New to networking - does my router support CAKE?

[360NoScoper]

This entire thread was painful to read & somewhat cringe-worthy. The subject of latency is one of the most difficult to explain & often one of the most difficult to solve.
What noobs & gamers need to understand is there is always a certain amount of latency because NOTHING is really possible in real-time.
So depending on your physical distance to the server(s) being used... there will be a delay which gets additional time tacked on depending on various hardware & network congestion or traffic.
+ online games are not typically sending LARGE amounts of data (back-&-forth)... they are more sensitive to expecting the smaller data packets as close to real-time as possible.
However, in your case (as is the case with many other people) you have,
"200 download, supposed to be 20 upload but it's 10 most of the time."
Do you know how easily one connected device or client can saturate all your available 10-20Mbps... the answer is EASILY.
So you are on the right track with enabling a form of QOS but a better solution may in fact be another ISP.
If you stay with the one you have now... you basically need to filter the QOS but indicate that Gaming activity is the HIGHEST Priority.
IMO FlexQOS is doable... but getting irritable or irate because the solution to your problem isn't easy...
Is highly illogical, (to quote Mr. Spock)

I'm not silly. Physics dictates there's always a delay. I'm not asking my ping in CoD to drop from 40ms to 0ms. I just want all the ping spikes I have in games and from online Bufferbloat/ping tests to be gone. I'm okay with a 40ms ping so as long as it's stable, but these constant spikes making my experience feel very inconsistent. I'm going to look into FlexQOS. Based on your experience, which QOS/SQM is the best at reducing/eliminating ping spikes in games when multiple devices are being used?

 

[360NoScoper]

I would replace this router with RT-AX68U. Your existing AC clients will work better with AC Wave 2 radios and with lower latency.



Bandwidth Limiter is incompatible with NAT acceleration. This may further increase your latency - all the traffic is processed by the CPU.



If the ISP is bad (too many people share the same bandwidth), no QoS on your side will help improving the situation, unfortunately.

Will this RT-AX68U lower latency for wired connections as well or just wireless?

Damn so my bandwidth limiter wasn't actually helping me. Guess I fell victim to placebo.

Yeah my ISP is meh. Looking to upgrade to BT's FTTP 500 package.

 

[Skiron]

I was first on the Internet around 1995 using dial-up. I started playing online first shooter games around 1998, mainly Quake II. You got lag then, real bad. I have seen people try everything, but nothing ever worked(*). Then came the *DSL era. People's pings came down, servers became faster, but people STILL got lag. People still tried everything (even server side code enhancements), but nothing ever worked(*).

You will not beat lag.

(*) Lag depends on your connection, routers on the way, the server load, atmospheric pressure, all sorts of things. I see you are with Virgin Media. The are one of the worse providers in the UK for quality.

You best bet, if you can, is to hook up your gaming devices via ethernet (playing over home Wifi is NEVER used by serious gamers - too laggy). Other options are to get a decent provider, even FTTP if possible. The only other alternative is you have to learn to play the game with anticipation and beat the lag before it happens (which is what people had to learn in my day, and some got jolly good at it!).

Any QoS will not beat it, as the lag has already happened down the line.

Bottom line:

You will not beat LAG!

 

[360NoScoper]

I was first on the Internet around 1995 using dial-up. I started playing online first shooter games around 1998, mainly Quake II. You got lag then, real bad. I have seen people try everything, but nothing ever worked(*). Then came the *DSL era. People's pings came down, servers became faster, but people STILL got lag. People still tried everything (even server side code enhancements), but nothing ever worked(*).

You will not beat lag.

(*) Lag depends on your connection, routers on the way, the server load, atmospheric pressure, all sorts of things. I see you are with Virgin Media. The are one of the worse providers in the UK for quality.

You best bet, if you can, is to hook up your gaming devices via ethernet (playing over home Wifi is NEVER used by serious gamers - too laggy). Other options are to get a decent provider, even FTTP if possible. The only other alternative is you have to learn to play the game with anticipation and beat the lag before it happens (which is what people had to learn in my day, and some got jolly good at it!).

Any QoS will not beat it, as the lag has already happened down the line.

Bottom line:

You will not beat LAG!

I'm currently using triple shielded Ethernet cables, so I don't get additional ping spikes from using Wi-Fi.

I tried using the Traditional QOS but I think it's bugged as the bandwidth limit doesn't work. Gonna maybe try Adaptive QOS, if not, try to instal FlexQOS. Deffo want to upgrade to FTTP. Less issues theoretically as not using an electrical signal that can be affected by all sorts of environmental factors.

