Ok so I have been having this issue for several weeks. My games are slightly laggy much of the time. I’m on my phone so I apologize if this topic is already out there. These are the steps I took to insure it was not my Internet. New router, new modem, new Xbox. Set DMz, ports opened, had Comcast tech come out said Internet can’t get any better signal than what I have. Internet works fine, steams hd perfect. Yet I’m still getting this lag. So my question is what is going on, since it’s not me? My shots are slow to register, Nades are a tad slow. When I host it’s perfect, and sometimes when I’m not it’s fine, but the majority of the time I have this unexplained lag. I’m in Portland or. Is 343 doing something with their host system? I played for months and months with no issues, and this has me not only baffled and stumped, but highly irritated. I only play halo, but I can not play properly with this lag. Speed tests are great. Tracerts fine. If anyone knows, has suggestions, or is having this problem, please let me know. I need my halo back to normal!!!’
Ok, I have a cpl questions.
1.what do you mean by “dmz” and “ports forward?”
I ask this because you should only need to do one or the other “not both” if you are having connection issues to xbox live or have a mod/strict NAT.
- what kind of modem/router and internet speed/package?
I will wait for your answers and try to help.
Ha I wrote a long reply but this doesn’t work very well from my phone. Crap. I have Comcast blast it’s about 30 meg down 5-6 upload. Brand new apple airport extreme with an express in my room joining the network Ethernet from express to Xbox. I enabled default host and set private ip to forward the ports to said ip. There is no actual DMz option on this router. Reach says nat is open packet loss low excellent. This started happening with old netgear router with upnp enabled an Xbox on automatic settings. As I said it worked for months no issue and this business started about 3-4 weeks ago and I have tried/ replaced everything I can think of.
> Ha I wrote a long reply but this doesn’t work very well from my phone. Crap. I have Comcast blast it’s about 30 meg down 5-6 upload. Brand new apple airport extreme with an express in my room joining the network Ethernet from express to Xbox. I enabled default host and set private ip to forward the ports to said ip. There is no actual DMz option on this router. Reach says nat is open packet loss low excellent. This started happening with old netgear router with upnp enabled an Xbox on automatic settings. As I said it worked for months no issue and this business started about 3-4 weeks ago and I have tried/ replaced everything I can think of.
This may sound like im insulting you but trust me im not.
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Have you set your ip on your 360 to the one you opened the ports for? xxx.xxx.xxx.21 is port forwarded, so you would want to set your ip on your 360 to xxx.xxx.xxx.21, you dont have to use 21 i just used that as and ec. you may have to set your dns, but you can find that info on the main page for your router if it calls for it ( wont connect but every thing is set but the dns is still on auto.
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Test your network, on speedtest.net, test it at your normal gaming time, and then at peak hours time ( prime time/ right after 1st shift gets off/ busness hours if you live in a big city.
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The servers have been laggie for a while for me ever since the last update, and the bannhammer has been acting kind of goofy as well. My guess is in the rush to get every thing ready for Lo 4 we are going to see some glitchy/laggie/poor performance, considering they are most likely beta testing for the release day patch, and trying out set fixes on the server. I am guessing this is why waypoint has been so buggy as well. ( that is just my opinion no fact to back it up )
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Pray to what ever Deity you follow, or if not the religious type, rub a rabbits foot?
Yes I hav the ip set to the proper ip on the Xbox and manually entered my dns servers. Everything works on manual or auto but I still ave the lag either way. As I said, when I host it’s fine. My Internet works great, speed tests are always steady. I have ran tracerts, pinged google, all the usual stuff. Hd steams fast and perfect. It really seems like poor host selection to me. I thought it was me, but I have replaced everything. When I’m in a match everyone can be green bar and I’ll still have this slight lag. Probably doesn’t seem like a big deal to some people, but I have been playing mlg lately, and it makes a world of difference. I appreciate the thoughts, any more ideas are welcome. If I haven’t tried it yet I haven’t thought of it. I have thought about if being because they are updating stuff, but It seems as if other people are experiencing this, there are not very many. People I play with aren’t having this issue. Maybe it’s just my area/ region?
> Ha I wrote a long reply but this doesn’t work very well from my phone. Crap. I have Comcast blast it’s about 30 meg down 5-6 upload. Brand new apple airport extreme with an express in my room joining the network Ethernet from express to Xbox. I enabled default host and set private ip to forward the ports to said ip. There is no actual DMz option on this router. Reach says nat is open packet loss low excellent. This started happening with old netgear router with upnp enabled an Xbox on automatic settings. As I said it worked for months no issue and this business started about 3-4 weeks ago and I have tried/ replaced everything I can think of.
it really does sound like you have covered all the bases.also,if you have unpnp you do want to enable it and make sure your router and express have the latest firmware updates.
I am going to say it’s the servers at this time. due to the fact I have been reading of this issue all over many fourms.
I do wanna add that if you ran a cat5e or cat6 from that router and didn’t use a wireless adapter as your connection you would notice a big change.wired is always better.
Also,I did find lots of topics about the airport stuff not working well with xbox live. I am not hating on your apple gear but you might wanna consider a router built for xbox live gaming “if your a hardcore gamer,and every ping counts!” I use the d-link 4500 gaming router approved by xbox live and It’s an excellent gaming router with excellent how-to fourms for all your set-up needs.
there is a brand new router from d-link also with gaming prioritys built-in called the dir-857. it’s pretty much the king of home routers right now. just check em out if nothing else seems to work.
