A good read for 343i support team

Games Halo: The Master Chief Collection
#1

I posted this over in the MCC forums to help people, but it doesn’t actually apply to me… The game has been working great for me and the updates you’ve applied have immensely improved my online gaming experience. This is just based off my limited I.T. education and experience, combined with research on the subject that may help you guys continue to refine and fix the MCC. Keep up the great work!!! (BTW Feel free to message me directly if you think I’m off with any of these suggestions… Ideally, I’d like to be giving out good information to people to help them resolve their issues…)

"If you’re not experiencing networking and/or connection issues then this does not apply to you… But for people still unable to play in online matches take a minute to read this!!

Remember to enable Open NAT Settings… But keep in mind that this may not be the root cause of your issues. Moderate and Strict NAT Settings narrow the search for people that you can play with. So if you have an Open NAT, than you’ve effectively expanded your search for players. This fix helps out a lot of people that are experiencing difficulties finding players, but isn’t the only solution that will fix every networking issue.

Still not fixing your issue?? Also remember that latency makes all the difference in online play for the MCC… In laymans terms, the best way to describe what latency is (and I know anyone with an I.T. background is going to cringe at this comparison) is like sonar waves… Imagine how sonar works- a signal gets sent out and has to return back to the source. You can have an average, or even above-average internet download speed and still suffer from high latency that is really only noticeable with most FPS games. This means that games like Minecraft or Forza may confuse you into thinking that you don’t have a network issue which may also cause you to believe that the developer of a FPS game may have sold you a faulty game… When in fact you should really be pointing fingers at your Internet Service Provider (Satellite/DSL ISP’s are notoriously HORRIBLE for advertising high speeds, while brushing high latency under the rug with their customers). You may not realize this could be an issue because some games don’t need low latency rates (sub 50) in order to afford a good online gaming experience but Halo really, really does… Especially the campaign and H2A Multiplayer. I played four player campaign with someone from Austria a little while back and he tested his connection to discover dreadfully high latency, despite his high Mbps download speed. You can check this out in the settings app under network - test. For more information about latency, read this: Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos

Sorry for not hyperlinking- I’m on my mobile so there’s not an option… And I know yahoo may not always be the best source for veracity but in this case they have some great, accurate Q and A regarding latency and gaming.

Also make sure you’re not on wireless if you’re experiencing network issues!!! If this applies to you then immediately find a way to switch over from wireless internet to wired. You may not know this but wireless internet severely hampers your internet speeds and can even result in packet-loss.

There may be additional settings on your router that you don’t know about that are affecting your P2P connection. Your ISP that you pay every month is responsible for delivering you working internet so I highly recommend that you call them and demand them to walk you through trouble-shooting methods to ensure you have the proper settings for a proper online gaming experience."

#2

The network test is not a good representation of latency, as it is pinging the servers at Microsoft in the US. If a player is outside of the US they will always have high latency when running this test.

#3

> Also make sure you’re not on wireless if you’re experiencing network issues!!! If this applies to you then immediately find a way to switch over from wireless internet to wired. You may not know this but wireless internet severely hampers your internet speeds and can even result in packet-loss.

Thanks for the info.

About the wireless connection. While I do agree wireless adds even more latency to the mix (because of error check and other things) and can even increase packet loss (again, because of error check and interference), it’s not entirely correct to say “don’t use wireless” as if everybody would suffer these issues.

If you have a strong connection, use a free channel (or at least a channel used by very few surrounding routers) and your internet connection doesn’t suffer from other issues wireless can be used just fine.

I myself am on wireless because it’s impossible for me to have the console and the modem on the same room and pulling a cable is out of question (wife would kill me and the signal would most likely degrade resulting in the same package loss problem). I manage to have 0% package loss (sometimes 1% if I run enough tests) and signal strength equal or close to 100%. I play a bunch of games that require very little latency (Killer Instinct for instance) and have no problems. Even in MCC the great majority of games I manage to find run very well, with very little delay between shots fired and shots registered and grenade toss/grenade leave hand. The same applies to my teammates, no teleporting or vanishing spartans on the battlefield.

Also when running latency tests I usually run them on both my computer (wired) and my smartphone (wireless). When everything is fine the latency added by wireless is negligible, something around 5ms.

So my advice for anyone who can’t be on a wired connection for any reason is:

  • Have a smartphone? Download NETGEAR Wifi Analytics (Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.netgear.WiFiAnalytics), NETGEAR Genie (iTunes Store: ‎NETGEAR Genie on the App Store) or other WiFI analyzer.- Go to the same room the console is in. Search for wifi routers and list by channel. Notice what’s the least used channel, then enter your router’s configuration screen and change it to that channel.- While still on the same room as the console, check your signal strength. If it’s too low you’ll suffer from package loss, in this case go with your smartphone to places you could reposition your console and check again. Change the position of the router if that helps.- When finishing tests with the smartphone, go to the console -> settings -> network and run a test. See latency (measured in ms), signal strength and package loss. Signal strength may not match exactly what you measured on your smartphone because of different devices and slightly different positioning on your part. Try to get it as high as possible.The goal is to achieve 0% package loss most of the time and the highest possible signal strength. If you have 100% strength and are on an unoccupied channel and still suffer from high latency / high package loss the problem might be elsewhere. Try to connect a computer to the router using a wire and test your connection, maybe the problem is in your ISP or on the connection between you and the ISP.
#4

I believe you missed explaining the different types of OPEN NAT. (but I did like your post)
In general, for networking, there are many different types of NAT. Of course, for gamers, we like open because it allows us to
“talk” with others on the internet. Of course, in other instances, you wanted limited or restricted. But that’s another story.
What I believe you need is an OPEN NAT that says “your network is behind a cone NAT”.

I have seen much better games times with this as opposed to OPEN NAT
with “your network is behind a UPnP restricted port” or something close (going off of the top of my head).
What the UPnp (Universal Plug and Play) restriction means is that not all the ports you have work for your console.
Those portcheckers you can download from the Internet won’t confirm something because traffic isn’t being forwarded to your computer;
the traffic is being forwarded to your computer (unless you port trigger, you might see different results).

You need to forward all the correct ports (Bing or Google it if you don’t know how to do to so for your network)

http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/networking/network-ports-used-xbox-live

UPnP is supposed to automatically say “give me these ports”, but routers don’t always get all the information or always forward.

IN ADDITION, make sure your IP address for you console keeps it’s address. otherwise,
your router will forward traffic to some IP address that doesn’t exist. I recommend making a static IP address. (aka typing things manually) - That’s basically what I did, I see a world difference.
Hope this helps and that your post gets noticed

Peace