 

[capncybo]

I'm not silly. Physics dictates there's always a delay. I'm not asking my ping in CoD to drop from 40ms to 0ms. I just want all the ping spikes I have in games and from online Bufferbloat/ping tests to be gone. I'm okay with a 40ms ping so as long as it's stable, but these constant spikes making my experience feel very inconsistent. I'm going to look into FlexQOS. Based on your experience, which QOS/SQM is the best at reducing/eliminating ping spikes in games when multiple devices are being used?

I didn't mean to belittle or imply that you were "silly" as I can completely empathize with most networking frustrations.
I've had my own share of networking problems & they can be challenging & sometimes darn-near impossible to resolve.
But to basically mirror what Skiron pointed out...
You can only eliminate the additional ping spikes & delays which are introduced via "you're own networking hardware & devices".
Obviously any delays outside your network infrastructure will be unavoidable.
An inconsistant or unreliable ISP & your problem will always remain.

Tech9 had suggested you could upgrade your router hardware to a RT-AX68U & minimize the ping spikes.
And according to the following review... he is most likely correct.
Note: Pay special attention to the section: The leader in latency & the circular animated Graph.

Asus RT-AX86U Review: The Best Wi-Fi Router for Gamers

Latency is king when it comes to gaming routers, and the RT-AX86U has the lowest lag of any router I've ever tasted.

www.cnet.com

Myself I was somewhat reluctant to recommend you spend more money because as you can see from the latency graphs...
Your 40ms ping is already close to about as good as you'll ever see.
I'm not really a gamer myself so... I'll let someone more experienced assist you regarding QOS.
In my household I have a part-time step son who has been the BIG gamer in the family.
However, he's currently 17 & has always had an affinity for "one word answers & grunts etc" so obtaining any substantial quality of network latency is difficult.
I get... GOOD or FINE.
I've even tried pretending to be hip & asked if he ever "laggs-out while gaming online"
Anyways I've made his PS-5 use a static IP & use a custom FlexQOS rule to basically give that device the highest priority.
However just as others have said...
Plug in the game consoles with Ethernet if possible.
WiFi will always introduce some additive latency it has too + it's much more subject to noise interference which will obviously result in additional latency.
If you have to utilize wifi make sure it's at least WiFi 5 or newer because 2.4 is even subject to microwaves & they tend to be used somewhat frequently.

Good Luck,
I think I'll go microwave some PIZZA & watch my WYZE-CAM streams disconnect... LOL

 

[Tech9]

Will this RT-AX68U lower latency for wired connections as well or just wireless?

Wireless. With NAT acceleration enabled wired connections latency is going to be close to the best your ISP can offer.

and from online Bufferbloat/ping tests to be gone.

Most are not accurate and at line saturation speeds - not real use conditions. Don't waste your time, look at real use issues.

Looking to upgrade to BT's FTTP 500 package.

Perhaps the best you can do. A new router with better radios will be an additional improvement, but it can't fix current bad ISP.

 

[DJones]

You can use bandwidth limiter to fix your bufferbloat it’s just hard… I got a lot of help but my bufferbloat was fixed.

Solved - Bandwidth Limiter QoS

So I was wondering if their is a way to set the queuing discipline for Bandwidth Limiter to FQ_Codel? The problem I’m having is I have a lot of devices on a slow internet connection and my bufferbloat score rates a F. I want the ability to hard limit devices that eat bandwidth like a smart tv...

www.snbforums.com

Here’s the note I made with the gist of the research we did on that thread. Obviously you’d need to tweak it and I’m not smart enough to tell you how to do that sadly. Lol. It was configured for a 10.89 down 1 Meg up adsl two plus network with most non critical devices bandwidth limited to 3Mbps down 0.9 up leaving open or limited to 5Mbps the devices I needed more throughput.


“tc -s qdisc ls”

When using this ^ command after QoS service restart I can see the changes that were made when manually configuring FQ_Codel


Script itself is this located at:
“/jffs/scripts/qos-start”. And is executable “chmod a+rx /jffs/scripts/qos-start”

JFFS Custom Configs & Scripts is enabled in gui.

Script:

#!/bin/sh

sed -Ei '/TQAU parent 2:[3-9][0-9] .*SCH/ s/$/ target 95ms interval 190ms/g' /tmp/qos

 

[360NoScoper]

I didn't mean to belittle or imply that you were "silly" as I can completely empathize with most networking frustrations.
I've had my own share of networking problems & they can be challenging & sometimes darn-near impossible to resolve.
But to basically mirror what Skiron pointed out...
You can only eliminate the additional ping spikes & delays which are introduced via "you're own networking hardware & devices".
Obviously any delays outside your network infrastructure will be unavoidable.
An inconsistant or unreliable ISP & your problem will always remain.

