I know that this topic has been discussed many, many times before, and in many different threads over the past few years.

Can anyone who clearly understands the problems and possible solutions please prepare a brief summary, or Step-by-Step instructions on which things to try and what order to try them in, to get the SunGem Ethernet port on the G4 MacMini and/or the G4 PowerBook's, to work faster, or as fast as possible.

I would like to be able to work from MorphOS3.1 continuously, without needing to reboot into MacOSX, just to get some consistent and decent speed from my Ethernet port.

Waiting for downloads while running MorphOS3.1 on my 1.67GHz G4 PowerBook, and/or by 1.5GHz G4 MacMini, can be very frustrating and happens too often. Such a guide should be uploaded to the official MorphOS Team website, in the Support area.

> Such a guide should be uploaded to the official MorphOS Team website, in the Support area.

...and/or to MorphZone's MorphOS Library.

Andreas_Wolf wrote:,
Quote:

Yes, if someone, or multiply people who know the information will summarize it in this thread with a reply, I would be happy to polish it and place a copy in the Library here, giving the person(s) responsible for providing the info the credit for the document's content.

Good idea, expand it to include G4 PowerMac. The speed I am getting is brutally slow.

> expand it to include G4 PowerMac.

I suspect those "fixes" would be the same for all MorphOS-supported machines anyway as the problem is not a hardware one let alone limited to the SunGEM device.

Andreas_Wolf,
Quote:

As the MorphOS Dev. Team has not stated what the exact problem is, other than some discussion regarding dropped packets, or negotiation problems, I don't know if the problem is hardware related, or device driver related, limited to only the PowerBook & MacMini Ethernet ports, or if it applies to ALL MorphOS compatible Mac PPC computers.

I was under the impression that Pegasos1 & 2 owners and maybe Efika 5200b owners did not have this problem, but it has been so long since I have used my own Efika 5200b, I can't remember if I experienced any poor performance with downloads, or not.

All I do know is that enough users have complained about poor download performance that we should have some documentation that helps resolve it as much as possible, to eliminate any possible things that make the performance of the Ethernet port worse, so we can at least try to get the best performance we can get, from our Ethernet ports while running MorphOS3.1.

It also would be nice to hear from the MorphOS Dev. Team to know that they are working on the problem. When I first reported my problems with download speeds in version 2.4, or 2.5 of MorphOS, I got the impression that none of MorphOS Dev. Team members were acknowledging that there was a problem at all and that it must have been my Ethernet modem, router, or switch, even though none of my other computers ever had any similar problem with all the same equipment.

If none of the MorphOS Dev. Team members is experiencing slow or erratic download speeds, then I doubt that any of the Team members are concerned about working on the problem.

> As the MorphOS Dev. Team has not stated what the exact problem is [...], I don't
> know if the problem is hardware related, or device driver related, limited to only
> the PowerBook & MacMini Ethernet ports, or if it applies to ALL MorphOS
> compatible Mac PPC computers. I was under the impression that Pegasos1 & 2
> owners and maybe Efika 5200b owners did not have this problem

It seems this thread of yours is about another issue than I thought it was, as for the problem I've been referring to, MorphOS Team members (primarily Fab) have stated what the exact problem is. The issue I was talking about was recently discussed in those threads for instance:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=8782&forum=3
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=8894&forum=11

I apologize in case I got this thread's topic wrong and for any confusion I might have created.

Andreas_Wolf wrote:,
Quote:

I don't think you got the thread topic wrong. I think it is the same topic and problem that has been discussed half a dozen times, or more. I have looked through all (or maybe it is just most) of the threads you have provided links to, and I still can't find the post by Fab that you are referring to that gives a definitive answer to what the problems is, and what, if anything can be done to improve the download speed while running MorphOS3.1 on any of my G4 Mac computers.

Can you give me a direct quote of what Fab wrote, or what his recommendation is to increase the speed of downloads?

I found one reply by Fab that stated that if I was getting over 200kB/s download speed, I could increase the Stack to some amount and it should help. I have not tried that, because my download speed varies between less than 1kB/s to 30kB/s, or 40kB/s and varies so wildly, I did not think changing the stack would help, unless I was consistently getting close to the 200kB/s to 400kB/s download speeds, which I am not getting. Very rarely do I get any download which will vary into the speeds above 100kB/s any more.

