So, EU Mega Server is not in Frankfurt but in the USA

Mathius_Mordred · June 2019

Is this news to people or am I late to the party. Based on some research I did for another post it turns out that my game is connected to the US servers.

This was picked up by another Reddit user last year although at the time his address was different:

https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/8n3084/eso_eu_server_is_in_america/

It turns out the EU Megaserver is nowhere near the EU, it is in Hunt Valley, Maryland, USA. Apparently, it was moved back to the USA when the game looked like it was going to go *** up. The original migration from the USA to the EU is featured here:

https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/1095

but ZOS never mentioned, from what I can see, that they were, in fact, moving it back to the US, still, as you can see, that's where it is, do your own research to check (you can get to the IP address vai the task manager).

Am I reading this all wrong, if so what is my game connected to in the USA?

If I am right then why do they call it the EU Megaserver, it would also explain some of the issues some folks are having. By the way, it seems the Bethesda launcher does connect to a EU IP address.

Here are the details:

Larger version: https://imgur.com/x4fkfQa

amir412 · June 2019

At this point, i wouldnt be suprised at all lmoa

TriangularChicken · June 2019

I don't know.. non prime time I have like 70-100 ping.. I believe if the server was located in the US my ping would be higher?
..but you never know..

essi2 · June 2019

My ping to the NA server is between 100 and 200ms higher, so I doubt this very much.

The login server is in the US though.

The Bethesda.net launcher probably connects to a download server, much like Steam does.

Mathius_Mordred · June 2019

TriangularChicken wrote: »

I don't know.. non prime time I have like 70-100 ping.. I believe if the server was located in the US my ping would be higher?
..but you never know..

The round trip from the UK is
3,547 x2 mi Distance from My Location (Beeston, UK) to Hunt Valley.

At the speed of light, 186282 miles/sec that gives a travel time of 0.038 sec, or 38 ms. Your ping is well within that.

xMovingTarget · June 2019

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/445107/sometimes-abnormal-high-ping#latest

Nothing new

essi2 · June 2019

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

TriangularChicken wrote: »

I don't know.. non prime time I have like 70-100 ping.. I believe if the server was located in the US my ping would be higher?
..but you never know..

The round trip from the UK is
3,547 mi Distance from My Location (Beeston, UK) to Hunt Valley.

At the speed of light, 186282 miles/sec that gives a travel time of 0.038 sec, or 38 ms. Your ping is well within that.

LOL

Tigerseye · June 2019

Ha.

Now it all makes sense...

People playing in the US (on the EU server) say they have no problems, while people like me, playing in the UK, have endless ones.

God, that is really bad.

Moonsorrow · June 2019

I have always assumed there is a "login server"/gatekeeper that is located on NA where both EU and NA clients first do a check connection (for Client information, version (if it is correct or needs update, your chapters/ESO+ and so on information), then based on your clients selected server they then connect to it, thus EU selected clients to the EU server, that is located at EU.

Would be nice to have actual confirmation from ZOS though.

@ZOS_GinaBruno would be nice to get a nugget of information on this.

Tigerseye · June 2019

TriangularChicken wrote: »

I don't know.. non prime time I have like 70-100 ping.. I believe if the server was located in the US my ping would be higher?
..but you never know..

I played GW2 on the US server.

Didn't really have ping problems in PVE, only really in WvW (in big zergs).

Also, some of that might have been due to my broadband, as I couldn't keep checking it all the time, like I can here, if I lag during PVE.

Honestly, I could easily believe we're connected to the US - as, if anything, this is worse than GW2 is for me and it should be better.

Mathius_Mordred · June 2019

xMovingTarget wrote: »

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/445107/sometimes-abnormal-high-ping#latest

Nothing new

Great, thanks, nice to see I wasn't cocking up what I was seeing. They soon closed that thread didn't they (ostensibly because another was already discussing latency).

Mathius_Mordred · June 2019

essi2 wrote: »

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

TriangularChicken wrote: »

I don't know.. non prime time I have like 70-100 ping.. I believe if the server was located in the US my ping would be higher?
..but you never know..

