@dallasdinatake wrote:
@dallasdinatake
So I ended up looking in this & did a bunch of downloading this weekend…Coincidently, if you google “slow speeds PS4” you will land on a Forbes article that touches on this issue, and the work around. A tech-savvy user analyzed the network traffic from PlayStation console to the Sony servers & shared his findings here. The results are rather interesting. I can confirm that by placing a local proxy in front of the PS4 I was getting better results with the download speeds. A game that’s was slated to take ex 2-6 hrs dropped all the way down to 30-60 mins just by adding the proxy. Below are videos I did comparing the same download file without the proxy & one with the proxy. Without the proxy there were times when estimated time to completed went all the way up to 6 hours. You will see that others have also reported random things like pausing the download & then resuming gives it a boost (which I confirmed as well in my video). With the proxy the longest time to complete was 52 minutes opposed to 6hrs.
Video of PES 2017 download with no proxy - https://youtu.be/hMDBsq_EEFc
Video of PES 2017 download with local proxy - https://youtu.be/VgA_zcY5DBo
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TLDR from the testing done/user: The PS4 is (at least in some cases) using an incredibly small Receive Window which causes the download servers to have to spend a lot of time waiting, rather than sending more data.
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As you will read it's unknown why Playstation consoles are behaving like this or why its servers are sporadic as the users have indicated as well, but it appears this affects everyone. Even with the proxy the largest downloads speed appears to range from 3-15Mbps :smileymad There also an explanation on why the proxy speeds things up & here is a diagram to provide a visual. I’ve pasted the details from analysis that was posted below. Compare that to Xbox One where I was just downloaded and speeds were in the tops of 140Mbps….PlayStation does not provide the download speed only the time left to complete.So what the above indicates, the consoles receive window needs to be increased & the proxy is currently the “work around” to get some better speeds.
Setting up the proxy is really easy IMO. So if you have a big download to make and want it done as quick as possible, fire up your local proxy...Let me know if you would like here more about the steps I took to setup it up. Used Mac & Windows.
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Pasted from the analysis that was done
Reference Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/PS4/comments/522ttn/ps4_downloads_are_notoriously_slow_i_might_have/
Short Lesson
I realise that unless you work in networking or have personal interest in how networking works, a brief overview of a few technologies and terminologies could be useful to some.
- Advertised Receive Window: Whenever a device on the internet (PS4) talks to another device (Playstation Server), it will advertise how much data it is willing to receive at any one time. This is useful because devices have limited memory and it prevents devices from being completely overwhelmed with data which they can't process fast enough. So the receive window tells the server how much data it is allowed to send before it has to stop and wait for the client to tell it to send more.
- Window Scaling: Unfortunately, the size of the field in a TCP packet which can store the Receive Window is only 16 bits which allows a maximum value of 65535 (Bytes) which means a server can only send 64k of data at a time before it has to wait on the client to give it the all clear. Back in the 90's a Window Size of 64k was probably OK but with high speed internet, having such a small window size is no longer suitable and imposes a cap on bandwidth. The solution is Window Scaling which is another (optional) field that a client can tell the server about and acts as a multiplier of the advertised receive window, significantly increasing the maximum amount of data that a server can send to a client at one time. Today, the maximum receive window is approximately 1GB.
- Bandwidth Delay Product (BPD): This is a formula which tells you (approximately) what Receive Window size you need to advertise in order to utalise your maximum available bandwidth. Formula is (unsurprisingly) BDP = Bandwidth * Delay. For example, if I have 200 Mbit/s broadband and want to download from a server 100ms away, my BDP and therefore minimum receive window that I should advertise is around 2.4 MB. The further the server is away, the higher the receive window that needs to be advertised in order to maintain maximum throughput and vice-versa.
Results
TLDR: The PS4 is (at least in some cases) using an incredibly small Receive Window which causes the download servers to have to spend a lot of time waiting, rather than sending more data.
During my testing, I was downloading for a server approximately 22ms away, so as a rough guide, the BDP calculation would indicate that I would need to be advertising a receive window of approximately 540KB in order to fully utalise my available bandwidth.
