Which version of QoS to use for gaming

[Adoz]

Just assigned a static IP address to your console(s) and match them up under "Gaming" rule thru the GUI inside the FlexQoS tab. This will ensure all traffic within gaming is recognized! How many gaming devices do you have?

We have three that are on most of the time. 2 of them being PC's and the other being an Xbox One. Cake seems to be ok but I sometimes get pretty big lag spikes (although it might be Virgin Broadband screwing up atm). Would bandwidth limiter be a good option for a house with multiple gaming devices and streaming services going on at the same time? Or should adaptive QoS do the trick in terms of keeping latency low?

 

[Kingp1n]

We have three that are on most of the time. 2 of them being PC's and the other being an Xbox One. Cake seems to be ok but I sometimes get pretty big lag spikes (although it might be Virgin Broadband screwing up atm). Would bandwidth limiter be a good option for a house with multiple gaming devices and streaming services going on at the same time? Or should adaptive QoS do the trick in terms of keeping latency low?

Start with Adaptive QoS. Set the static IP inside FlexQoS and input as an example: 192.168.1.100/30 (Gaming rule)

Now go to your gaming consoles/PC and assign them the static ip address as such:
1PC: 192.168.1.100
2PC: 192.168.1.101
XBox: 192.168.1.102

If you ever add another console in the future you can assign it as .103

 

[Adoz]

Start with Adaptive QoS. Set the static IP inside FlexQoS and input as an example: 192.168.1.100/30 (Gaming rule)

Now go to your gaming consoles/PC and assign them the static ip address as such:
1PC: 192.168.1.100
2PC: 192.168.1.101
XBox: 192.168.1.102

If you ever add another console in the future you can assign it as .103

Not really sure what I'm doing but is this correct? Just did one device for now.

 

[Kingp1n]

Not really sure what I'm doing but is this correct? Just did one device for now.

View attachment 24616

I believe that looks good...recommend going the FlexQos forum to get more assistance if you have additional questions! Try playing a few games and see the traffic to ensure everything is flowing correctly!

Also, don't forget to assign the static ip address to your device!

 

[Adoz]

I believe that looks good...recommend going the FlexQos forum to get more assistance if you have additional questions! Try playing a few games and see the traffic to ensure everything is flowing correctly!

Also, don't forget to assign the static ip address to your device!

Awesome thanks! Do I need to put in the /30 on the ip? Not sure what that is. I've set an ip to the devices on the router in the DHCP section, is that all I need to do?

 

[Kingp1n]

The /30 will only go inside FlexQoS. Check out this site:

http://www.subnet-calculator.com/cidr.php

The /30 simply adds a range of IP addresses. For instance 192.168.1.100/30 = 192.168.1.100/192.168.1.101/192.168.1.102/192.168.1.103/192.168.1.103

You can use any "mask bits" you like depending on your environment and the range will change. This allows simplicity instead of manual adding 3/5 or 10 separate IP adresses in FlexQoS.

Finally go to your device and check the IP address to ensure it took when you made the change. If not you may need to restart the device.

 

[Adoz]

The /30 will only go inside FlexQoS. Check out this site:

http://www.subnet-calculator.com/cidr.php

The /30 simply adds a range of IP addresses. For instance 192.168.1.100/30 = 192.168.1.100/192.168.1.101/192.168.1.102/192.168.1.103/192.168.1.103

You can use any "mask bits" you like depending on your environment and the range will change. This allows simplicity instead of manual adding 3/5 or 10 separate IP adresses in FlexQoS.

Finally go to your device and check the IP address to ensure it took when you made the change. If not you may need to restart the device.

I think everything is set up! I had a quick look over at the main FlexQoS thread and saw that someone was using a similar setup but had ports 88 and 443 on their iptables rules for Gaming which I think are the main ports used in video games so I went ahead and added that too. Would this work ok? Hopefully everything here looks ok. I had to run a command to get the redirection rules to show as they showed as undefined before, not sure what happened there. The devices also have the correct static ip's which is good.


