I posted this in Ghostship's thread, but I thought I would make a new thread with more details for fixing these problems. I encourage people to ignore my spelling and to post additional problems/solutions.
PINGS AND PONGS: 
Firstly I want to explain a ping. Traditionally a Ping is tiny bit of code that is sent to the server of choice which just tells the server to send it back again, simple. The returned "pong" will arrive back at your computer allowing your computer to show you how long it took the code to do the round trip. This is (usually) measured in milliseconds(ms). A typical ping SHOULD be less than 100ms if the server is in your country and less than 350ms from the opposite side of the world.
PROBLEMS that increase PING times:
*Hardware, the longer it takes to get processed by your hardware the more milliseconds(ms) get chewed up.
*Software, the more applications and software that is running the longer it takes for your ping/pong to get put through the CPU processing queue.
*Phone line/cable quality Fibre (light) moves data more quickly than coax/copper does(electricity). Also line bad line quality can have terrible effect on lost data (lost data means it has to send it all over again)
*ISP: your Internet Service Provider may use long/cheap transit routes, have bad contention ratios, bad ISP routers, network routing/hardware issues and a million other things. [3]
SOLUTIONS :
*Hardware: (save 5ms)
Buy better hardware, (you might save 5ms [677] if you are lucky).
*Software: (save up to 5-100ms)
-Clean up old software!
I would STRONGLY suggest disabling or even better, uninstalling any running applications. some culprits that chew background resources : MSN, ICQ, SKYPE, hardware Monitors, Vista gadgets, desktopimages/desktopvideo! and the biggest culprits - AOL software (eww), Norton!!/mcafee, anti-spyware/adware/virus/malware/etc. Now we all need protection, so I wont tell you what to keep, but if you know what takes the resources
(this will save you loads if you don't already do this, software kills ms and could save you 5-100ms). [instagib]
-Defrag your system (might save 5-10ms)
*Phone lines: (Save up to 50% ping times)
Possibly change to a new ISP using fibre or cable. You could also gather your neighbors signatures sign a petition to go with a particular ISP if they lay new cables in your area (this can work if you have the time and enough paying neighbors/customers) (could drop your ping by half if you have line noise or data loss) Use /ping in CrossFire to check ping/noise/dataloss (please confirm this)
*ISP: (save 10-400+ Ping [104] )
This is where it all goes wrong for a lot of people so I will explain this problem in much more detail with the following solutions- Change ISP, Talk to ISP/change ISP plan.
If you are having issues with your ISP [wall]
The first thing to do is talk to them[4]. Ring them up and say that you are having connectivity issues with a server (have the IP and ports of the server to hand) and ask them to prioritise it. If you have a cheaper connection you may find they don't know what you mean or simply don't allow customers to do it (costs them money: see 'extra reading' below). They may mention "traffic shaping" or "prioritised traffic" or other such terminology so I shall do my bext to explain what this all means in the following paragraphs. If your ISP refuses or doesn't know what you are talking about, think about an ISP that supports this feature (I have recommended mine at the end of this post).
EXTRA READING (skip to bottom if you're bored 
Those asking "What is traffic shaping".
Traffic shaping is where an ISP allows certain traffic (in my case, games) to have first priority over web/video/p2p/etc, it also gives me priority over any customers on a lesser plan for all my traffic. Traffic shaping also normally allows you to get more direct routes to your destination, for example if I connected to CF Server from an ISP Called Talktalk they will send you down the cheapest route they can find (normally this gets routed all over the place to get the cheaper rates thus increasing your ping dramatically). If I connect with my current ISP, they will get the quickest shortest route to my gaming servers.
Why are they cheaper, that doesn't make sense?
Well some routes are cheaper because they aren't being used, this could be because they are just crap quality lines or most likely because they are a route that is not currently used because the users of that line are offpeek. An example route might me one that goes to south Africa then routes off to the States then Crete and finally to Germany (an over exaggerated example but you get the idea of how pings can increase very quickly). So your ISP may choose a long route because it doesn't clog up the direct cables that are under load by other ISPs paying more for the more direct route.
I chose my ISP purely on ping, that is all I care about. It costs me more to ensure the best transit route but IMHO it is worth it. I have a ping of less than 60ms from London to the CF server in germany because of this.
If any UK residents want the same service I use, choose Pro option from plus.net:<a href='http://www.plus.net/myreferrals/new.html?w645oK3%2FCguHYxTpF%2BrJmTsIFnCG12LIRAN0PMs7JvY%3D'><br>
>Please use this link to get a discount and help my monthly fee too<</a> [wink2]
PS I have already added CF server as global prioritised traffic so you wont need to ring them if you do change to the ISP I use [w00t]
Thanks for reading guys, I hope it helps some of you out there.
-T