Tech9 had suggested you could upgrade your router hardware to a RT-AX68U & minimize the ping spikes.
And according to the following review... he is most likely correct.
Note: Pay special attention to the section: The leader in latency & the circular animated Graph.

Asus RT-AX86U Review: The Best Wi-Fi Router for Gamers

Latency is king when it comes to gaming routers, and the RT-AX86U has the lowest lag of any router I've ever tasted.

www.cnet.com

Myself I was somewhat reluctant to recommend you spend more money because as you can see from the latency graphs...
Your 40ms ping is already close to about as good as you'll ever see.
I'm not really a gamer myself so... I'll let someone more experienced assist you regarding QOS.
In my household I have a part-time step son who has been the BIG gamer in the family.
However, he's currently 17 & has always had an affinity for "one word answers & grunts etc" so obtaining any substantial quality of network latency is difficult.
I get... GOOD or FINE.
I've even tried pretending to be hip & asked if he ever "laggs-out while gaming online"
Anyways I've made his PS-5 use a static IP & use a custom FlexQOS rule to basically give that device the highest priority.
However just as others have said...
Plug in the game consoles with Ethernet if possible.
WiFi will always introduce some additive latency it has too + it's much more subject to noise interference which will obviously result in additional latency.
If you have to utilize wifi make sure it's at least WiFi 5 or newer because 2.4 is even subject to microwaves & they tend to be used somewhat frequently.

Good Luck,
I think I'll go microwave some PIZZA & watch my WYZE-CAM streams disconnect... LOL

Okay so I've tried both Traditional QOS and Adaptive QOS on my RT-AC66U_B1... none of them do anything. No matter what device I test DSLR and Warvareform bufferbloat tests - they all report bad results both unloaded and loaded.

I looked this up and many people are reporting QOS doesn't work on ASUS routers for the last few years now... great. What a useless brick my router is huh?

 

[360NoScoper]

Wireless. With NAT acceleration enabled wired connections latency is going to be close to the best your ISP can offer.



Most are not accurate and at line saturation speeds - not real use conditions. Don't waste your time, look at real use issues.



Perhaps the best you can do. A new router with better radios will be an additional improvement, but it can't fix current bad ISP.

It's not really the point. I can browse this forum and YouTube, look at people's QOS results and they have A+ with no latency spikes above a few ms. That's the performance I want... yet none of the QOS on this pos useless ASUS router do anything to improve this.

 

[360NoScoper]

You can use bandwidth limiter to fix your bufferbloat it’s just hard… I got a lot of help but my bufferbloat was fixed.

Solved - Bandwidth Limiter QoS

So I was wondering if their is a way to set the queuing discipline for Bandwidth Limiter to FQ_Codel? The problem I’m having is I have a lot of devices on a slow internet connection and my bufferbloat score rates a F. I want the ability to hard limit devices that eat bandwidth like a smart tv...

www.snbforums.com

Here’s the note I made with the gist of the research we did on that thread. Obviously you’d need to tweak it and I’m not smart enough to tell you how to do that sadly. Lol. It was configured for a 10.89 down 1 Meg up adsl two plus network with most non critical devices bandwidth limited to 3Mbps down 0.9 up leaving open or limited to 5Mbps the devices I needed more throughput.


“tc -s qdisc ls”

When using this ^ command after QoS service restart I can see the changes that were made when manually configuring FQ_Codel


Script itself is this located at:
“/jffs/scripts/qos-start”. And is executable “chmod a+rx /jffs/scripts/qos-start”

JFFS Custom Configs & Scripts is enabled in gui.

Script:

#!/bin/sh

sed -Ei '/TQAU parent 2:[3-9][0-9] .*SCH/ s/$/ target 95ms interval 190ms/g' /tmp/qos

Appreciate this but that's way too complex for me.

 

[DJones]

Appreciate this but that's way too complex for me.

Honestly idk if non HND like yours even has FQ_Codel baked into bandwidth limiter anyhow.

