Hardware acceleration in newer firmware question

[kingafish]

Hi all, have used hardware acceleration in the pass (CTF and FA)

which requires STP to be disabled for level 2 acceleration.

However in my router ax58u with latest firmware, I see that it writes
Archer: enabled
Flow cache: enabled
Even with STP enabled by default.

Questions:
1. Is this considered level 2 acceleration, or is there an even higher acceleration?
2. What happened to packet runner? Is it the same as 'archer'?
3. What is this archer?
4. Did asus/merlin change something such that level 2 acceleration can be reached regardless of STP settings?

Not all questions need to be answered, just answer what you know to the best of your ability and everyone can answer so this thread can provide answer to anyone who found this post.

Thank you.

 

[RMerlin]

Archer is the bcm675x version of the bcm490x Packet Runner, and could be considered the replacement to Flow Accelerator.

The name changes lead me to believe that Broadcom re-engineered their acceleration technologies with HND, which could be why STP is now compatible with it... unless it`s just something Asus forgot to take into account. I wouldn`t know.

 

[moffa]

Does iptables FORWARD work or is it just STP?