MEGASH0N

I want to see if there is a specific setting that I am missing that would cause extreme slowness when downloading Call of Duty updates while Geo-Filter is enabled. The issue presented itself with two different R3s, two different cities (locations), same ISP, 1 PC and 1 Xbox. Basically, if Geo-filtering is enabled to only allow connections to Atlanta servers, the COD update can take close to a day depending on size. If you disable Geo-filtering, it installs in minutes. I didn't realize this was happening until my friend had the same issue last night. I assumed my issue was the "latency settings" I perform when putting my PC in "game mode". I normally swap back to another NIC and router when I do my updates because it is normally so slow.

Not entirely sure. I have many years of experience with load balancers and such, but I'm not sure how they would be doing it. The device itself could be "emulating" the server. Doesn't seem unreasonable they could do that in theory. If it were simple HTTPS traffic, you'd never know about the backend server for example.

A bit of a hijacking of a post, but have you guys looked into the possibility that they are "reverse proxying" our connections from our geo-filtered location to wherever SBMM thinks we should be? I've noticed way more discrepancy between timing recently, and I wondered if they were doing this to overcome geo-fencing.

I was going to add that setting the PC to Playstation was likely the only issue. If you've done this, and set a geo-filter for only Washington servers, you should ONLY get Washington servers.

@Netduma Fraser Please add me when you get time. No rush! I'd like to review what is being worked on.

I'm having issues as well with NordVPN. Not the same issues though. I configure mine, and trigger the connection on TCP/UDP 3074-3078, but COD still shows my connection as being where I'm actually at. Am I not forwarding the correct ports? If I use OpenVPN client on my PC, the NordVPN config takes all of my traffic to the destination. If I use a NoLagVPN config, which appears to be basically the same config, it seems that the only traffic that gets routed over VPN is the matchmaking traffic. For clarity, that is the only traffic I want over VPN. I have a geo-filter set for Atlanta, Georgia only, but I want COD to "think" I'm in Kenya when I look at the Network screen in COD. Sorry for high-jacking, but I figured it would be easier to keep some of this info on a single thread to potentially help others.

Wouldn't you want to set the hybrid-vpn up to "policy based route" on those ports so that only matchmaking traffic is going through the VPN? I'm actually still trying to figure out how to integrate my NordVPN OpenVPN with mine. So far I am unsuccessful. My NoLagVPN file does work though.

Total assumption from me as I'm new to Netduma, but I would have thought that the hybrid VPN was occurring on the "outside interface". Meaning.. that you'd still see all the traffic once it is "local" to the router. If this isn't the case, then how does geo-filtering work with hybrid-vpn?

I literally changed nothing and my jitter is all over the map again. ugg...

I don't know how one lives without the Geo-filter though. Every match last night was in Atlanta. Lobbies were drastically better. There's no turning back.... hahaha

I just learned from the ExitLag folks that this tunneled traffic is encrypted. Not really sure what you guys can even do with that outside of implementation of a plugin similar to the HVPN that can hook in once the traffic is leaving the WAN interface.

As suspected, the ExitLag traffic is not playing nice with the Geo-filter. I played nearly 20 matches in a row in Atlanta. I turned ExitLag on and was immediately put in Chicago. Is there a possibility that the "Game detection" feature could see the ExitLag traffic and geo-filter it as well? I'm not sure if the traffic is encrypted or not. I haven't really looked deep. It looks like it is simply proxying the connection from the client side to their server node that sits close to the COD servers in each location.

If I may piggy back off of this, does anyone know which ports to use on the HVPN for COD to "think" you are in a specific location? Using the NoLagVPN OVPN file, COD's network info tab thinks I'm in Cambodia. Using a NordVPN OVPN, it always shows I'm in my actual location. I've tried activating it for TCP/UDP 3074-3079. I see that all connections from my PC on port 307X are actually traveling to Cambodia/Kenya, but COD still knows my location. This happens with my other firewall, and the OVPN client as well.. It isn't an issue with the R3. I'm just hoping someone can help me figure out why NoLagVPN works and NordVPN doesn't.

I'm not even sure this is a Netduma thing. I've been using ExitLag for about a week, and honestly, the game has felt great. The past two days, it feels exactly as you describe. Seems like squishy and delayed input lag. Sometimes, it's like input is buffered and then executes all at once causing weird behavior. My R3 lands tomorrow, so I look forward to testing out these scenarios as well.

I will certainly notify you when I receive and set it up. I bought it this morning along with expedited shipping. Hopefully it will be here before the weekend. The VPN, applied to the R3, makes sense from an "order of operations" perspective. I think we will be in the same boat with ExitLag, but I'll find out. Has there been any discussion with them, or GearUp, on adding some functionality to tie into paid for service from the R3? It looks like GearUp has partnered with a few router providers to do so. Maybe I'm making more of it than it is. All I know is that, since having the real-time route optimization, I feel like I'm gaming in near "real time". Pun intended. 🙂 There surely has to be more under the hood than route optimization to make this much of a difference though. Thanks for digging into to this with me!

I understand what you are saying. For the most part, I just select "The US". It connects me through one of their servers close to the COD servers (updates after matchmaking puts me somewhere). My goal is to stay in Atlanta, Georgia as this is a steady 10ms from me. If I set ExitLag to always use Atlanta, it will.. but, if matchmaking decides I need to be in New York due to SBMM, then the connection will go to Atlanta prior to New York. Not very optimal. While they give you some geographical options, to me... this is all about running "route analysis" to all of their "server nodes" that sit adjacent-ish to COD servers. It has no bearing on what server you get. It's simply route optimization. Maybe there is a little WAN optimization as well. Who knows. But back to the point... IF you enable ExitLag on the PC, this traffic is "tunneled" using some proxy code in their software (So it seems). My UDMP firewall cannot block the traffic. I've added almost 70 servers so far to a block group on my firewall. If I turn the software off, then my firewall sees the traffic and blocks it. Are you saying that the R3 will still be able to "see" this potentially tunneled traffic, thus being able to apply Geo-fencing? I'm sorry if I'm missing something here.

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying. To be clear, the only thing I am interested in from ExitLag, or apparently GearUP, is the route optimization functionality they have. I think you guys have the rest knocked out of the park. I feel confident that the R3 will provide for good geo-fencing/filtering. But, playing with ExitLag's route optimization feature over the last week has made a night and day difference in my experience from a "networking" perspective. Kill cams are nearly real-time, every time, as opposed to what normally seems like a half-second off which is horribly frustrating. However, it seems these PC based tools are using a proxy, or tunnel, to optimize that traffic. I'm not able to block the COD servers while using ExitLag, so I assume that you guys are also not going to be able to do much with the traffic for the same reason. I'm looking very forward to adding your solutions to the mix, but I also don't want to lose the route optimization.

Is there a link to setting up GearUP on Netduma? I've been using ExitLag, but this looks similar.

I mentioned the proxy situation because I can't seem to get my firewall to block COD servers at all. I think it is ExitLag's proxy because if I simply ping the server directly, I show it as blocked in the FW logs.

You mind expanding on these two? I have the same question as I've been using ExitLag for the last several days. I just bought a R3 this morning and was curious how it would work in tandem. At a glance, it looks like ExitLag may be proxying their connections from client-side to their local server adjacent to a COD location for example. All in all, it seems like a really good solution as my gameplay has been nearly real-time since using it. I haven't had a single instance of watching a replay that seemed to be a half second behind like normal.