I just want to be able to game while people torrent

[imdabes]

I feel like I've been trying to get QoS to work for me for literally years now.

My expecation is that if someone decides to download an 8GB torrent while I'm on Xbox LIVE playing Gears of War, that the game doesn't slow to a crawl. I have tried setting up QoS on my WRT54GL, WRT610n, and most recently an ASUS RT-N66U. I have never seen real-time online games be playable while someone downloads a torrent, irrespective of how I configured QoS.

The results here are extremely promising. The NETGEAR R7500 has "dynamic QoS" which is just StreamBoost under the hood. This seems like an answer to my problems, and even better I don't seem to have to configure it.

However the R7500 seems to have its own problems, as it apparently has subpar range especially for its price. This is in addition to it being almost $300. But to be honest I'd gladly pay that much if it did what I wanted.

I am also looking at the R7000 as it's $100 cheaper. It has "advanced QoS for gaming" but I don't really understand what the entails. I know that it's not StreamBoost; it seems to be "upstream QoS". I don't know what that gets me or why it might be better for gaming. But what I'd like to know is if it can allow me to attain the same ends as the R7500's dynamic QoS if I configure it right.

All-in-all I just want what I described earlier: if someone starts a torrent while I'm gaming, I don't mind a small increase in latency as long as it stays within a playable threshold and doesn't cause me to get killed. What I'm used to experiencing is the game becoming unplayable. Torrents are really worst-case scenario; people streaming video often affect my games as well. And someone is always streaming video.

The other thing is that we have around 30 wireless clients between phones, consoles, tablets, laptops, and PCs. My RTN66U runs pretty hot and I wonder if I don't need something beefier.

If the easiest way to attain this is the R7500 then I'm with it, but I'm open to any other router suggestions from any manufacturer that will help.

 

[sinshiva]

with 'classic' qos, set game ports to highest, don't add torrent ports and call it a day

 

[imdabes]

I don't think Xbox LIVE always operates on the same ports. There's a couple of standard ports that it uses, but it will open random ports via UPnP if there's more than one Xbox on the network, which there is.

I can go by MAC address, but this also doesn't work because people use those same consoles to access Netflix and Hulu, so prioritizing the entire console doesn't prioritize gaming traffic over streaming traffic.

 

[sinshiva]

yeah, you're probably sol if you are relying on UPnP without layer7 QoS capabilities.

if you can get rid of UPnP, i know xbl tries to use some ports just above 3074. i've seen traffic from xboxes on like 3075, for example. they really need a more in-depth guide as to what ports can be forwarded in the case of multiple xboxes. i'm not sure if you can just forward 3075 to a second console or if it's only used in cases where the xbox is set as DMZ

in order to ensure "open nat", i've forwarded udp/3074:3080 (probably more than necessary) and used the same range with QoS. this was required with CoD, for example.

 

[trueshot]

I have the R7500 Nighthawk and it does correctly put game consoles in the Highest priority. However, it has bugs that you should be aware of before considering it. It has trouble identifying all the laptops on my network and I've read about major issues identifying VOIP traffic. Bobsilver reviewed this router at http://www.avsforum.com/forum/39-networking-media-servers-content-streaming/1669586-netgear-nighthawk-x4-r7500-ac2350-extreme-router-thread.html and concluded that the dynamic QoS works especially well with bittorrent and homes with small pipes. As always though your mileage may vary. According to netgear marketing, the router is device aware, location aware, application aware.Sounds awesome, not sure how true it is. I think this router would fix your problem at the expense of certain devices not being recognized. I have a large pipe so I can't say with certainty. I've tried torrenting, gaming, streaming on a bunch of devices as a stress test and had good results.

I also tried the D-Link 880L, and it had an exceedingly streamlined setup. It has rudimentary but easy to use QoS. For many, this is exactly how QoS should be. It does nothing like automatic device detection. You just drag and drop your devices into predefined categories for priority (Highest, High, Medium) and all other unidentified devices are low. It throttles bandwidth based on these categories. It worked when I tested it, and would certainly guarantee your torrents never grab all the bandwidth if you set your console to the Highest priority and leave the torrenting PCs on low priority. I didn't go this route because I didn't want to have to adjust these priorities if friends visited or if my brother was home from school.

