Setting cable modem priority to highest minimizes latency without QoS enabled

[squimjay]

I have an online multiplayer game I like to play, obviously there will always be some fluctuation, but it seems like latency fluctuates more than I would expect. I have a cable modem in passthrough mode to my RT-AX88U and I have tried QoS off and on and various settings and always felt like something was still off. I found recently that if I set my cable modem device priority to Highest and my gaming devices on High, without QoS enabled, I get more consistently low latency, even with other devices streaming video, web surfing, etc..

My gaming feels much smoother and no more status indicating network problems.

Was curious if anybody else has found similar results.



squimjay
RT-AX88U

 

[Tech9]

How do you set priority for your modem? It's on the WAN side, not LAN.

 

[Crimliar]

@Tech9 I've seen this on dedicated NTL (VirginMedia) cable and Draytek xDSL modems more than once for myself - the setting that is! Not a clue what it's actually doing or how it would do it, but I can vouch that the settings have indeed appeared. It also did not seem to make one jot of difference when changed!

 

[Tech9]

How come device priority is set with no QoS enabled?

Setting device priority in Asuswrt activates Adaptive QoS. It's just one of the duplicated firmware features in Game GUI section to make the router look more Gaming oriented. See below an example on RT-AX86U on stock Asuswrt since I have it running for some tests.

The action:

And the result:

Prioritizing the modem on the WAN side is another question - it's just not possible, unless @squimjay means something else.

 

[squimjay]

How come device priority is set with no QoS enabled?

Setting device priority in Asuswrt activates Adaptive QoS. It's just one of the duplicated firmware features in Game GUI section to make the router look more Gaming oriented. See below an example on RT-AX86U on stock Asuswrt since I have it running for some tests.

The action:

View attachment 61181

And the result:

View attachment 61179

Prioritizing the modem on the WAN side is another question - it's just not possible, unless @squimjay means something else.

I'm not using the Game Device Prioritizing, it is Off. I go to the Adaptive QoS tab on the left, and I see a list of devices on my network and then I can drag a priority rating onto devices and click Apply at the bottom. I have verified that after doing this, QoS is still disabled.

 

[squimjay]

@Tech9 I've seen this on dedicated NTL (VirginMedia) cable and Draytek xDSL modems more than once for myself - the setting that is! Not a clue what it's actually doing or how it would do it, but I can vouch that the settings have indeed appeared. It also did not seem to make one jot of difference when changed!

What I'm imagining is happening is that the ASUS sees the modem as a device (even though technically it's just passing traffic through it, it is still connected to the network). Then you can still prioritize devices without actually doing QoS, and because I assigned the highest to the modem, it's passing maybe DNS, ICMP, etc at highest priority instead of default and having the same priority as every other device and then it's working more like it should. I'm not claiming this is a magic setting that reduces latency. I think it's just making it work more consistently.

Interesting that you saw similar, but did not make a difference in your setup. Maybe your modems were smarter in how they handle passthrough so it wasn't an issue to begin with?

I am not a network engineer, just putting out what I did and my observations.

 

[Tech9]

I am not a network engineer, just putting out what I did and my observations.

Not sure what you did and what do you see as a result. Device prioritization activates QoS for sure. Your modem is not part of Asus created network. If you see the modem as a device on your LAN side - something is totally wrong with your connections and you better look at it closely.

 

[Kingp1n]

I'm not using the Game Device Prioritizing, it is Off. I go to the Adaptive QoS tab on the left, and I see a list of devices on my network and then I can drag a priority rating onto devices and click Apply at the bottom. I have verified that after doing this, QoS is still disabled.

You mean you move (drag & drop) device priority around in this section?

 

[Tech9]

You mean you move (drag & drop) device priority around in this section?

System Log when you do this:

 

[squimjay]

Sorry, I could not access my router to update. Here is what I changed and you can see my QoS is off

 

[Tech9]

Which device is your modem? The first one on top?

 

[squimjay]

Which device is your modem? The first one on top?

The first one that is red, which is set to highest priority. Second one is gaming device, set at medium, but I have another one set at high (not turned on at the moment).

 

[Tech9]

Your cable connections are wrong. The reason you couldn't access the router's GUI and the indicators on top show WAN disconnected with warning notification perhaps for your DDNS service. Your router right now is a wrong configured switch + access point on the ISP device network.

 

[dave14305]

These priority colors do absolutely nothing unless Traditional QoS is enabled. Any perceived improvement is a placebo.

How certain are you the red device is your modem? I never see my modem visible anywhere on my router. What I see on the other end of my WAN connection is the ISP’s next hop device (not in my home).

 

[Tech9]

From the information provided so far - most likely the ISP modem/router is connected to a LAN port.

 

[squimjay]

My mistake, I thought I had verified the mac address, but it was not my modem. I also that it was weird that it would show up in that list. So although placebo makes sense, it did improve latency stability.

Would be nice if setting priority on devices auto enabled QoS like it does when you turn on Game Prioritization.


Thanks for your replies.

 

[squimjay]

From the information provided so far - most likely the ISP modem/router is connected to a LAN port.

It's correctly connected to the WAN port, and modem is in passthrough mode. My mistake was in not verifying the mac address properly.

 

[Tech9]

It's correctly connected to the WAN port

Your GUI screenshot above shows no WAN connection and a warning notification. Check what's going on there first. Your main GUI page shows WAN information. With ISP device in passthrough or bridge mode you must have public or CGNAT WAN IP address from your ISP.

Would be nice if setting priority on devices auto enabled QoS

Asuswrt is known for lack of dependencies. You may have completely contradicting settings and they will be accepted.

 

[squimjay]

Your GUI screenshot above shows no WAN connection and a warning notification. Check what's going on there first. Your main GUI page shows WAN information. With ISP device in passthrough or bridge mode you must have public or CGNAT WAN IP address from your ISP.

Yeah, it shows correctly on the main GUI page. That broken image is incorrect, I have a public wan ip address from my isp. I have also recently factory reset and don't have any additional modules or customizations made. I did just update to 3004.388.8_2 and the picture shows connected like it should now.