Lastly, I was wondering if there is an optimal setup for the adaptive QoS settings for gaming? Here's my current setup.


I think everything should be ok though. Just to make sure.

 

[Kingp1n]

I think everything is set up! I had a quick look over at the main FlexQoS thread and saw that someone was using a similar setup but had ports 88 and 443 on their iptables rules for Gaming which I think are the main ports used in video games so I went ahead and added that too. Would this work ok? Hopefully everything here looks ok. I had to run a command to get the redirection rules to show as they showed as undefined before, not sure what happened there. The devices also have the correct static ip's which is good.
View attachment 24623

Lastly, I was wondering if there is an optimal setup for the adaptive QoS settings for gaming? Here's my current setup.
View attachment 24624 View attachment 24625

I think everything should be ok though. Just to make sure.

I believe it was recommended to have Learn from Home at the bottom.

Try the following setup:
Work from Home (VOIP)
Gaming
Others
Web Surfing
Video|Audio
File transfer
Learn from Home

Test for a few hours...play Netflix, watch YouTube , surf the net and also do some gaming at the same time and report back! You should be golden!!

 

[Adoz]

I believe it was recommended to have Learn from Home at the bottom.

Try the following setup:
Work from Home (VOIP)
Gaming
Others
Web Surfing
Video|Audio
File transfer
Learn from Home

Test for a few hours...play Netflix, watch YouTube , surf the net and also do some gaming at the same time and report back! You should be golden!!

Awesome, thanks so much for help! I'll see how this goes and report back

 

[Prodeje79]

Any recommendation which version Merlin to install on my 86u? I see a couple flexQoS links in this forum too, one is a fork? Sorry just want to make sure use the most stable and current ones!

 

[Kingp1n]

Any recommendation which version Merlin to install on my 86u? I see a couple flexQoS links in this forum too, one is a fork? Sorry just want to make sure use the most stable and current ones!

You can install the latest stable version 384.18...FlexQoS should work with no issues!

 

[dave14305]

I think everything is set up! I had a quick look over at the main FlexQoS thread and saw that someone was using a similar setup but had ports 88 and 443 on their iptables rules for Gaming which I think are the main ports used in video games so I went ahead and added that too. Would this work ok? Hopefully everything here looks ok. I had to run a command to get the redirection rules to show as they showed as undefined before, not sure what happened there. The devices also have the correct static ip's which is good.
View attachment 24623

The original Gaming rule from FreshJR would have these definitions:
Local IP/CIDR: 192.168.1.100/30 (unique to your devices)
Remote IP/CIDR: blank
Proto: BOTH
Local Port: blank
Remote Port: !80,443 (note the exclamation point to invert, i.e. NOT port 80 and NOT port 443)
Mark: 000000
Class: Gaming

 

[Kingp1n]

The original Gaming rule from FreshJR would have these definitions:
Local IP/CIDR: 192.168.1.100/30 (unique to your devices)
Remote IP/CIDR: blank
Proto: BOTH
Local Port: blank
Remote Port: !80,443 (note the exclamation point to invert, i.e. NOT port 80 and NOT port 443)
Mark: 000000
Class: Gaming

@dave14305 thanks for keeping me in check. I havent used the latest Flex but will def try it. You're doing great things!!!

 

[Adoz]

The original Gaming rule from FreshJR would have these definitions:
Local IP/CIDR: 192.168.1.100/30 (unique to your devices)
Remote IP/CIDR: blank
Proto: BOTH
Local Port: blank
Remote Port: !80,443 (note the exclamation point to invert, i.e. NOT port 80 and NOT port 443)
Mark: 000000
Class: Gaming

Thanks for the info and for your the great work!

