Sure but ignore spelling mistakes grammer etc

Stuff you will need.

feather-0.7.5.iso http://mymirrors.homelinux.org/linux/feather-linux/
vmware server http://www.vmware.com/download/server/
TcpView for windows http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysintern...es/TcpView.mspx

Once vmware server is installed open it up and click local host->then ok
Then click file.
Then click new->virtual machine click next
choose typical ->next->linux->version->(drop down menu)other version 2.4xkernel->next

Choose a name for it and the place u want to store the virtual machine
click next->use bridge networking->next
i did 1gb for disk capacity (you can make it smaller )then click finish.

Once that is done click host then virtual network settings->click host virtual network mapping
for vMnet0 choose your network adaptor u connect to the net with then leave the rest as they are ->click ok.


In the inventory window in vmware server right click on the virtual machine click settings then click memory choose 128mb.
Then click cd-rom click use iso image and point that to the feather-0.7.5.iso you downloaded click ok.
Now time to boot feather linux right click on the virtual machine in the inventory and click power on.

It takes a few seconds for it to start up.
For the setup routine choose the 2nd option xfdev press enter.
For the mouse choose no to usb mouse then yes to the next option.
Test to make sure your internet connection is working on the vm machine right click on desktop apps->net->firefox.
Now to get the ip for your wow server log a character into wow (leave vmware open )
alt+tab to desktop and run tcpview.exe scroll down until u find wow and right click and copy the ip address.and paste it into notepad or something.

Then close wow.

Go back into vmware linux and open console (its on the desktop) and type in Yarre's fix. (the stuff in caps are not a typo )

sudo iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp -d your.wow.server.ip.address --dport 3724 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 3724 press enter

sudo socat -d -d -d TCP4-LISTEN:3724,nodelay,fork,reuseaddr,su=nobody TCP4:your.wow.server.ip.address:3724,nodelay press enter

now hopefully that should be working now open up a new console window and type ifconfig now in eth0 look for your inet addr that is the ip address of the virtual machine.You will need that to route wow traffic to your vmware linux.

Now go back into windows click start menu click run type cmd then ok, Now time to route your wow traffic through your vm linux.

From Baalzaman post on page 2.

Replace wow.server.ip with your wow server ip and replace vm.machine.ip with the vm machine ip
route -p ADD wow.server.ip MASK 255.255.255.255 vm.machine.ip

input that into the cmd window

(if u want to connect to wow not using the vm linux u will have to delete that route just type route delete wow.server.ip)

Now log into wow and it should be routing wow traffic to your vmware linux box and you should be enjoying lower pings.

Credit goes to Yarre for this excellent fix and Baalzaman for the route add cmd Thank you .

If u want to install feather linux to your hdd righ click on the vm linux desktop and choose enhancements and extra and
choose hd install->install hard to hard disk-safer option and follow the prompts.

After you have installed it to the vmware hdd you can open up sciTE and save the iptables,socat cmds to disk and then all you have to do is copy the iptables,socat cmds
into the console (middle mouse button to paste) when you want to run it. (There is probably an easier way to save and run it later i dont know much about linux)
[ Post edited by Horgan ]

OK i've done a little writeup in a private forum on how to get a linux virtual machine setup with socat etc. This ISN'T necessarily the best way to do it, i'm a linux noob so I stuck with whats familiar to me so hold those flames

**************************************************************************

I used Debian for no other reasons than thats the only distro I have any experience with and apt-get is rather handy . Please don't flame me for my choice

I don't claim the way i've done it is the best/cleanest or most noob friendly way of doing it, but it worked for me. Your mileage may vary!

Please note to run VMware + wow on the same pc the pc needs to have plenty of grunt. I'm doing this on a core 2 duo with 2 GB ram. Doing this with less is not recommended.

Quick and dirty setup:

Preparation: Download the following -

http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/4.0_r1...386-netinst.iso - I prefer netinstall ISO's as they are a lot smaller than a full CD image
http://www.vmware.com/download/server/ - make sure you get a key!
Some sort of virtual cd mounting tool, I use http://www.daemon-tools.cc - Daemon-Tools but on writing this I see the site is down at the moment. Otherwise simply burn the ISO to a blank CD. Also be warned Daemon-Tools is bundled with some adware but you can opt out of the install of that software so no big drama.

