Help with QOS — what firmware for NG R7800 are the best for games on ps4?

[Sitkin]

Hi guys. Sorry that I created a separate thread, but i could not find a more suitable topic I just wanted to thank everyone for what you are doing here) It's very useful and informative.
I own a netgear r7800 router and, in this regard, I have some questions that I could not find answers to in any of the forums.
1) I'm fond of online games and it's vital for me to know if the voxels firmware will give me a speed increase in games or not. I mean the best ping. How does QOS work on this firmware?
2) Maybe there are other firmware for the R7800 that will make my PS4 work better with better QOS optimization or something else?
Please, who knows - write to me, because I'm already tired of looking for information on the entire Internet.
Thank you in advance for all the answers)

 

[Sitkin]

Hey, people. Can no one answer me? Well - who already used the latest firmware - tell me, how are they doing with the work of QOS for online games?

 

[Voxel]

You just have to try. With real tests i.e. playing your games, not just measuring pings or so. QoS from QCA used by NETGEAR is working with my build. The same as with stock.

Your settings (stock-->voxel and revert voxel-->stock) should be kept. Not necessary to reconfigure from the scratch.

Voxel.

 

[Sitkin]

You just have to try. With real tests i.e. playing your games, not just measuring pings or so. QoS from QCA used by NETGEAR is working with my build. The same as with stock.

Your settings (stock-->voxel and revert voxel-->stock) should be kept. Not necessary to reconfigure from the scratch.

Voxel.

Thanks for the answer. In fact, I was afraid that this is exactly the answer I'll get) Just as strange - hundreds of people use your firmware and other assemblies, such as ddwrt and openwrt, and you can not even find a banal comparison of these firmware anywhere on the Internet. Simply, the R7800 positions itself as a gaming router, but nobody talks about the game. Thanks again for your hard work. If someone has information on the topic - do not be shy - write here)

 

[Voxel]

Thanks for the answer. In fact, I was afraid that this is exactly the answer I'll get) Just as strange - hundreds of people use your firmware and other assemblies, such as ddwrt and openwrt, and you can not even find a banal comparison of these firmware anywhere on the Internet. Simply, the R7800 positions itself as a gaming router, but nobody talks about the game. Thanks again for your hard work. If someone has information on the topic - do not be shy - write here)

Well, I know people from UK who prefer my build exactly for games (I am not gamer) and who use QoS for this. But there is no definite answer to question re: "what firmware is better". Depends on many factors including your specific environment and concrete ISP, connection type etc. Everybody decides himself after own experience and tests.

Voxel.

 

[Sitkin]

Well, I know people from UK who prefer my build exactly for games (I am not gamer) and who use QoS for this. But there is no definite answer to question re: "what firmware is better". Depends on many factors including your specific environment and concrete ISP, connection type etc. Everybody decides himself after own experience and tests.

Voxel.

Thanks again for the answer. At the weekend I'll try to understand this issue. I think that my experience will be very interesting to all those present at this forum.

 

[Razor512]

You can spend a while fine tuning to get the QOS set just right, but if you want to keep the pings low, you could set the download and upload settings to 70% of your actual WAN throughput. it will make things slower, but for low bandwidth things like games, it will also mean that your ping will not really go up, even if you are torrenting in the background.

Only annoyance is that there is no fast or one click solution to hopping between 2 different QOS settings.

 

[Sitkin]

You can spend a while fine tuning to get the QOS set just right, but if you want to keep the pings low, you could set the download and upload settings to 70% of your actual WAN throughput. it will make things slower, but for low bandwidth things like games, it will also mean that your ping will not really go up, even if you are torrenting in the background.

Only annoyance is that there is no fast or one click solution to hopping between 2 different QOS settings.