Only other thing I can think of as a work around might be to try ddwrt or another custom firmware. Idk if cake is available or what features it actually offers, I know on some models cake is available. Know before even attempting ddwrt IS perpetually beta only so their be bugs and updating it to newer firmware of ddwrt is a gamble I’ve broken some routers using it. But when it works it’s nicer then stock on some cheaper routers. Unlike ASUS Merlin it’s completely custom. https://wiki.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Asus_RT-AC66U_B1#google_vignette

 

[360NoScoper]

Honestly idk if non HND like yours even has FQ_Codel baked into bandwidth limiter anyhow.

Only other thing I can think of as a work around might be to try ddwrt or another custom firmware. Idk if cake is available or what features it actually offers, I know on some models cake is available. Know before even attempting ddwrt IS perpetually beta only so their be bugs and updating it to newer firmware of ddwrt is a gamble I’ve broken some routers using it. But when it works it’s nicer then stock on some cheaper routers. Unlike ASUS Merlin it’s completely custom. https://wiki.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Asus_RT-AC66U_B1#google_vignette

Thank you. So is it likely that my router is too low-end to have proper QOS implemented like FQ_Codel? If so, is it guaranteed to be a part of the HND models? Btw, are the AX range of ASUS routers "HND"?

As I don't want to risk bricking this router, I likely won't try installing new custom software on it unless the process is somewhat noob friendly (no lines of random code).

 

[DJones]

Thank you. So is it likely that my router is too low-end to have proper QOS implemented like FQ_Codel? If so, is it guaranteed to be a part of the HND models? Btw, are the AX range of ASUS routers "HND"?

As I don't want to risk bricking this router, I likely won't try installing new custom software on it unless the process is somewhat noob friendly (no lines of random code).

For the most part ax is HND but their are AC router that are HND asleep it’s the architecture that runs it I assume.


Older platform:

• RT-AC66U_B1 (same firmware as the RT-AC68U)
• RT-AC68U (including revisions C1 and E1)
• RT-AC68P (same firmware as RT-AC68U)
• RT-AC68UF (same firmware as RT-AC68U)
• RT-AC68U V3 (same firmware as RT-AC68U)
• RT-AC1900 (same firmware as RT-AC68U)
• RT-AC1900P (same firmware as RT-AC68U)
• RT-AC88U
• RT-AC3100
• RT-AC5300

HND platform:

• RT-AC86U
• RT-AC2900 (same firmware as RT-AC86U)
• GT-AC2900
• RT-AX88U
• GT-AX11000
• RT-AX56U
• RT-AX58U
• RT-AX3000 (same firmware as RT-AX58U)
• RT-AX86U
• RT-AX68U

(Note: the U, R and W variants are all supported, as they are the exact same hardware and firmware, only different marketing SKUs or different case color)

No longer supported:​

• RT-N16
• RT-N66U
• RT-AC66U
• RT-AC56U
• RT-AC87U
• RT-AC3200

 

[360NoScoper]

No ax is not strictly HND it’s the architecture that runs it I assume.


Older platform:

• RT-AC66U_B1 (same firmware as the RT-AC68U)
• RT-AC68U (including revisions C1 and E1)
• RT-AC68P (same firmware as RT-AC68U)
• RT-AC68UF (same firmware as RT-AC68U)
• RT-AC68U V3 (same firmware as RT-AC68U)
• RT-AC1900 (same firmware as RT-AC68U)
• RT-AC1900P (same firmware as RT-AC68U)
• RT-AC88U
• RT-AC3100
• RT-AC5300

HND platform:

• RT-AC86U
• RT-AC2900 (same firmware as RT-AC86U)
• GT-AC2900
• RT-AX88U
• GT-AX11000
• RT-AX56U
• RT-AX58U
• RT-AX3000 (same firmware as RT-AX58U)
• RT-AX86U
• RT-AX68U

(Note: the U, R and W variants are all supported, as they are the exact same hardware and firmware, only different marketing SKUs or different case color)

No longer supported:​

• RT-N16
• RT-N66U
• RT-AC66U
• RT-AC56U
• RT-AC87U
• RT-AC3200

Will a HDN model definitely having a properly working QOS that can achieve an A+ in DLS Reports/Waveform bufferbloat tests?

 

[DJones]

Will a HDN model definitely having a properly working QOS that can achieve an A+ in DLS Reports/Waveform bufferbloat tests?

I have a GT-AX11000 and a RT-AX58U well I’ve never tried cake on the RT-AX58U as it’s being used as a node in my mesh network my main router the AX11000 is HND and definitely supports cake and yes I get a grade A (I’m on adsl2+ my network issues suffer mainly from a slow network) when I use cake. I think part of the reason why cake isn’t supported on the lower end routers is because hardware accelerated nat is disabled when using cake so you need a stronger cpu in the router.

