = 0
Datagrams Sent = 25734

(These results are from after a bit of gaming and downloading)
As you can see, the After is more error free.
Quite happy with that.

In general web page loading, I see them as the same.

BUT, in downloads, they fell dramatically!
From my first initial speed, 20 KB/sec, to the applied patch, 60 KB/sec, to the MS applied fix, 10-20 KB/sec.

That was bad in download wise.

This dramatic fall was the result (assuming) of error checking, as before it didnt causing more errors, but more direct packets sent. Now, when we have this error free control (once again assuming, but very close to fact i guess) Each packet may been checked, and if theres an error, it would be resent, resulting in lower packetloss, or either lowered or higher.

But all I can say is that is should POSSIBLY enhance gaming situations due to the error free, which in my case, 10-20 reduced milliseconds.



[This message has been edited by Raos (edited 01-05-2000).]

[Raos]

Ok, I'm gonna do a little more testing to see if this DOES actually help or just useless.

WARNING, DO NOT INSTALL THIS YET, CUZ I THINK IT MAY ALREADY MESSED MY COMPUTER UP FOR ITS SLOWER DOWNLOAD RATE

[JustForFun]

OOops!! Double post....continue!

[This message has been edited by JustForFun (edited 01-06-2000).]

[JustForFun]

Well,

I gave this thing a go and for me ...IT WAS BAAAAADDD!

Since I have WIN 95 (OSR2) and a cabe connect, I decided to try using the zip file instead of the install method. Some here and elsewhere have said that WIN95 doesn't like to install this and that by changing the actual "vtcp.386" file by hand was a viable workaround.

Well, I tried this, after backing up my original file of course. I extracted the "new" file into Windows\System and rebooted.

Before I could reach my desktop, I had a nice new BLUE screen to look at. :-)

It said that a "call" to a vXXX file was broken and that to enter Windows was risky as my sytem was unstable. Furthermore it suggested I rerun setup.exe for windows!! YIKES!

Well, I chickened out, shut 'er down via some screen options and rebooted into SAFE MODE. I switched back to my "original" vtcp.386 file, rebooted (NO BLUE SCREEN) and....all is well with the world. http://www.speedguide.net/ubb/smile.gif

I think I'll sit this one out, boys!

JFF

[Raos]

OK, (on win 98) after more intensive testing, it proves that this fix was a bad bad bad mistake, packet loss was more spikier, but pings were great (not sure why) but after that, I conclude that you shouldnt use this.

[Raos]

question, how do i remove this? I'm on windows 98

[Raos]

Phillip, I suggest you remove it from the site incase of others using it, trust me, it didnt turn out good.

[Raos]

But really, I dont get it,

if it fixes a math problem (which should be good) why does it have slight negative effects?

[Brent]

wow really really really mixed results with this one

I use win98se so I'm gonna install it and see what blows up, I can easily reformat if i need to

[NO-LIMIT]

I installed the patch on a win98se machine and I am having no problems. My download speed seems to be about the same and im not sure if it helped or hurt packet loss. I will do some more testing tonite.

NO-LIMIT

[ET]

well i installed it, no probs yet, havent tested in games or downloads, but the one thing i know for certain is that it dropped my ping to Kali bye 10ms!!!! FACT..lowest i got to kali before was 150, now its 140, and yes im certain because 150 was the lowest i got since i got cable a few months ago, so for that i am happy!! so i'm sure that my pings should be lower to everything, but havent checked yet.

[Raos]

Yeah, also I guess the fix also fixes the retransmissions so there are less retrans and so lag time will drop.

[sailor]

My experience with the win95 tcp/ip workaround zip patch was identical to a couple of other posters here. Blue screen error suggesting a win reconfig, or shut down (ctl-alt-del) and boot into safe mode..then removed the new patch and renamed back the old patch to save the day (thanks to whomever for the save yer olde file idea). For some reason though, my connection rates that same evening were the highest ever? Scare your rig to near death and the thruput improves. Now even when the rig is in sleep mode I try not to denigrate wild Bill or his lousey OS.

I'm running Win95B.

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[This message has been edited by sailor (edited 01-06-2000).]