 

[jrmtz85]

I think everything is set up! I had a quick look over at the main FlexQoS thread and saw that someone was using a similar setup but had ports 88 and 443 on their iptables rules for Gaming which I think are the main ports used in video games so I went ahead and added that too. Would this work ok? Hopefully everything here looks ok. I had to run a command to get the redirection rules to show as they showed as undefined before, not sure what happened there. The devices also have the correct static ip's which is good.
View attachment 24623

Lastly, I was wondering if there is an optimal setup for the adaptive QoS settings for gaming? Here's my current setup.
View attachment 24624 View attachment 24625

I think everything should be ok though. Just to make sure.

Was pondering installing the script (100/40 on Spectrum), but am now confused about the setup. Do I need to enable the default router QOS stuff, in addition to the Flex setup?

 

[dave14305]

Do I need to enable the default router QOS stuff, in addition to the Flex setup?

Yes. FlexQoS customizes the existing Adaptive QoS feature.

 

[MarkyPancake]

Long time 68u user and just got my 86u. Was planning on trying cake. Now I can't decide!
I'm on a 400/20 spectrum cable connection. My gaming sucks when my family streaming that Disney+ 4k hdr.

Any opinions on Merlin version and QoS to try first? I won't be using WiFi. I can also return it if this wasn't a good move . I don't have a complex setup. I just add a few port forwarding rules for a game or two .

QoS and gaming is an interesting one, particularly as broadband speeds continue to increase. We've got an AC86U running Merlin and an AC68U AiMesh node running Merlin and we're on a 200/20 service.

For most of COVID-19 we've been using the stock Adaptive QoS (manual and fq_codel) to see if it would benefit us with two working from home and two others consuming various audio and video related services throughout the day. There are consistently around 15 wireless devices connected and I can't say that I see any difference in performance on my Xbox One over Wi-Fi with or without QoS enabled and I mainly play multiplayer based games as well and without QoS and everyone still watching YouTube, Netflix, Disney+, etc, I have never seen my multiplayer experience degrade.

Gaming traffic size isn't really the issue, as multiplayer traffic isn't very big, it's your latency to the service, so peer to peer host, dedicated server, etc. Can QoS help with that?

 

[Kingp1n]

Some folks don't use QoS. They're happy with the default settings while off. QoS allows prioritization and it's supposed to improve bufferbloat by changing the bandwidth (pinch-point) to the router. FlexQoS enhances the default QoS and routes traffic accordingly! I would say 100x times better than default! Try it out...if you're not seeing any difference/improvements, you may simply turn QoS off.

 

[Adoz]

I've noticed when I put the iptables rule for my devices with the into the gaming class in FlexQoS all traffic on those devices were getting put into the gaming class which was high priority. The pc's that are used for gaming also stream things like Twitch and YouTube with some big downloads happening every now and then too. This would mean if one PC is downloading it's getting priority right? Would I be better off not adding the devices IP's to the iptable so that the traffic get balances out?

I currently have the devices on the iptable with the exclamation point before the ports but I'm not exactly sure what it's doing.

 

[dave14305]

I've noticed when I put the iptables rule for my devices with the into the gaming class in FlexQoS all traffic on those devices were getting put into the gaming class which was high priority. The pc's that are used for gaming also stream things like Twitch and YouTube with some big downloads happening every now and then too. This would mean if one PC is downloading it's getting priority right? Would I be better off not adding the devices IP's to the iptable so that the traffic get balances out?

I currently have the devices on the iptable with the exclamation point before the ports but I'm not exactly sure what it's doing.

Most normal web traffic occurs over ports 443 and sometimes 80. The exclamation point says, “prioritize all traffic from this device IP to the Gaming priority, unless it’s port 80 or 443.” Port 80 and 443 traffic will be processed by it’s normal mark, unless it’s also matching another rule.

Also, remember that the order of the iptables rules is important. The last rule in the list to match is the one which determines the final mark (and therefore priority). So your most important rules should be near the bottom.