> I don't think you got the thread topic wrong. I think it is the same topic and problem
> that has been discussed half a dozen times, or more. [...] my download speed varies
> between less than 1kB/s to 30kB/s, or 40kB/s and varies so wildly, I did not think
> changing the stack would help, unless I was consistently getting close to the 200kB/s
> to 400kB/s download speeds, which I am not getting. Very rarely do I get any download
> which will vary into the speeds above 100kB/s any more.

Actually, this confirms pretty well that I was talking about a different issue. The issue I was talking about is the one that causes the download speed under MorphOS to max out at about steady 500 kB/s (some have even reported up to 800 kB/s), when other operating systems on the same hardware reach a multiple of this figure.
As for your problem, I have no idea what might be the cause.

To make it clear, there are two distinct things, and one of them is not really an "issue", but rather a side-effect of a dated TCP/IP stack.

- Extremely slow and varying speeds, be it LAN or WAN: this is an issue with the driver somehow, that noone in the team can reproduce, so it's likely to happen only in particular networks with "non-friendly" switches, and it might be some negociation issue.

- Good LAN speed (let's say 4-10MB/s for local FTP/SMBFS, whatever), but about 350-400kB/s from WAN: this can actually increase if the website is close to the client, and it has to do with the TCP window scaling feature, that is not implemented in MorphOS TCP/IP stack (and before you ask, it's not in AROS nor OS4 either :)). Without this feature, the speed is actually quite dependant from the roundtrip time between the server and the client, which explains why it's faster if the server is close.
That said, increasing send/receive window (static) buffers can help a bit (you do that in envarc:sys/net/netstack.config), and here, by setting them from the default value (8k) to 60000, it allows me to reach 850kB/s, which is the max i can get from my ISP anyway (Linux on my PC gets something like 900kB/s).

For this second case, i believe using a local (or close) proxy might be a good workaround. Didn't try, though.

[ Edited by Fab 22.11.2012 - 10:01 ]

Hi Fab

A bit off topic topic maybe, but the issue with stalled loading in OWB still exists (OWB loads for example 95% of a page and waits from few seconds to several minutes before continuing). Happens on any site (even very simple ones) any time so its a bit hard to pinpoint the actual cause of problem.

With my earlier ISP I had no problems getting full 10Mbps speeds from many places couple of years ago, even with default values in netstack.config. But with the current new ISP I seem to be stuck there around 800-900kB/s in the best cases with 10Mbps line even with proxy. If it's because of ISP, general internet evolution, my gear or what.. I don't know :) Fab has an explanation, but I'd still be interested to see if my earlier ISP would work still as fast as few years ago or would it have become slower from the changes in internet generally :) Anyway it seems like my speeds are somehow more limited now too... Although my ISP's speed test program gives me full download speeds and little worse upload speeds.. it's flash based player which works with OWB's flashplugin :)

@Hooligan

It's safe to say it hasn't anything to do with OWB itself, but the underlying connection stalling, rather.

@jpv

Well, 900kB/s isn't that far from the max of your internet connection, anyway... The theorical max would be 1.25MB/s, and with some ISP, it can easily vary in the down direction... ;)

Oooh.. I've made these earlier tests with default buffers and now tried with that 60000. Now were talking again ;) OWB shows 1.3MB/s from the same sites I got that under 900kB/s with default values =)

Fab wrote:,
Quote:

Fab's quote above about none of the MorphOS Dev. Team members being able to reproduce the problem with LAN, or WAN download speeds that vary wildly and result in very poor download speeds is very confusing to me, as there have been so many users who have reported the problem, it does not appear to me to be that rare. Since none of the Team members can reproduce this problem, there is no way for them to fix it.

Thanks Fab for an answer I can try to work with. I have no problem admitting that networking is very confusing to me and always has been. That is why network administrators get paid the "Big Bucks" I guess.

Given the fact that none of the Team members is experiencing, or can reproduce my problem which causes download speeds to vary wildly and drop to ridiculously slow speeds, or even stall, I think the only recourse for me is to purchase a newer, or different Wireless Router to connect to my Cable Modem, in hopes that I can find one that works better with the MorphOS3.1 SunGEM Ethernet port, while I am using my TP-Link TL-MR3040 Wireless N + 3G device (I don't know what to name it, a Bridge, or portable self powered wireless modem, or something else). The TP-Link is usually what I use to provide an Internet connection to my G4 PowerBook and sometimes other MorphOS3.1 computers, while running MorphOS3.1.