The round trip from the UK is
3,547 mi Distance from My Location (Beeston, UK) to Hunt Valley.

At the speed of light, 186282 miles/sec that gives a travel time of 0.038 sec, or 38 ms. Your ping is well within that.

LOL

I should have said 3,547 x2 miles, miss-type, well spotted or are you laughing at something else?

essi2 · June 2019

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

xMovingTarget wrote: »

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/445107/sometimes-abnormal-high-ping#latest

Nothing new

Great, thanks, nice to see I wasn't cocking up what I was seeing. They soon closed that thread didn't they (ostensibly because another was already discussing latency).

According to the method used in that thread the EU server is in Kansas...

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the methodology is flawed.

xMovingTarget · June 2019

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

xMovingTarget wrote: »

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/445107/sometimes-abnormal-high-ping#latest

Nothing new

Great, thanks, nice to see I wasn't cocking up what I was seeing. They soon closed that thread didn't they (ostensibly because another was already discussing latency).

ofc they did

Mr_Walker · June 2019

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

essi2 wrote: »

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

TriangularChicken wrote: »

I don't know.. non prime time I have like 70-100 ping.. I believe if the server was located in the US my ping would be higher?
..but you never know..

The round trip from the UK is
3,547 mi Distance from My Location (Beeston, UK) to Hunt Valley.

At the speed of light, 186282 miles/sec that gives a travel time of 0.038 sec, or 38 ms. Your ping is well within that.

LOL

I should have said 3,547 x2 miles, miss-type, well spotted or are you laughing at something else?

A signal through a fibre optic cable doesn't travel at the speed of light. Then you've got all the various "stops" it has to make....

Mathius_Mordred · June 2019

Mr_Walker wrote: »

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

essi2 wrote: »

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

TriangularChicken wrote: »

I don't know.. non prime time I have like 70-100 ping.. I believe if the server was located in the US my ping would be higher?
..but you never know..

The round trip from the UK is
3,547 mi Distance from My Location (Beeston, UK) to Hunt Valley.

At the speed of light, 186282 miles/sec that gives a travel time of 0.038 sec, or 38 ms. Your ping is well within that.

LOL

I should have said 3,547 x2 miles, miss-type, well spotted or are you laughing at something else?

A signal through a fibre optic cable doesn't travel at the speed of light. Then you've got all the various "stops" it has to make....

Well that depends on the type of fibre, yes in glass it's about 30% slower, but it is possible with some cables which are hollow tubes to achieve almost 100%. But even if it is a little slower than through a vacuum or through air that's not relevant to this discussion really. It's still well within his ping time, but you're right to point that out for accuracy sake if nothing else. Oh and by the way, light never stops moving, the signals are reprocessed along the way (hops), converted to electrical impulses and then back to photons but it never actually stops, there isn't a computer on route which suddenly halts the signal for x ms.

The main point of this discussion is that the so-called EU server is nothing of the sort.

Elsonso · June 2019

Checked this morning.

PC EU megaserver is still in Frankfurt Germany. Still connected to the Level3 Frankfurt node.

Nemesis7884 · June 2019

if that was true and performance is ***....why not move it back now that zhe game is hugely successful especially in the Eu...?

Mathius_Mordred · June 2019

lordrichter wrote: »

Checked this morning.

PC EU megaserver is still in Frankfurt Germany. Still connected to the Level3 Frankfurt node.

That's the login server

Check your actual eso64 executable pathway

Kadoin · June 2019

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

Mr_Walker wrote: »

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

essi2 wrote: »

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

TriangularChicken wrote: »

I don't know.. non prime time I have like 70-100 ping.. I believe if the server was located in the US my ping would be higher?
..but you never know..

The round trip from the UK is
3,547 mi Distance from My Location (Beeston, UK) to Hunt Valley.

At the speed of light, 186282 miles/sec that gives a travel time of 0.038 sec, or 38 ms. Your ping is well within that.

LOL

I should have said 3,547 x2 miles, miss-type, well spotted or are you laughing at something else?