[dreamsdoa]

ok guys, I just wanted to share my test results with you, I installed that ms update
for the Vtcp.386, I already have my DefaultRcvWindow tweaked and I use download
accelerator to download files, ohh, I am on @home, "what can I say" I work for them http://www.speedguide.net/ubb/smile.gif
anyhow my average download was 200k and after the patch I average 250k to 300k, thats on a win98 450amd machine, not to bad at all, as for gaming, it depends, on say q3 I do around 90 to 100 ping, all in all, I am happing with the change, remember, you will only go as fast as the server your hitting and there are many factors that come into play, I read this site on a regular bases and enjoy the post of so many smart people that share the same sickness that I suffer from, http://www.speedguide.net/ubb/smile.gif I would be more than happy to answer any question about @home, but really, phil and the regulars have already answer most of them at one time or another, thats all, fingers would not shutup,

[L]

How about windows 2000.. is this patch allready in it?

Or is there going to be same kind of patch for NT4.0-5.0 too?

[kyabk]

I loaded the patch last night. I notice a difference in response time. Usually when I open my browser for the first time after I just turn on my pc it takes a long time to open any web page for the first time. 20 seconds or more...But not any more. The patch seemed to help something! Thanks MS!

[Brent]

I gotta question for ya dreamsdoa I use AT&T@Home and I HATE my upload cap of 128kbps!

Actually that's more of a statement :-)

But seriously, could you convince them to up the cap to at least 384kbps that wouldn't be too much, and it still thwarts you from using FTP or any kind of server. I just want a little bit faster upload speed.

I know all about the OnAdvantage, I just want a little increase in upload speed.


------------------
Brent a.k.a Borg Drone
Owner/Webmaster
The websites:
eXplosive3D up soon www.mngamers.com/explosive3d (http://www.mngamers.com/explosive3d)
Gamers Reality up soon www.gamersreality.com (http://www.gamersreality.com)

Out the 100TX, through the switch, down the cable modem, over the fiber optics, off the bridge, past the head end office....nothing but Net

[mosarian]

I noticed a big drop in ping times! I never saw anything lower than 90 with Quake 3 Arena and now I've seen as low as 27. Keep the information flowing despite what Raos says!

[PhoneTech]

Man, ping is one of my biggest problems. Why do I have to have this crummy 95 OS2? (as I kick the damn thing.) It makes me want to go get Win98 just to get this bug fix.

[dreamsdoa]

I will try to answer you the best I can with a lame answer, nope, no, not going to happen,
at&t will be upgrading EVERY area and you may have noticed some of you have a 128 cap, and some don't, you are all scheduled to be caped
to 128, time frame just depends on your scheduled upgrade acording to your local market, so if your not capped yet, enjoy it while you still have the good upstream,
at&t is really working hard on upgrades and the service is getting better and better,
I also wish the upstream was higher for us, heck lot of us do, its set and thats that, there are no tweaks or cracks to get around it, hope that helps, I no it does not, but hey, what you expect, I am not from your local market, I am from the main call center, I just hope i don't get flamed, I no you hate us, http://www.speedguide.net/ubb/smile.gif

[Raos]

UPDATE

Dispite what I said before (dont use the fix yet ect) It just turned out to be a bad day for my isp, what I said before about pings and packetloss is lowered is true, I played some games and downloads were better than before (patched). Soooo, if MS keeps discovering all the faults in TCP/IP stuff and all, then MS may lower our pings by like 60 ms hopefully.

[Brent]

Darn about that Upload cap thing, I've had the upload cap though ever since I got my cable service back in April, 1999!

So I've lived with it all along, I've never experienced anything faster then 16KB/sec upload with my cable.

Oh well I guess

What do you know about DOCSIS upgrades though? Right now I don't use a DOCSIS modem or service. What's the advantage of going DOCSIS?

------------------
Brent a.k.a Borg Drone
Owner/Webmaster
The websites:
eXplosive3D up soon www.mngamers.com/explosive3d (http://www.mngamers.com/explosive3d)
Gamers Reality up soon www.gamersreality.com (http://www.gamersreality.com)

Out the 100TX, through the switch, down the cable modem, over the fiber optics, off the bridge, past the head end office....nothing but Net

[StanFL]

Hey Philip,

I've used your MTU patches etc ever since I started using RoadRunner (Oct 97) and I can't tell any differences since installing the MS patch. Your generic Win98 cable modem patches were already in my registry though.

[Philip]

You shouldn't expect much difference in throughput, it might increase slightly because of less retransmissions, however nothing major.