1) Install VMware. Click "yes" when it moans about IIS. The VMware install is straightforward just rather lengthy (it seems to spend a while apparently doing very little). I left 'auto-run' enabled btw.

2) Make sure the Debian cd is in your CD drive or the ISO image is mounted via something like daemon-tools

3) Set up a new virtual machine. Give the virtual machine one processor, and allow it say 512 MB ram (I have 2 GB so plenty of room), and allocate 1 GB hard drive space (again got heaps so didn't care ). With its networking select the top option (bridging). I most creatively named my virtual machine "Debian". . The machine type btw is linux 2.6

4) Boot the virtual machine, all going well it should detect the CD and auto run the Debian install

5) Go through the Debian install. It is self explanatory just make sure you read each page before mindlessly clicking yes

6) When you reach the part about the APT repository select the mirror closest to you (there is a couple in NZ).

7) When prompted for package selection I unchecked the desktop option and clicked continue (no need for a x windows system).

8) When asked about GRUB install say yes to installing on the MBR.

9) Soon after this the install will complete. you will need to eject or unmount the CD and click continue. The virtual machine will then reboot.

10) The new debian install will boot and you will soon reach a login prompt. Log in under your user account name that you gave during the install

11) Once logged in you will need superuser privileges to carry out the following steps so to gain that type at the command prompt su and press enter, then type the admin password you set during the install. Press enter.

12) Place the Debian install CD back in the CD drive (or re mount it if using a virtual drive)

14) Type the following: apt-get install iptables and allow the install to complete. This is probably unnecessary it should already be installed - this step is just making sure.

15) Type the following: apt-get install socat and allow the install to complete.

Note i'm skipping sudo because setting that up involves editing /etc/sudoers which will be beyond a noob (but if you really must, run the command visudo)

16) Type the following ifconfig and press enter. Note this screen is a bit complicated but what you are looking for is the virtual machines ip address. You are looking for a entry beside the Eth0 entry that will probably be something like 192.168.1.3 (for example). This will vary depending on your network setup. If anyone has an easier/noob friendly way of determining the ip address post it below!! Write down this address.

17) Refer to http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...518019717&sid=1 for your wow servers IP address. For Blackrock its 12.129.225.21

18) Type the following iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp -d your.wow.server.ip.address --dport 3724 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 3724

If you play on multiple servers then you can set up multiple iptables entries simply by substituting in the server ip addresses you need.

19) Type the following socat -d -d TCP4-LISTEN:3724,nodelay,fork,reuseaddr,su=nobody TCP4:your.wow.server.ip.address:3724,nodelay (note I removed 1 -d from Yarre's example to reduce the screen spam)
If you want to play of a different server you'll need to hit CTRL-C to kill the socat screen and re-enter the above command with the correct ip for the new server. There are better ways to do this of course but i'm going for noob friendly here

Your linux virtual machine is now ready to do its magic. You now need to set up your windows pc to send data to the linux virtual machine.

to do this you will need the ip address you wrote down earlier for your linux virtual machine (example 192.168.1.3)

20) Press START then RUN and type cmd and press enter

21) type the following:

so for example for Blackrock and using the virtual machine IP address of 192.168.1.3 the command would be:

route -p ADD 12.129.225.21 MASK 255.255.255.255 192.168.1.3

If you play on multiple servers you can add a route per server.

If the command is successful then you will be returned to the command prompt with no message. If you get a error please double check what you are typing in.

Now, fire up wow, and all going well you will be able to play on your server with a substantially lower ping!

Hopefully this all makes some sense.

Lots of credit to Yarre (for coming up with the idea) and Jax!!

to add in, yes this works, and yes, lowerping's network architecture is mainly if not entirely based upon this. (read first post of the TS cursing lowerping.com)

Con website? O.o

has anyone try this yet? how much lower will the ping goes with this?

quaza.....i also want low ms , 1 thing i dont understand about this guide is do i need to install linux os?? or just use vista straight??

The way I understand it, there are 2 ways that lowerping uses to lower your ping:

1) QoS - Quality of Service, tunneling packets inherently get a higher priority through networks.

2) Predefined lower latency route -- usually, not high bandwidth, but WoW isn't high bandwidth.

