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No Geo Filtering Whatsoever


Ted
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I have Net Duma OS and am trying to force a connection to some low ping Blackout servers in my area (Texas). There are a few really good dedicated nearby servers with pings less than 15ms. I started with the Geo Filter ring, but for some reason the NetDuma OS kept connecting me to dedicated servers or peers that were 30-40 ms ping far away -- occasionally I would get a good low ping server, but it was one out of five tries.

So, I took your suggestion from the web to put my location in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, I reduced my Geo radius to 100 miles or so (in the middle of the ocean!), verified that Geo Filtering for my PS4 is enabled (not spectator), I am using strict mode on, Auto Ping on, Ping Assist is 15 ms or less, and Fast Search is unchecked. By theory this should have me connecting only to servers with a sub-15 ms ping. Not true. I still connect to servers in the 30-40 ms ping range consistently, without much time searching. Its not a bad game, but I am starting to wonder why I bothered to get a NetDuma at all because the Geo Filter seems to be doing absolutely nothing whatsoever.

What gives?

PS - don't tell me to reboot PS4 and restart game. I've done that 5 times - every time I change settings.

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In the first scenario were you using Ping Assist and radius? I couldn't quite work out what you meant. If the later then Ping Assist would have been the reason. 

If Ping Assist detects a game under the limit for even a second then it will allow it, even if the ping rises afterwards. 15ms is far too long for ping assist, I would suggest 30ms which should still get you great games. Before you reboot game etc remove device, flush the cloud, set ping assist, add console back again

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9 hours ago, Netduma Fraser said:

15ms is far too long for ping assist,

Assuming you meant to say 15 ms is too short . . .

When I have a 30 ms ping on NetDuma, that translates to about a 60 ms ping in Blackout on the Network Monitor. I am assuming that is because there are additional intervening hops that Net Duma is not counting but that the Blackout app does count.

I will frequently get pings of 7-12 ms on Net Duma and those are the servers I am targeting. Those equate to an 18-23 ping on Blackout network monitor. That 40 ms improvement is actually a big difference in close quarters gunfights when there is a lot of strafing.

If the Geo Filter accepts a server that is consistently in the 30 ms ping range because it dips below 15 for a quick millisecond, then that seems like a bad algorithm choice. There should be an averaging over several pings which would smooth the data set.  I am confident that If the Net Duma OS could really enforce the ping limit via averaging, I would be consistently connecting to better servers with a short delay because there are a bunch of them in good proximity to me. 

The odd thing is that I do keep an eye on the ping values via the auto ping in the Geo Filter screen, and many times that does not drop even close to low enough to get below the threshold but the Net Duma OS still allows the game to connect. If it is really because any given server might give a quick return ping a small percentage of the time, you guys ought to fix that. 

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I'm fairly certain that's how Ping Assist works already; there's plenty of other complications to consider on the back-end though. Still, it sounds like you're getting a great ping :)

In-game ping readings are entirely inaccurate. The DumaOS ping reading targets the server directly, going straight through your ISP and straight to the server. This is a measure of your true ping.

In some games, their in-game ping readings do the same thing; Rocket League for instance has a highly accurate in-game reading. Activision, for whatever strange reason, route their in-game ping through other servers before it reaches the game server, rendering the entire test pointless and untrue. It can't even accurately display packet loss or spikes.

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On 2/26/2019 at 1:37 PM, Netduma Fraser said:

If Ping Assist detects a game under the limit for even a second then it will allow it, even if the ping rises afterwards.

So I decided to do a bit of an experiment to see if Geo Filtering w Ping Assist works at all. Disappointing results (below). Geo Filtering w Ping Assist does not seem to do anything whatsoever.

See below screen shot for verification. I put my location in the middle of the Atlantic w a 112 mile radius. Strict mode on, Auto Ping Host on, Fast Search unchecked, and then I started reducing the Ping Assist value and connecting to games. Went to 12, then 8, then 4, then I got it all the way down to 2. Closed and re-launched BO4 each time between changes. Each time the game connected to a server with a ping between 20 and 36, and there was no noticeable delay in connecting to a game/finding a lobby.

The screen shot below is representative. It has happened a dozen times with similar settings - I just uploaded one screen shot. If Geo Filtering w Ping assist actually works as represented, I should not have even been able to connect to anything with Ping Assist set to 2 ms and strict mode enabled. A ping of 2 in this network is non-existent. I am in Texas and was connecting to servers in Florida, Georgia, Calif. The one in the screen shot below is in Calif and no way in the world would there be a ping of 2 ms from Texas to Calif, even on a short, one-time, transient basis, which was suggested in the prior post by Fraser quoted above is the reason the games are allowed.

Don't get me wrong - I am not bitching about a 32 ms ping. That is a pretty decent game. But, now I am wondering whether the Geo Filtering is even operable at all for Net Duma OS. Why did I buy this router if I could have gotten the same connection results without spending the money? 

Can you explain this?!

IMG_4277.JPG

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8 hours ago, Ted said:

Disabled IPv6 from both and no change. Geo Filtering still not working.

This looks like a bug Ted; you're absolutely right, if it was working as intended then you wouldn't be able to connect to anything whatsoever. It's likely that another setting is causing this - I haven't seen another person experience this issue, so it seems like you're the only one!

