Battle.net
Latency:
When you connect to your ISP, you are logging into the servers they have connected to the Internet backbone. When you connect to Battle.net using one of our games, the computers at your ISP are connecting with computers on other parts of the Internet Backbone, to the ISP our Battle.net servers use, and finally, to the Battle.net servers themselves. As you can see, this is a fairly complicated route, and it can involve many hops.
Problems can arise as a result of trouble at any hop in the route. Most commonly, an ISP changes part of the route between you and the Internet Backbone to work around temporary problems with their servers, or to work around problems on the Internet Backbone itself. Similarly, Internet Backbone Providers can also change part of the route when they have to replace damaged equipment or make upgrades. ISP and Internet Backbone Provider problems, which affect the route between you and Battle.net, are the most common causes of latency.
Troubleshooting:
If you experience high latency in the Battle.net chat rooms, or in a "Realm" game of Diablo II or Lord of Destruction, chances are that the Internet connection route between you and Battle.net is congested. Even high speed Internet connections will slow down if the route between you and Battle.net is congested.
If you use a cable modem, reseting the cable modem may also help. To do this, uplug the cable modem from it's power source, wait a minute, then plug it back in.
If you use a dial-up connection to the Internet, try different local access numbers for your ISP. We also recommend you use Apple Remote Access or the built in PPP services which come with the Mac OS rather than a proprietary dial up software package. Your ISP should be able to help you configure this.
With DSL connections you should confirm with your ISP that they are not using the PPPoE protocol. Mac OS 9.2.2 and earlier are not 100% compatible with PPPoE. If you have a DSL provider who does use PPPoE you may consider a broadband router with PPPoE support.
To find the source of the problem on your Internet connection route to Battle.net, run a "traceroute" and a "ping" to any or all of the following DNS addresses:
- asia.battle.net
- europe.battle.net
- useast.battle.net
- uswest.battle.net
For the Mac OS 9 (a.k.a. Classic) operating system, you will first need to download and install a program to run traceroute and ping routines. Two popular programs which provide these routines are "WhatRoute" and "MacTCP Watcher." Please note that we do not make either of these programs. However, these programs are available on most Internet download sites which carry Macintosh software.
The Mac OS X 10.1 operating system and more recent versions of Mac OS X, come with a program called Network Utility. This program can be used to run both a traceroute routine and a ping routine.
Please note Open Battle.net games of Diablo II and Lord of Destruction as well as our older games are not hosted on Battle.net servers. These types of games use the game host's computer as a server and have no connection to Battle.net while a game is in session. To troubleshoot connections in these types of games, it is necessary to ping and traceroute the connections between each computer in the game. Use the IP address for each computer in the game to perform the ping and traceroute routines
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