I just got a Netgear XR700 with the specific hope that the marketing about its gaming QoS was true.
It seems to not be.
I try BF1 without QoS and I get latency (and latency variation) free gaming.
I start up Netflix or YouTube on the same or a different PC and I see latency (and latency variation) symbols popping up and the experience is diminished.
I enable the traffic prioritization (specifiying port ranges, protocols and target machine) and the symbols come up even more, though it tells me it is now prioritizing thousands of packets.
I fiddle with bandwidth allocation (giving 100% to the gaming machine) and with the anti-buffer bloat settings (making sure, supposedly, that only 70% of max bandwidth is ever used). I still get latency issues.
Has anyone got a router that actually works to prioritise gaming such that some HD streaming on another part of the network (for example) doesn’t effect it?
The XR700 appears to have no effect at all, QoS setup or not (in fact it seemed to make the symbols appear more regularly, but that could have been randomish).
Hmm, nope not really. Got the R6400v2.
I was thinking the same and disabled wifi in qos, that way most router resources will go to gaming. But all it did was cripple my wifi speeds and not much difference in gaming.
Best is to keep it off, besides the WMM up and down for 2.4 and 5Ghz. By default the netgear routers are already optimized for gaming and the likes. You can open the ports for BFV though. Although that doesn’t seem to matter either on my side.
Personally I’m using a Unify router (ER-4). The unifi QOS (SQM) can lower throughput of the router, but it works very well. My router can still handle my connection without slow-downs (300Mbps).
I can play while my wife streams video and surfs on the web without any issues whatsoever.
Unifi routers doesn’t do Wifi so you will have to get an access-point for that (or use your existing router as AP).
Battlenonsense made a video about these routers, the cheapest ones (ER-X), cost almost nothing, but cannot handle high bandwitdh with QOS (less than 100Mbps):
And you just switch the feature on and it works without any tinkering.
It’s DSL. Fibre to the cabinet and a couple hundred meters of copper. I sure there’s no problem with my line quality. Actually got checked by engineers a few times lately due to an intermittent disconnection issue (not quality - and which was fixed).
65MB/s down 15MB/s up. As I say, I have no problems at all usually, but when Netflix or YouTube runs I get latency and latency variation symbols every few seconds.
Some images. Would really appreciate your thoughts, thanks: -
You can see there’s no difference between QoS on or off when Netflix isn’t playing (which you’d expect), but when I play Netflix the difference between QoS on or off (though the router UI is saying it is detecting and prioritizing the game traffic) is that the latency peaks are higher.
Interesting… what is your setup in your home? Do you have a rj11 modem that you connect the XR700 to, or do you have a rj45 wallplug that you connect the XR700 directly to ?
The DM200 is new also. Recently got it and the Nighthawk.
Have gone back to my Draytek 2680 for now (which has a built in modem), but it doesn’t have port-based prioritisation at all. No worse than the RM200 + Nighthawk setup though.
I wonder if you or @cso7777 could recommend a model for me? I’m looking to splash out (the Nighthawk was near £450!) and get myself a top notch router that will future proof me if my street goes with FTTP/FTTH (probably around 330MB/s) and can handle QoS, so I don’t mind moving up the ubiquiti tree somewhat.
Would an ER-4 do me, or does the ER-Pro8 have a better tech/interface/whatever?
I appreciate the advice, thanks!
EDIT: I have already returned the Nighthawk. It had additional disappointments with the UI being slow and clunky and basic. Not expected from a device with quad core processor and a modern custom UI.
Also have ordered an ASUS RT-AX88U and an ASUS GT-AX11000 but I’m losing faith that these mainstream ‘gaming’ products are really as good as they should be compared to products from companies like Ubiquiti.
I wonder if you or @cso7777 could recommend a model for me? I’m looking to splash out (the Nighthawk was near £450!) and get myself a top notch router that will future proof me if my street goes with FTTP/FTTH (probably around 330MB/s) and can handle QoS, so I don’t mind moving up the ubiquiti tree somewhat.
Would an ER-4 do me, or does the ER-Pro8 have a better tech and interface (EdgeOS)?
EDIT2: Watching Battlenonsense’s video (Chris is such a valuable YouTuber!) I get this info there. I can see the EP-R8 has an adequate MAX bandwidth with QoS, though the minimum, as Chris says, is the only reliable guide (100 MB/s) so the ER-Pro8 (min 200) might be a better future-proofed choice but I suppose since my FTTP might be many months or even a year away, maybe I should just get an ER-X and upgrade later.
I appreciate the advice, thanks!
EDIT1: I have already returned the Nighthawk. It had additional disappointments with the UI being slow and clunky and basic. Not expected from a device with quad core processor and a modern custom UI.
Also have ordered an ASUS RT-AX88U and an ASUS GT-AX11000 but I’m losing faith that these mainstream ‘gaming’ products are really as good as they should be compared to products from companies like Ubiquiti.
EDIT3: I just ordered an ER-X. At £40 it will be a good backup/test unit even if one of the Asus routers is good. Also, if it is just as useful as the Asus routers, I guess I’d be a fool to keep either of them when they cost about £300!
Yeah, battlenonsense does some great indepth tech testing, especially in regards to network in regards to games.
I agree that the mainstream products are… well mostly brand / style / wifi speeds. They don’t have amazing QoS. I would personally just cancel the order for the asus units, and stick with the ER-X until you at some point can get more than 100 mbps speeds where you live. At that point there will likely be new products in the market, that are even better than the current ones But you could also just get the ER-4 now - i am not able to find the smart queue speeds for the ER-4 (it isn’t included in the data sheets), but its hardware is surpirior to the ER-Pro8 (the router cpu is the limiting factor for QoS speeds, and the ER-4 has a 4 core 1 ghz cpu vs a 2 core 1 ghz cpu in the ER-Pro8). And as cso7777 says, it has no issues handling his 300 mbps connection.
In regards to the XR700, i’ve heard that it has alot of “early day” issues - it might get resolved over time, but that doesn’t help you much now
As I say, I can very much seeing me return the Asus products - they are on their way now, though - just hope Amazon doesn’t get too annoyed with me! I have spent thousands with them over the years and am a Prime customer and they’ve never quibbled in the past, though.
I don’t know what else buyers can do, though. I read reviews of them all and they all say they have good QoS for gaming. The Nighthawk QoS just did not work. Just got to keep buying and returning until one of them actually lives up to the marketing and review hype.
I found the same with gaming headsets. Ordered several and they were all inferior to the home made setup I ended up with.
Same with keyboards. I must have gone through 6 or 7 ‘quiet’ gaming keyboards, none of which were at all even when explicitly stated in the marketing.
Big brands these days seem to be wholly lead by marketing and not actually product performance. Why to consumers keep consuming this stuff?
I did just read about this, but it appears to be only port range and protocol based rather than any ‘intelligent’ packet analysis? This is how the Nighthawk was doing it and, basically, it didn’t appear to help.
Have you done this for BF1? Can you watch Netflix and play BF1 with no change in either?
Well unless you deal alot with tech stuff, you basically only know what you read… and if reviewers say that they are good products, then people will continue to buy it.
Anyways i reckon you will be satisfied with your ubiquiti router
Edited to remove rude comment. Keep it respectful please ~Rtas