Doing this, will definitely improve your latency just because of (1), but it will not do anything for (2). Thus, using this, I believe, will definitely help, but lowerping will give slightly better results. Considering that you eliminate your risk of a ban, I'd say this is a better way to go about it. However, I'll have to wait for another day when I don't log in for a day or so before I switch my method or I may set off bot alarms due to rapid IP change.

Setting this up now. Doesn't seem too complicated. The worse part about it so far has been waiting for the download to finish lol.

Will report back later on a how to guide.

I got a question.
Does  this  work for WOW EU server?

Just wondering, would this work as well?

http://elitistjerks.com/572499-post199.html

The only problem I've had was looking for that System folder in WinXP. Have to try again later.

Another way to do this (if you are not too worried about anything other than wow lag).

I just tweak window's registry to set the TcpAckFrequency default value to 1 instead of 2. I explained how to do it in the lowerping thread below. However got flamed cos some people dun know how to do it lolx. Anyways, am playing with 200ms latency now using the windows registry tweak plus my website loading times are AWESOME! really dang fast. It has to do with windows.

You see the way it works is windows sets your pc to ping the server and waits for a reply then ping again for more info. Whereas once i set the default to 1 it just pings the server like a mad man lolx. So ping and keep on telling the server that it needs more info instead of waiting for the server to reply then ping again. I hope this explains how my method works.

**Do not this might not work for some. But so far among my friends about 30++ of them it works compared to 4 of them of whom this method doesn't work.

And now to explain how to do this:-

1. Run Regedit
2. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > System > CurrentControlSet > Services > Tcpip > Parameters > Interfaces
3. under Interfaces you open one of the folders (The one with your ip)
4. Right Click and New>DWORD Value
5. Value name : TcpAckFrequency : Value Data = 1

6. Close and restart.

I understand there will be a few folders to choose from I did it by trial and error, i.e. DO one the test wow, check ping, if it's not low enough then do the same in another folder to get the right folder, cos i could not find one which stated my i.p.

I know not everyone likes to tweak their registry but those who like to this is another option instead of installing linux.

Hope this helps =)

how to save the console cmd we put in the vmware?
i dont want to type the fix each time i want to run wow
help pls

HDD install ur vm, and save a linux text file (omg it took me a while to figure out the non-user-friendly-linux T_T)

and whenever i run it, i just copy and paste. (highlight it, click copy, and mouse wheel button to paste in the console prompt)

Interesting food for thought...

How will the blizz servers handle the extra load of pings now? Do you reckon there will be degrading of performance since more pings are sent to the servers?

yeah that's the problem..i dunno how to do this
esp the HD install vm lol
T_T

Okay, I tried Debian, got up to the point apt-get install socat, I got an error message saying Socat is missing. What am I missing?

just key in 'TcpAckFrequency : Value Data = 1' in any of the folders right?



what if i just key in 'TcpAckFrequency : Value Data = 1' in all of those folders?

if i'm victorious i'll make a full tutorial with pictures and stuff

try #apt-get update. then try #apt-get install socat.

just key in 'TcpAckFrequency : Value Data = 1' in any of the folders right?

what if i just key in 'TcpAckFrequency : Value Data = 1' in all of those folders?

1. Run Regedit
2. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > System > CurrentControlSet > Services > Tcpip > Parameters > Interfaces
3. under Interfaces you open one of the folders (The one with your ip)
4. Right Click and New>DWORD Value
5. Change filename to TcpAckFrequency
6. Double-click TcpAckFrequency and fill in the value as 1.

That's it.

Once that is done click host then virtual network settings->click host virtual network mapping
for vMnet0 choose your network adaptor u connect to the net with then leave the rest as they are ->click ok.

you know me, not so berani to go and change too many stuff on my PC.

registry changes were easy to make. will know tonite whether it works once connected to a good IP and more ppl are on.

to those that couldn't see any changes, did you guys hotfix your Windows recently? or update the service packs?

where can i find the host section ? dun seems any of it in my Vmware

I redid the Debian installation and got stuck at the APT part. I can't seem to DL all the packages that I need. What should I do to make the VM connect to the internet?

Set VMnet0 to my NIC that's connecting to the Internet
Network Connection: Bridged