If anyone can provide recommendations on new or used wireless routers that are known to work well with MorphOS3.1, I would appreciate members listing their routers that work without any problems here in this thread, so I might get a WLAN that works well with MorphOS3.1, my G4 PowerBook and my TP-Link TL-MR3040 wireless "thing".

My current wireless router is an older NetGear which only provides wireless "g" speeds, not wireless "n", so I should get a speed boost when using wireless networking if I get a newer wireless "n" router, but that may not matter while running MorphOS3.1.

Fab's instructions regarding changing the buffer size (not Stack size and I wrote in error earlier) to get faster overall download, or file transfer speeds, is not clear for noobs like me, but I think he wrote out how to change the buffer size more clearly in an earlier post in another thread, so I am going to look for that, and/or figure out how to change the buffer size and if someone does not beat me to it, I will write simple instructions in this thread on how to change the buffer size, just in case there are any more members/users here that missed Fab's earlier post, and they would like to try this potential fix, which might increase their max download and/or file transfer speeds.

I would like this thread to be used for placing simple instructions and recommendations on how to deal with the two different networking problems. We had an earlier thread where users started to list their equipment in hopes that the Dev. Team could identify what was causing the possible negotiation problem with the driver, which causes the download speeds to vary wildly and sometimes even stall, but the thread died out without any actions being taken, or any recommendations being made from the Team. It does not appear that having all the users that are experiencing the problem with wildly varying download speeds, to list their modems, routers, switches, or other networking equipment, will help the Dev. Team to solve this problem, so hopefully we can help by listing the networking modems, routers, switches and other equipment that has been proven to work CORRECTLY.

If anyone has a better idea, I am open to all suggestions. I just want some faster and more consistent download speeds, while I am using MorphOS3.1.

I hope we can keep this thread going long enough to do some good for a few users (specially myself).

I would really like to see this fixed right now its the only thing thats keeping me from buying MorphOS license, im sitting on a 100/10 mbit line.

nemesiswar,
Quote:

What kind of problem are you experiencing and are you connecting with a wired, or wireless networking connection?

What download/file transfer speeds are you seeing, and what sort of speeds do you expect to see, that would be acceptable enough for you to consider purchasing a MorphOS3.1 registration license?

The problems im experiencing is that the internet browsing is really slow takes about 15 seconds or more to load a web page (like for example Facebook), i havent really looked at the downloads speed i know it took more than 30 minutes to download the ultimate pack (about 60% finished after 30 min). An acceptable speed would be atleast 10/10 mbit/s, ofcourse in the best of worlds i would be able to utilize all of my speed.
Iam using a wire to all my stationary computers.
Besides the network issue i find MorpOS amazing.

[ Edited by nemesiswar 23.11.2012 - 20:51 ]

> i know it took more than 30 minutes to download the ultimate pack
> (about 60% finished after 30 min).

This would be about 200 kB/s. Definitely slower than it should be.

> An acceptable speed would be atleast 10/10 mbit/s

As has been discussed in this thread, 1250 kB/s is beyond what the MorphOS TCP/IP stack can achieve for Internet downloads.

> If anyone can provide recommendations on new or used wireless routers that
> are known to work well with MorphOS3.1, I would appreciate members listing
> their routers that work without any problems here in this thread

My TP-LINK TL-WR841ND works flawlessly (within the restrictions imposed by the dated TCP/IP stack) with MorphOS on my Mac mini, which is connected by wire to the router. 32 Mbps cable Internet here.

Quote:

AROS: I have no clue about networking stuff, but looking at sources in bsdsocket/netinet/* there is quite some code in there which seems to deal with window scaling.

@Georg

There seems to be such code indeed, and i guess Sonic probably added them at some point, as AROS TCP is originally based on AmiTCP3, which definitely didn't have this.

Some log (from 2006) on unmorphos.cvs.sourceforge.net says
"TCP and UDP code upgraded to FreeBSD v2.0.5"

> Some log (from 2006) on unmorphos.cvs.sourceforge.net says
> "TCP and UDP code upgraded to FreeBSD v2.0.5"

I can see that this particular commit is from May 28th that year. This would thus also include MOSNet 1.1 and MOSNet 1.2.