The apple crap is not my choice, but it’s the newest extreme and express so they are top of the line. It does not have upnp I was saying it was enabled on my old router when everything was set to automatic. It was a net gear and everything worked fine until one day bam laggy garbage. I apologize for my lack of punctuation. That is why I replaced everything, and I even played off the modem direct and it still did the same thing. I was playing connected to the modem while the Comcast guy was here. He game me a newer model modem but said everything was perfect. I am thinking it must be something with 343, but at the same time it’s peer to peer and I never had problems before. Why now? Are they messing with the programs that do host selection? I just wish I didn’t feel like I was the only one having this problem. I’m getting dumped in in mlg lol and I hate it. I haven’t been able to play many lag free games of mm lately and it sucks. I’m trying to be ready, not rusty when halo4 comes out. Sad face. Thanks for the help. Any other suggestions are welcome. Can we get a 343 employee in here to verify if this is something they are currently tinkering with? Just an idea. Thanks again, brainstorm away.
Even IF you assign your 360 a static IP and manually port forward you still have no control over the other player’s connections.
You could have a very high speed service like Verizon FIOS and still not pull host over people with garbage connections and dying networking hardware because Reach’s host selection is terrible.
If you have multiple 360s using the same connection UPnP is the only option to achieve multiple NATs reliably on all consoles which should be assigned static IPs.
The other Xbox is the kids and everything is set automatic, and they only are allowed to play on the weekends. Their console does the same thing, I tried it. And I realize it picks poor hosts sometimes, but people will be red bar or yellow when this happens. EvEn when people are green bar the whole game I get this lag, and again, worked perfectly for months and months. This is a recent delema, and very frustrating. Thanks for the tip tho. Believe me I have done lots of research, and tried about every router configuration I can think of. This is my last ditch effort to fix, or at least try to get the issues verified if it’s something with 343. I don’t want to play FF for 5 months. 
The latency metres are no indication of lag.
For example say I (an West Australian) play on a Russian host. The data has to go from Australia to the US then the West coast of Europe then onto Russia resulting in well over half a second of latency often closer to a full second.
In such a situation Reach will often claim I am yellow to orangebar when in reality I am redbar and the connection is completely unplayable due to high latency and packet loss.
If you have multiple Xbox360s sharing the same connection then a modem/router or wireless router that fully supports Vista UPnP is necessary and that rarer than you’d think.
Xbox360s should always be assigned static IPs in your router.
i understand what you are saying, but i live in us where most of the players are. aslo, again, this was not a problem for me until just recently and i have been playing on this account at this house since novermber with nothing more than the usual issues. this is not normal lag due to bad connection or whatnot with the host.and im not saying what you are saying is wrong, in fact in the title of this it says poor or bad host. but if this is the issue, why now all of a sudden after 8 months is this happenenig??
There’s something going on but what I don’t know what.
I went into the Anniversary Classic with seven Australians and get matched with a Pom who pulled host and put us all yellowbar but it was some of the worst lag I have experienced in a game with multiple mini-black screens.
Maybe 343i have flushed host records or the system is out of order, whatever the cause latency has been so bad the last few times I’ve played Reach I don’t last more than a game or two before switching to Halo 3.
Reach always seems to give host to the player with the worst connection and who is also about to quit.
yes i have noticed this, but after host switched, or new host selected after the quit i was usually fine. this is something different, even everyone green bar i can be a little laggy, like its a really far away host, but everyone is solid green. all i know is im frusterated and have tried everything i can think of
Bump this is not resolved yet for me. I miss matchmaking. 
ff gets old fast for me
> Bump this is not resolved yet for me. I miss matchmaking. ff gets old fast for me
Are you playing Firefight alone or with others?
Firefight requires lower latency matches because everyone in the game must be in perfect sync or the game slows down while one or more players catch up.
I don’t play Reach in long sittings because the consistently terrible hosts get to me. My party even tried customs and of course the one guy in our party with NAT issues kept pulling host so I called it a night. The matches we did play were full of SKrafing.
The latency bars are no indication of lag or packet loss. The distance between Perth, Western Australia and New York, USA is 18701 kilometers or 11621 miles. More often than not I greenbar on a New York host but actual latency is ~350ms which is unplayable at times.
I don’t know what the latency bars measure but it sure as hell isn’t latency or packet loss by themselves. Maybe a combination of the two or other networking problems.
go to custom search then hit language it only puts you with people in your country
i try to play firefight alone or with the kids in my house, just because its super laggy most of the time. ill try the lANGUAGE thing, but i never had the problem before, and i just want it to work corrctly with everyone. i have grrat internet and just dont understand. if i just knew it was 343 or something i woukd feel a lot better about it, because i woukd know it would end eventually.
I get the most lag if somebody in my house is watching a streaming video. The bandwidth just gets sucked right up. Slightly unrelated this was this time I was playing firefight arcade on Outpost and the lag was so bad every shot I fired took 3 seconds to happen on screen and in game. I had to predict enemy movements while usng a sniper rifle. And I did, got a few sniper headshots and sprees while doing this.