- When looking at the TCP handshake from the PS4 I can see that it using an initial Window Size of 8192 (Bytes) and a Scaling Value of 6 (multiply by 64). All looking good so far and pretty typical.
PS4 SYN Packet - After the handshake has been completed, the Window size on the PS4 has been reduced all the way down to 135 Bytes which gives an effective window of 8640 (135*64). For the rest of the capture, the PS4 effective window fluctuates between around 3K and 8K but never exceeds 8640 Bytes.
PS4 Window Size - Because the PS4 advertises such a small Window, the download server can only send a handful of packets at a time (each packet is 1448 Bytes) before it has to stop and wait for the PS4 to tell it to send more. So the sequence is, server sends 5 packets or so and then waits for 22ms before it gets the response back from the PS4 telling it to send more. Server sends another 5 packets and then waits for another 22ms etc etc.You can see the behaviour quite clearly here and here.
To put it in perspective, with a latency of 22ms between my PS4 and the Playstation Servers and a 8640 byte Window, my maximum bandwidth available is 3.14 Mbit/s as opposed to my actual maximum of 200 Mbit/s.
Solution
Unfortunately, for this particular problem I can't think of any real solution because the issue it found within the TCP/IP stack of the PS4 itself. One possible solution which I may try later is setting the PS4 to use a local proxy. The lower latency between the PS4 and the Proxy (2ms?) should theoretically allow faster downloads, lets say 35-40 Mbit/s
What I cannot explain is why this issue only happens sometimes. Is it possible that the Playstation Network has been OK all along and the issue is in fact due to a bug in the TCP/IP stack on the PS4 itself? If so, surely there are people smarter than me that have identified it already and would have patched it by now?
Update 1
I have performed some testing with a local Squid proxy and I am seeing increased and more stable throughput with the same Rocket League download hovering around 20 minutes to download - not great, but an improvement.
I have taken a lot more packet captures, with and without a proxy server being used. I have seen multiple occurrences of the PS4 using the same stupidly low window (8640 Bytes) however I have also (through deleting and/or pausing the download) witnessed the full 64K Window being advertised, occasionally scaling up to a few hundred KB. When the PS4 is using the higher window, the download speeds are much improved, however the window never increases sufficiently to make full use of my bandwidth - Sony Engineers may have capped the maximum window by design.
So I wonder what causes the PS4 to get into the "small window" mode - a bug, some feature that only Sony knows about? People often report that pausing/unpausing downloads can get faster download speeds - perhaps this is actually just a consequence of the Window Size behaving differently on the "fast" and "slow" download attempts.
Update 2 (11/09/2016)
Wow, I wasn't expecting this to get as much attention! Thank you to the two people who gave Gold - not expected and much appreciated. I've been reading over a few comments and thought it would make sense to clear a few things up:
- Why does using a local proxy improve download speeds?
By using a local proxy server, the impact of the PS4 using small Window Sizes is reduced. The proxy server performs the actual downloads from the PS4 server and since it is free to use large windows, the throughput is improved. The Proxy server still has to pass the packets back to the PS4 (still using its small window), however because the latency between PS4 and Proxy Server is very small (typically < 1ms), the smaller Window Size is not as big of an issue. u/tibiazak has a good ELI5 below.
If you want to see visually, here is a diagram showing the two connections when using a Proxy Server. Notice how the connection between the proxy server and PSN servers has a nice "fat pipe" allowing high bandwidth downloads. Although the PS4 is still using small windows, the low latency means that the Proxy server has to spend a lot less time waiting for the PS4 to ask for more data.
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@techpro2 wrote:
even with the new modem and updates rogers modems still always seem to be moderate nat types never open. the only way i've been able to achieve open nat is by bridging to any 3rd party router. why does rogers do this? still better than cgn3 that thing was always strict nat type. moderate is ok but you may still end up having issues connecting with some friends especially if their nat is strict.