Thanks for reply!
I will definitely try to do it. And have you tried tuning the QOS band so? In fact, I tried to include 14 HD movies at the same time when playing Battlefield 1 and my ping fluctuated within 1-2 milliseconds. All this on the original firmware R7800. But if setting the bandwidth at 70% will still improve the situation - it's just a bomb)

 

[Sitkin]

By the way, there is such a function of switching between the settings of full bandwidth qos and limited. Only not in 1 click, but in 2 clicks - choose a tick and click apply. All. Your parameters change and you do not have to re-define the bandwidth using speedtest)

 

[System Error Message]

about QoS, its really about managing your connection. Giving games more priority ensures they have bandwidth and are processed first.

Im not sure what netgear offers but i suggest giving more priority to your games. Bandwidth limits are good for videos and files.

 

[Razor512]

Depending on the model, you will often get a predefined set of QOS rules for which there is no way to really see inside of the set in order to determine what it is prioritizing, the only hope is that it is de-prioritizing certain traffic below that of uncategorized traffic, e.g., ensuring that even if it doesn't recognize your game that it would at least still have a higher priority than a torrent download.

 

[Trikein]

I think there might be some confusion on what QoS is. First, there are two kinds of QoS, the quality of service in your network, and how that relates to the network you are sending/recieving from. Think of your router and local network as your driveway and roads on your land. Your ISP or the network you are connecting to are the other roads in your area. Most ISP don't listen to QoS packet flags from customer's devices(CPE). Any QoS used on their network is for traffic management and priority for their phone or video products. However you can still slow down traffic coming off your "driveway" so it doesn't cause as much congestion merging onto the road. This should only be done if doing this benefits you in some ways. It can help with bufferbloat, and the latency seen from that, if you use your own VOIP service or host a server requiring high bandwidth. If you are just gaming, most of the traffic is UDP, which doesn't use error correction to help reduce latency. If you run tests and your speed, latency and bufferbloat is good, but latency to one or several servers are bad, then QoS will NOT help. For that, run tracert to the servers to check the downstream, and rung a trace from their server's looking glass to check for problems on the upstream. Most game server problems are from the upstream and the bandwidth the game servers are buying from their providers. This doesn't apply the same way of course to P2P games.

Another thing some people get confused about is the overlap between QoS and port triggering. In most routers, adding a QoS rule for a certain port excludes that port from the router's firewall. In this way it can help with programs that request outbound traffic on private ports. However it does not tell the router where to route the packet between WAN>LAN. That requires some kind of NAT tunneling like UPnP. However UPnP is a automated system, and as such can become bogged down and in general uses up router resources. In this way setting up port forwarding instead of using UPnP can help in situations where you see latency on your network when playing the game. However on most routers, you either have to pick UPnP or use custom routes(port forwarding) for all non standard inbound traffic. I myself disable UPnP on my network and use it as a learning tool to see what devices use it and how to get them to work without it. I had to get a printer to work with Google Cloud Print and a Chromebook without local drivers and it was NOT easy. Keep this in mind if you disable UPnP.

 

[Sitkin]

Hello. Here comes the time of my promised review of Voxel firmware. To begin with, I really liked the fact that it can become official and is also updated via the genie interface without any problems.
After I installed it, I found almost no difference from the original, except that the other digits in the upper corner with the revision number of the firmware. I can not say exactly, but it's possible that the genie interface works a little faster than the official one. But it is not exactly)

Since I installed the Voxel firmware exclusively for games on the PS4, then it will mostly go about it. The day after the installation, I ran tests on the DSLreports website to test bufferbloats. Frankly, the Voxels firmware had more high bursts than the official firmware, and sometimes they reached 70. The official maximum was 7-8ms. As for the games themselves, I honestly did not notice a big difference. I do not know if it's become better, but at least it's not worse)

But, unfortunately, after a few days, I found a very serious flaw in the firmware from Voxel (I installed the latest version at that time 38SF). The thing is that usually when I play PS 4, which is connected via LAN, my wife plays Heart Stone on the laptop via WiFi. In short, I do not know why, but when we launched BF Hardline on PS4, and a single campaign, the Internet on Wi-fi became unavailable. We even thought that we had run out of the Internet and needed to pay for it. But when we turned off the console, the Internet appeared.