On my AX11000 cake was added to Merlin’s firmware no cake install needed.

• Cake SQM QoS (on newer HND models)

Currently supports Cake on ASUS HND models running ASUSWRT-Merlin firmware version 386.2 and above. Versions prior to 386.2 are supported on the legacy 386 branch or 384 branch.

Meaning on older versions of ASUS Merlin you’d install cake via AMTM through ssh if it’s doesn’t come packed with it in the firmware. Non-HND versions are still incompatible.

CakeQOS - CakeQoS-Merlin v2.0.0

I am happy to announce CakeQOS v2.0.0 is released. It's been overdue for a bit, but recently @dave14305 ironed out the last kink so we should be good to go, and the old menu is back -- perhaps amtm time? Pre-Reqs Currently supports ASUS HND models running ASUSWRT-Merlin firmware version 386.2...

www.snbforums.com

 

[360NoScoper]

I have a GT-AX11000 and a RT-AX58U well I’ve never tried cake on the RT-AX58U as it’s being used as a node in my mesh network my main router the AX11000 is HND and definitely supports cake and yes I get a grade A when I use cake. I think part of the reason why cake isn’t supported on the lower end routers is because hardware accelerated nat is disabled when using cake so you need a stronger cpu in the router.

On my AX11000 cake was added to Merlin’s firmware no cake install needed.

• Cake SQM QoS (on newer HND models)

Currently supports Cake on ASUS HND models running ASUSWRT-Merlin firmware version 386.2 and above. Versions prior to 386.2 are supported on the legacy 386 branch or 384 branch.

Meaning on older versions of ASUS Merlin you’d install cake via AMTM through ssh if it’s doesn’t come packed with it in the firmware. Non-HND versions are still incompatible.

CakeQOS - CakeQoS-Merlin v2.0.0

I am happy to announce CakeQOS v2.0.0 is released. It's been overdue for a bit, but recently @dave14305 ironed out the last kink so we should be good to go, and the old menu is back -- perhaps amtm time? Pre-Reqs Currently supports ASUS HND models running ASUSWRT-Merlin firmware version 386.2...

www.snbforums.com

Cheers. So CAKE isn't supported on my router but what about FQ_Codel? I've read conflicting information now. Some people have stated it's part of Merlin, some say it doesn't work properly (like QOS in general for a lot of ASUS routers), you've said that my router may not support FQ_Codel in its QOS.

Also what's stopping your setup from achieving an A+ in tests?

 

[DJones]

Cheers. So CAKE isn't supported on my router but what about FQ_Codel? I've read conflicting information now. Some people have stated it's part of Merlin, some say it doesn't work properly (like QOS in general for a lot of ASUS routers), you've said that my router may not support FQ_Codel in its QOS.

Also what's stopping your setup from achieving an A+ in tests?

Speed mostly. I’m on a rural pppoe adsl2+ connection with lots of devices in my home using up bandwidth part of the bufferbloat test measures if your network is capable of different scenarios like 4K streaming or video calls. What really bogs down my network is the fact I only have 1Mbit up and after overhead it’s more like 0.90.

Grade A is great compared to D or C when cake is not on or when I’m not using my bandwidth limiter script (whichever I feel is necessary for my network needs)

As for FQ_Codel idk if it’s supported on your model to be frank I’ve no way to know. I know on FlexQoS you get the option of using FQ_Codel or HTB at least on HND models it’s a toggle.

 

[DJones]

Also FQ_Codel alone may not take care of bufferbloat. The script I used modified FQ_Codel to handle bufferbloat manually to match my network speeds which are below the defaults for FQ_Codel. Cake on the other hand figures that all out for you.

 

[DJones]

Traditionally QoS, FlexQoS, and AdaptiveQoS isn’t supposed to necessarily tackle the issues of bufferbloat. But rather it’s focused on allowing all of your devices to share your internet connection fairly in some way or limit certain devices from using too much. I found FlexQoS and AdaptiveQoS to be unreliable at fairly share my vary limited internet connection among devices because some of those devices use https or CDN tunnels which is in some cases is not able to determine the application that’s using the data. CDN/VPN’s are troubling as streaming services like Netflix uses them and it blatantly ignores QoS unless you use Bandwidth Limiter on devices with static ip then the whole device is targeted and limited not just a application.

 

[Tech9]

yet none of the QOS on this pos useless ASUS router do anything to improve this.

No router will magically fix your Internet connection. High ping in games may be coming from servers you connect to. Nothing you can do about it.