A signal through a fibre optic cable doesn't travel at the speed of light. Then you've got all the various "stops" it has to make....

Well that depends on the type of fibre, yes in glass it's about 30% slower, but it is possible with some cables which are hollow tubes to achieve almost 100%. But even if it is a little slower than through a vacuum or through air that's not relevant to this discussion really. It's still well within his ping time, but you're right to point that out for accuracy sake if nothing else. Oh and by the way, light never stops moving, the signals are reprocessed along the way (hops), converted to electrical impulses and then back to photons but it never actually stops, there isn't a computer on route which suddenly halts the signal for x ms.

The main point of this discussion is that the so-called EU server is nothing of the sort.

He/she means it won't be the case because you still have to pass other routers that don't belong to ZOS, other connections that aren't fiber (in your own home, on your street to you closest router, then fiber), other authentication servers that don't belong to ZOS and won't prioritize your traffic because they don't care about you playing a game, etc.

That's before factoring your ISP's peering agreement and route to the servers (you don't get the fastest connection possible because your ISP doesn't care about you and gaming either), and the fact that lines along the way may not be maintained properly anywhere from your home to the servers and can cause any amount of lag or retransmissions (which apparently ZOS servers do not allow for long -- you get booted).

That said, if you have a mobile phone and can tether + have a provider that doesn't deprioritize your data you can often get a faster connection to games depending on how good your signal is to the tower because cell providers often have a better infrastructure than landline providers (and less peering required; shorter routes), and tower signals are almost always set up as faster 1/2 duplex signal instead of an asynchronous full duplex connection (async. results in varying rates which causes lots of retransmission which is why they say "UP TO X speed." Windows also has a rate scaling function that increases lag when speed rates vary too often. You can also just restrict the speed on a router connected to a connection with rates that change to see better performance in games that apparently have not accounted for Windows' autoscaling feature like ESO...).

Speed from A to B doesn't prove a location. Also, your router is a better source of finding where ESO connects because Microsoft restricts certain types of connections from being shown through their API as a security feature.

anitajoneb17_ESO · June 2019

Kadoin wrote: »

Speed from A to B doesn't prove a location. Also, your router is a better source of finding where ESO connects because Microsoft restricts certain types of connections from being shown through their API as a security feature.

... and how do I see the connections from my router ? Been looking in the entire interface and couldn't see such a thing...
(Pls. answer if the answer is easy of if there's a third-party tool for this, else leave it if too technical).

Mathius_Mordred · June 2019

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

Kadoin wrote: »

Speed from A to B doesn't prove a location. Also, your router is a better source of finding where ESO connects because Microsoft restricts certain types of connections from being shown through their API as a security feature.

... and how do I see the connections from my router ? Been looking in the entire interface and couldn't see such a thing...
(Pls. answer if the answer is easy of if there's a third-party tool for this, else leave it if too technical).

Crtl+Alt+Del
Task Manager
Performance Tab
Open Resource Monitor (bottom of page)
Find the eso64.exe and check IP

Elsonso · June 2019

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

Checked this morning.

PC EU megaserver is still in Frankfurt Germany. Still connected to the Level3 Frankfurt node.

That's the login server

Check your actual eso64 executable pathway

I have been checking the megaserver locations for a long time.

This morning, I got the actual IP addresses (plural) being used by ESO64.EXE, checked them against known EU megaserver IP addresses, and ran trace route from two different ISPs. I also checked the IP addresses against a routing database.

The PC EU megaserver does not look like it is in the United States. It looks like it is in Frankfurt Germany, exactly where ZOS says it should be.

Kadoin · June 2019

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

Kadoin wrote: »

Speed from A to B doesn't prove a location. Also, your router is a better source of finding where ESO connects because Microsoft restricts certain types of connections from being shown through their API as a security feature.

... and how do I see the connections from my router ? Been looking in the entire interface and couldn't see such a thing...
(Pls. answer if the answer is easy of if there's a third-party tool for this, else leave it if too technical).