I'm going to pass this straight to a developer to have a look at - thanks for taking a picture of your settings, that'll be incredibly useful.

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This has been happening to me as well. Ill set strict mode on right on top of a dedicated server and itll still force me to connect to Texas, in the old firmware if i set it to 25ms it was almost always a server right near the NC/SC area of 25ms and games were good. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesnt, I find it works better when my network is saturated a little more or if im already in a party with a friend whos local as well (Black ops 3). Black ops 4 is not the same though, geo on or off I always get the server closest to me (the ones im speaking of specifically). I too just want the servers close by without getting dragged over to a server thats typically 85ms but sometimes drops to 25 as well. I could set ping assist to 15 and ill still get that dedi i dont want. Idk what to do.

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33 minutes ago, bbursley said:

This has been happening to me as well. Ill set strict mode on right on top of a dedicated server and itll still force me to connect to Texas, in the old firmware if i set it to 25ms it was almost always a server right near the NC/SC area of 25ms and games were good. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesnt, I find it works better when my network is saturated a little more or if im already in a party with a friend whos local as well (Black ops 3). Black ops 4 is not the same though, geo on or off I always get the server closest to me (the ones im speaking of specifically). I too just want the servers close by without getting dragged over to a server thats typically 85ms but sometimes drops to 25 as well. I could set ping assist to 15 and ill still get that dedi i dont want. Idk what to do.

I'd suggest you go back to the DumaOS version prior to 1.3 update and see if it performs better for you

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1 hour ago, Netduma Fraser said:

I'd suggest you go back to the DumaOS version prior to 1.3 update and see if it performs better for you

Ive actually contemplated this, I havent really seen any posts to justify it though. The downside to that is not having any sort of ping assist at all, something that is really useful and allows flexibility of the geofilter. This can be done via installation of the previous file correct?

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On 3/6/2019 at 12:22 PM, bbursley said:

This has been happening to me as well.

My issue is a bit different - I get connected to servers all over the country, even with my location set in the middle of the ocean and strict mode on, as if the numeric value I input into the Ping Assist isn't doing anything at all. I don't seem to connect to any really bad servers, but I do connect to servers in the 40 ms range. But I know there are several nearby servers to me with literally sub-10 pings that I would like to force a connection to but Ping Assist just won't do it. 

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1 hour ago, Netduma Fraser said:

Have you restarted the game/console after changing ping assist with at least 2 minutes passing before searching for another game?

A dozen times. At least.

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26 minutes ago, Ted said:

My issue is a bit different - I get connected to servers all over the country, even with my location set in the middle of the ocean and strict mode on, as if the numeric value I input into the Ping Assist isn't doing anything at all. I don't seem to connect to any really bad servers, but I do connect to servers in the 40 ms range. But I know there are several nearby servers to me with literally sub-10 pings that I would like to force a connection to but Ping Assist just won't do it. 

I guess what I mean to say is, maybe leave strict mode on over that circle of servers you want to connect to? 

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2 minutes ago, bbursley said:

I guess what I mean to say is, maybe leave strict mode on over that circle of servers you want to connect to? 

The problem is that strict mode doesn't really work on my device -- I did that and was still connecting to servers all over the country. Even with Ping Assist set to 2 ms, I was (and still am) connecting to servers all over the country with pings in the 40 ms range. As an experiment I put my Geo Filter at 100 mile radius in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean witgh 2 ms Ping Assist, and am still connecting to Blackout games all over the country at 40 ms pings. I still have it set that way and have been playing for two weeks in that mode. Sometimes I get a good server, othertimes I don't. Really no point in even having a NetDuma router as my old Linksys would give the same results.

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44 minutes ago, Netduma Fraser said:

Okay Ted, revert back to DumaOS prior to ping assist and see if with the standard Geo-Filter you have a better experience.

Look back up at the early posts from this thread. Ping Assist is way more important for me than pure Geo Filter. There are some servers/peers in my vicinity with crappy pings. That is why Ping Assist is important.

 

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Could you downgrade to the original firmware that has ping assist, do you then find that ping assist behaves as expected and you're able to get the low ping games you believe you're able to get?

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/7/2019 at 5:16 PM, Netduma Fraser said:

Could you downgrade to the original firmware that has ping assist,

What version is that, and can you send me a link to where I can download it?

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10 hours ago, Ted said:

What version is that, and can you send me a link to where I can download it?

Here you go: http://support.netduma.com/en/support/solutions/articles/16000085792-downgrading-back-to-the-original-r1-firmware-from-dumaos

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On 3/7/2019 at 7:32 PM, Ted said:

My issue is a bit different - I get connected to servers all over the country, even with my location set in the middle of the ocean and strict mode on, as if the numeric value I input into the Ping Assist isn't doing anything at all. I don't seem to connect to any really bad servers, but I do connect to servers in the 40 ms range. But I know there are several nearby servers to me with literally sub-10 pings that I would like to force a connection to but Ping Assist just won't do it. 

Hey Ted, I just attempted to replicate this issue on the R1 with the latest firmware. I put my geofilter in the ocean and set my ping assist threshold to 10ms and I was repeatedly successful at getting a game in black out. I also set it to 2ms and failed to get a game ever. This seems to be the correct behaviour. Based on the information you have provided, the geofilter does seem to not be working for you. I recommend a factory reset to get it working again.

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