The next day we turned on Battlefield 1 on ps4 and during the game my wife said that wi-fi was gone again. What was my surprise when I saw that now there were not just problems with access, but in general the signal from the router 5GHz disappeared. That is, as if the router did not work at all. I was frightened of this, because it seemed that my R7800 just broke down and stopped distributing wi-fi. But when we turned off the console - the 5GHz wi-fi signal is available again so that it can be caught on our laptops.

After that, I naturally installed back the firmware and a miracle - everything began to work like a clock. I play online games, at the same time my wife plays online games and we watch youtube in parallel at the same time. And without delay!

So I can say one thing - the firmware from Voxel is good, but it does not suit me and those who play online games. Maybe it has some problems with Qos. Thank you for reading my tedious and long report)))

 

[Sitkin]

I think there might be some confusion on what QoS is. First, there are two kinds of QoS, the quality of service in your network, and how that relates to the network you are sending/recieving from. Think of your router and local network as your driveway and roads on your land. Your ISP or the network you are connecting to are the other roads in your area. Most ISP don't listen to QoS packet flags from customer's devices(CPE). Any QoS used on their network is for traffic management and priority for their phone or video products. However you can still slow down traffic coming off your "driveway" so it doesn't cause as much congestion merging onto the road. This should only be done if doing this benefits you in some ways. It can help with bufferbloat, and the latency seen from that, if you use your own VOIP service or host a server requiring high bandwidth. If you are just gaming, most of the traffic is UDP, which doesn't use error correction to help reduce latency. If you run tests and your speed, latency and bufferbloat is good, but latency to one or several servers are bad, then QoS will NOT help. For that, run tracert to the servers to check the downstream, and rung a trace from their server's looking glass to check for problems on the upstream. Most game server problems are from the upstream and the bandwidth the game servers are buying from their providers. This doesn't apply the same way of course to P2P games.

Another thing some people get confused about is the overlap between QoS and port triggering. In most routers, adding a QoS rule for a certain port excludes that port from the router's firewall. In this way it can help with programs that request outbound traffic on private ports. However it does not tell the router where to route the packet between WAN>LAN. That requires some kind of NAT tunneling like UPnP. However UPnP is a automated system, and as such can become bogged down and in general uses up router resources. In this way setting up port forwarding instead of using UPnP can help in situations where you see latency on your network when playing the game. However on most routers, you either have to pick UPnP or use custom routes(port forwarding) for all non standard inbound traffic. I myself disable UPnP on my network and use it as a learning tool to see what devices use it and how to get them to work without it. I had to get a printer to work with Google Cloud Print and a Chromebook without local drivers and it was NOT easy. Keep this in mind if you disable UPnP.

Thanks for clarifying. I roughly understand what Qos is and what I need it for. But now I am fully armed, after your explanation. But this thread is not really about that. I just want to figure out which firmware will be ideal for online games and why. But all the same I will be glad to any answers and dialogues ) Thanks again!

 

[Trikein]

There is no firmware version "ideal" for games. Firmware updates add features, bug fixes, and security patches to the stock firmware. There may be certain updates that fix/break QoS in certain ways, but if you aren't using QoS yet, this shouldn't matter. In general, it's a good idea to be running the latest firmware for your model router. If some reason that update makes something not work, that can be fixed or you can revert to a earlier version, but you need to know WHY you are reverting.

Did you maybe mean performance difference between stock firmware and 3rd party firmware?

 

[Sitkin]

There is no firmware version "ideal" for games. Firmware updates add features, bug fixes, and security patches to the stock firmware. There may be certain updates that fix/break QoS in certain ways, but if you aren't using QoS yet, this shouldn't matter. In general, it's a good idea to be running the latest firmware for your model router. If some reason that update makes something not work, that can be fixed or you can revert to a earlier version, but you need to know WHY you are reverting.