Depends on the router you use, but most have the ability to log traffic through their firewall settings. Most ISP routers log when you have delays or packets lost too under the firewall log (and even what sites you visit). At least for the major brands. You can log into your router from the gateway address if you own the router. Default address is almost always http://192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1.

If its not, you will need the router's documentation... Some also require a password, and your ISP may stop you from logging into it (though I have never heard of an ISP doing that, but there may be one that likes charging service fees you never know...).

Ixilith · June 2019

If you make a char on EU then make a char on NA u will reliese the pings are completely different

I really can’t see Zos lying about server locations haha

coletas · June 2019

Lol, its on Germany. Or you think that from 195.122.154.4 to 159.100.232.218 is possible on 1ms from Germany to USA? Dont trust geolocalization lists.

anitajoneb17_ESO · June 2019

@Mathius_Mordred : thank you. Not sure this gives me the IPs used by my router - as opposed to my PC, but it's a nice trick to know. It goves me the same IPs for eso64.exe as the 3rd party software "CurrPorts".

These IPs seem to be located in the US but they seem to belong to Zenimax Germany and when doing a tracert it goes through Zenimax GmbH Frankfurt.

It seems to require more knowledge of network technologies that I'm ever able to provide, so I can draw any conclusion, but it seems to me that the OP is too paranoid ;-)

@Kadoin : thank you. Yes, I can access the router and its interface via 192.168.1.1 and a password, but from there I can see no way to access any sort of packet or connection log or journal. It's an ISP router... anyway, thanks for the info, but I guess I'll leave it at that :-)

JamilaRaj · June 2019

coletas wrote: »

Lol, its on Germany. Or you think that from 195.122.154.4 to 159.100.232.218 is possible on 1ms from Germany to USA? Dont trust geolocalization lists.

195.122.154.4 could be in Frankfurt, Ohio, not Frankfurt, Germany.

Mathius_Mordred · June 2019

coletas wrote: »

Lol, its on Germany. Or you think that from 195.122.154.4 to 159.100.232.218 is possible on 1ms from Germany to USA? Dont trust geolocalization lists.

195.122.154.4 is Zenimax Online, they are situated in Maryland, 159.100.232.218 is at Hunts Valley Maryland, so 1ms is about right yes.

inetnum: 195.122.154.0 - 195.122.155.255
netname: ZENIMAX
descr: BCHT6855
country: DE
admin-c: JF5024-RIPE
tech-c: JF5024-RIPE
status: ASSIGNED PA
remarks: all abuse reports to abuse@level3.com
mnt-by: LEVEL3-MNT
mnt-lower: LEVEL3-MNT
mnt-routes: LEVEL3-MNT
created: 2013-11-20T13:56:31Z
last-modified: 2013-11-20T13:56:31Z
source: RIPE # Filtered

person: Joe Fite
address: joe.fite@zenimaxonline.com
phone: +443-322-4713
nic-hdl: JF5024-RIPE
mnt-by: LEVEL3-MNT
created: 2013-11-20T11:54:09Z
last-modified: 2013-11-20T11:54:09Z
source: RIPE

I don't see any German IP addresses

Jayman1000 · June 2019

Im playing from Europe. So lets say you are correct that EU server is located in the US. Then how come my Latency when playing on NA is 160-200ms while it is only 60-100 when playing on EU? With your logic my ping should be about the same on the two servers.

Mathius_Mordred · June 2019

lordrichter wrote: »

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

Checked this morning.

PC EU megaserver is still in Frankfurt Germany. Still connected to the Level3 Frankfurt node.

That's the login server

Check your actual eso64 executable pathway

I have been checking the megaserver locations for a long time.

This morning, I got the actual IP addresses (plural) being used by ESO64.EXE, checked them against known EU megaserver IP addresses, and ran trace route from two different ISPs. I also checked the IP addresses against a routing database.

The PC EU megaserver does not look like it is in the United States. It looks like it is in Frankfurt Germany, exactly where ZOS says it should be.

Hmm, could they be splitting the resources across two servers, one in Germany and one in the US? Mine is still connected to the Maryland IP.