 

[imdabes]

I just received the R7500 yesterday and am running it now. I have yet to run a test where I torrent and game at the same time. On some level, I'm afraid to, because if the results are disappointing, there's not a lot of options.

My connection speed is 50/5, so for practical purposes there's more than enough bandwidth for everyone. I wouldn't consider that to be a small band, but considering some people have gigabit fiber lines (and pay less for them), "small" is really all relative. Still, it's a far cry from 6Mbps DSL. Even if I had a 200Mbps line, a well-seeded torrent or a Steam game download will consume all of the bandwidth.

I was worried about range based on some of the reviews, but actually I'm getting stronger signals than I did with my ASUS RT-N66U. Which I feel like I should, because this router is enormous. I am currently using the N66U as a client bridge for my Xbox 360, PC, and PS3.

Also, we don't have VoIP on our network so the limitations thereof don't affect me so much. One thing that's annoying about the dynamic QoS is the lack of manual control. If I want to change the priority of a specific device or service, I can't. I haven't needed to, but I feel like it should be an option. Basically I'm hoping and waiting the firmware will improve or someone will release a custom firmware with a better UI and more options. I've been spoiled by DD-WRT and Asuswrt-merlin, which are highly configurable and have excellent UIs. There is a beta OpenWRT but I'm not going there until more people can vouch for the stability.

 

[stevech]

The 5Mbps upstream is the constraint for gaming latency. I doubt QoS of any sort will get the latency down to what you want, if there's heave usage for other things beside web surfing.

 

[imdabes]

How high does my upstream need to be, then?

 

[stevech]

How high does my upstream need to be, then?

You need less traffic. Whatever speed you pay for, bandwidth hogs will take it.

Auto-schedule the torrents at 3AM.

 

[Nullity]

According to my understanding of QoS, you must limit your upload speed below your real-world maximum. This is to avoid any buffers at your modem (or other network nodes) which will add delay to every packet. You want the network buffering to be controlled exclusively by your QoS-employing router setup. Depending on your situation, you may need to limit your upload to 60% of the real-world maximum, but 80-90% would probably be acceptable.

There's no need to upgrade your connection. The QoS in Tomato firmware by toastman has had great results with connections with less than 1mbit upload.
http://www.linksysinfo.org/index.php?threads/qos-tutorial.68795/

Considering that most of the embedded routers are running Linux, you could setup a QoS configuration yourself by reading through http://lartc.org/



If you want try something different, pfSense (a FreeBSD-based router OS for PC) forum has some example configurations shared by people who ran 100+ person LAN parties, where gaming latencies were optimal while downloads (torrents and Steam) were running simultaneously. So... it is possible.
https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=77388.0

My router is running pfSense and with my 667kbit upload (real-world measurement) limited to 600kbit, my ping to the first hop will fluctuate from 10ms to a maximum of ~60ms. Without QoS/traffic-shaping, my ping is over ~300ms while downloading at maximum.

I'm a QoS newbie, so my knowledge is limited but I will help if I can. Good luck.

 

[htismaqe]

Like Nullity said, it *is* possible but not with stock Netgear firmware.

You'll have to wait until a suitable 3rd party software is available and then set it up.

 

[drawz]

There are cheaper routers with Streamboost that would serve you well. They've also been around a bit longer and likely have bugs fleshed out a bit more.

Zyxel NBG 6716: http://www.zyxel.com/us/en/products_services/nbg6716.shtml?t=p
D-Link DGL-5500:
http://www.dlink.com/us/en/home-solutions/connect/routers/dgl-5500-gaming-router

If I had to pick one, I'd go with Zyxel as the firmware seems a bit better. Both can be found for close to $100.

An alternative is to install OpenWrt on any compatible router and use the available QoS functionality. There are very few configuration options to set and it's goal is to keep latency low for all users. It is based on fq_codel, just like Streamboost. It's not quite as fancy as Streamboost, but my guess is that in practice you wouldn't notice a big difference. If this sounds scary or difficult, stick to one of the above routers.