Did you maybe mean performance difference between stock firmware and 3rd party firmware?

Oh, that's really interesting. I do not quite understand you, but I expect that you will help me to understand this deeper
1) You write that the firmware does not affect the quality of games in any way and that it is almost unimportant what kind of firmware do you have - official, dd-wrt or Lede? Do I get it right? In this case, it is not entirely clear why there is still such a variety of different firmware.
2) If there is no perfect firmware for games for my R7800, then it turns out that the quality of the game is affected only by the router's hardware? Previously it seemed to me that everything was exactly the opposite (
3) I do not really need to understand the difference in the official firmware and firmware of third-party manufacturers. Although this is also quite interesting. But first of all I want to understand what kind of firmware to put on my R7800 router from all the variety and what parameters to set so that my game with the connected router would not be inferior in quality to the LAN cable connected directly to PS4. I think now you understand me.
Thank you for your responses

 

[Trikein]

1. Different kinds of firmware may possibly make a difference depending on how certain features work and are implemented on that firmware. However, no matter what kind of firmware you use, it should be the latest of THAT type of firmware. For example, Merlin firmware just takes the stock firmware and adds a few things, so it won't be very different from the stock firmware. dd-WRT is a bit more robust and meant for power users, and different kinds of dd-WRT offer different kinds of QoS and other features that "might" make a difference.

2. Think of it like gaming on a desktop. Does the OS matter? Will a Mac running OSX play the same kind of games as a PC running Windows 10? Ofcourse not. However there are still people who find ways to game on Macs, and Linux and even mobile operating systems(iOS,Android,etc). There is a flavor for everyone and everyone can hypothetically make their flavor do whatever they want to, just some do it easier than others. However no matter which OS you use, you want to make sure you are using the latest drivers and updates. There are some exceptions, like when a certain update break something, but you troubleshoot that after that fact by isolating the problem and looking at release notes for changes that caused the break. Then you revert back to that driver (or firmware version) that doesn't have that specific issue. However there isn't any update "version" of Windows 7(for example) that works better for gaming then another. I mean there may be, but it's because of the specific changes made in service pack(SP) update. I guess that is where the analogy breaks down, but I think it still describes some of the story.

Based on your feedback, I think it might be wise to stay with the most recent stock firmware, and work on any issues you have with that first. If something specific doesn't work or causes problems, I can then suggest different firmware that might help.

 

[Voxel]

Merlin firmware just takes the stock firmware and adds a few things, so it won't be very different from the stock firmware. dd-WRT is a bit more robust and meant for power users

Very debatable assertion. RMerlin adds a lot of new features and use significant optimization. And regarding reliability (and speed) vs DD-WRT I'd vote for his version. For gamer too.

Voxel.

 

[Trikein]

My main point is there is no one type of firmware or version that is better for gaming then another.

 

[avtella]

At least for this device, OpenWRT/LEDE is actually more robust for the R7800 than DD-WRT, considering LEDE has Cake QoS which performs extremely well which isn’t even available on DD-WRT. I believe they also use an older kernel than LEDE. It doesn’t mean I can generalize and say LEDE is necessarily better than the DD-WRT as these guys put a lot of work into these devices, better to say they have different approaches and performance depends on device in consideration. In regards to Broadcom devices for example DD-WRT actually does better as they have an agreement I believe with Broadcom for drivers while LEDE doesn’t even support WiFi on the 4366 based units.

Having said that, stock derived firmwares in many cases usually perform better due to hardware NAT acceleration and also WiFi due to proprietary drivers. Things like improved CPU optimizations, newer packages, some extra features etc seen in open source can sometimes also added into stock derived firmwares by devs like RMerlin and Voxel. In addition newer models seem less and less open source friendly so this approach seems like the best of both worlds.