I edited this post provide further detail on the setups/settings I used. After taking a look at your post a second time around, I also see you mentioned you getting strict NAT when you have multiple consoles online. Hows does everyone else have things setup? Thanks for reading!
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What consoles are you using & what 3rd party router do you have? I myself am fine playing on moderate / upnp enabled with the CODA modem, but understand that everyone has different needs & preferences. A buddy of mine will only use 3rd party router because that’s what he’s been doing for years and won’t change for anything lol, so I can understand. Happy to help out in any way I can & I’m sure the Community is willing to lend a hand as well 
After reading your post I ended up playing around with various router/modem settings/configurations with CODA & a bridged Linksys router as well, in connection with my PS4 Pro & Xbox one. I was flipping through setups and running some of the tests mentioned below.
I was able to get OPEN NAT with both the CODA & the Linksys router, after tinkering around with manual network setup on Xbox/PS4, in addition to making sure the IP’s would stick, & the right port forwarding was in place. My input on this & from what I experienced, regardless 3rdparty router or not I had to modify settings on the console/router to consistently get an OPEN NAT. Assign a STATIC IP & leverage port forwarding. There’s also the DMZ route which is limited to one console & would advise looking into DMZ before taking that route.
For Xbox there were times where my NAT was reported as OPEN with the CODA modem & times it was moderate. The same thing when I used a Linksys router. I wasn’t really paying attention if both consoles were connected on the network simultaneously at every second but I do know there were many occasions when they were both on the network (either LAN/WIFI etc between diff setups). I have many devices on the network, lots of consoles at home too, but I wasn’t taking that into consideration during my test, only consoles I had on were XboxOne/PS4Pro.Will do some more playing around
On PS4 Pro, It would always report as NAT Type 2 even with DMZ enabled & directly wired to my modem. There’s a mixture of definitions online of what that NAT Type 2 means, none I have seen are officially from Sony. To my understanding NAT Type 2 is MODERATE or OPEN.
I went one a little journey to find out how to get different Xbox/PS4 NAT results, added some of the pages I stumbled upon below but I went through so many others lol. I’ve leveraged a game like Call of Duty to which provides a NAT type in-game. From the testing I did, regardless if it was the CODA modem or the Linksys one COD would report NAT as MODERATE. If you visit the network settings in COD you will see it mention that your NAT was moderate because it couldn’t not reach UDP port 3074 which is required for an OPEN NAT. If you configured your router to reserve the console IP, have UPNP enabled, and did a manual setup on your consoles, most likely it COD will report as OPEN NAT. If it’s moderate, then that port most likely needs to be forwarded. I had switched from LAN to WIRELESS in one scenario, ending up needing to double check the IP’s and forwarding rules. Once I had ensured they were correct, NAT on COD was open.
Interested in hearing more about your setup, maybe you are having better luck with 3rd party. CODA has been going great for my gaming & the family.The Linksys are some older ones I had lying around. Going to try out ASUS RT-AC55U for the heck of it , looking forward to having some fun with that! Thanks for the feedback.
http://www.playstationing.com/ps4/how-to-change-your-nat-type-on-ps4-and-ps3/839
https://www.reddit.com/r/PS4/comments/1zzfap/what_is_the_easiest_way_to_change_my_nat_type_to/
RogersKevin
@RogersKevin very interesting posts on the Playstation situation. I would think there are two ways to solve this, Sony either issues an update to increase the Receive Window Size, or, park a server in a Rogers facility in Toronto, if that hasn't already been done. Given the Bandwidth Product calculation, where is the Akami server that Rogers customers access for downloads?
For anyone reading thru Kevin's posts and wanting to set up a proxy server on their Windows pc, have a look at the following thread/site:
http://www.youngzsoft.net/ccproxy/
@dallasdinatake That was a snapshot of my top result. I run a bunch in a row every so often. On average I was seeing 100Mbps + during that run.
I was wired directly with a cat5e to the CODA-4582 during the test in the snapshot. Might have had it in DMZ or some port forwarding in place, can't recall exactly since I played around a lot with many different settings that day.
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