K0NSPIRACY

That’s what I’ve already been doing…I generally don’t get on until after 11pm and play for a few hours after. I’ve played with these settings on/off and there’s no major difference (if anything it feels worse with QoS enabled). The only test I can do now is play in peak hours which is what I’ll try to test this weekend.

The game still plays like a total turd even at 20ms ping to EU servers, port forwarding and QoS…it actually feels worse with PF and QoS but it’s impossible to tell if it’s these settings, game code or servers tbh. Oh well…think I’ll just give up on this game and get Elden Ring.

I know you don’t need to but I tend to have DumaOS running on my MacBook during a gaming session, and even more so now as I’m monitoring server connections and ping for every game. Before powering on my console, I always quickly check my DumaOS settings and run a speed test to check my connection. As such, I tend to use “always” and then switch back to “never” when I stop playing. Probably a bit OTT but at least a bit of housekeeping means I’ve ruled out any issues on my end if the connection in game plays like a turd.

Should I disable DumaOS classified now that I’ve added these new rules?

Thanks @Netduma Fraser. The Xbox is wired to R2 so I’ll delete and do all the rules again 👍

Ok I think I’ve set it up right. The ports for Xbox One X are as follows: TCP: 3074 UDP: 88, 500, 3074-3075, 3544, 4500 …so is it right that I add a rule for each so have 6 new rules in total plus DumaOS Classified Games? I’ve set them to Gaming/Voice and didn’t check the apply to WAN button. Is that correct? Also do I need to reboot the R2 for these changes to apply or should it just work when I power on the console?

Ok thanks. Will test it out 👍

Thanks Liam. I’ll try set that up today. Should this be used in conjunction with the QoS sliders and/or bandwidth allocation…or should this be sufficient on its own without any other QoS settings?

Hi Liam. Thanks for the suggestion…but I’m not sure what that actually means. Could you explain more or tell me how to do that please?

I consecutively connected to EU servers in 10 games last night with 18ms ping but found them to be very laggy…however it was only when I loosened and then removed QoS that I found the in game performance significantly improved. My QoS settings were dialled in to give the best ping possible as per recommendations on here, but for me I found that the game performs better with QoS set to “never”. What QoS settings is everyone else using and works best for Halo Infinite?

Thanks Fraser. So simply disabling strict mode is the right way to disable geo filter for Halo Infinite or should we be doing it a different way? I also presume disabling strict mode has the same outcome whether we use distance based, polygon or ping assist for geo filter?

I also have a couple of other theories that need further testing…the main one being the difference between Social and Ranked playlists. I was only testing Quick Play in Social last night, and my theory is that SBMM has been toned down or removed. In the 343i statement that said that they will be prioritising ping over skill, and this aligns with my experience on EU servers as the players I was being matched with and against were terrible…so bad I thought some of them were Marine level bots or I’d been shadow banned! 😂 What I still need to test is Ranked and I just don’t see how they can prioritise ping in their current system whilst maintaining skill level matches. As such, my theory is that we may well find ourselves placed on more US servers in Ranked…but this needs to be tested fully. I also believe that results may fluctuate depending on time of day so both of these scenarios will need to be tested at different times of day.

Hi Fraser. Just a quick question about saved allowed/denied servers…if I ever need to factory reset my R2 (ie may be for doing a firmware updated), is there any way to extract the servers that I have denied and allowed, and import them back into DumaOS?

I may be wrong but I don’t think it matters now where we set our home location or whether geo filter is set by distance, polygon or ping assist if “strict” is disabled as that basically means the geo filter rules aren’t being actively applied and is effectively in “spectator mode”. I’m sure @Netduma Frasercould confirm if that’s correct. My understanding from the 343i update at this stage is that any kind of geo filter (whether that be via distance, polygon or ping) will simply result in the error message and prevent us from being able to search for games…which is why having just “strict” disabled allows us to find and play games (even if it is by 343i rules). This also means there’s nothing stopping us from being placed on US servers (which is why I connected to 4x US servers in my test games).

Do you know which server you connected to and at what ping? If you’re based in UK and connecting to central US then that would be Chicago at about 150ms. All I did was turn off “strict” on my geo filter (still had home location set as UK with 250 mile radius despite it no longer actively doing anything) and I was able to join games no issue without the error message, and with auto ping server enabled I could see which servers I was connecting to and what ping. I tested 10x Quick Play games and connected to 6x EU (mostly Amsterdam) and 4x US servers (Dallas and Washington DC). The games on US servers were predictably terrible being connected at 115ms and 85ms respectively, but EU servers were decent at 18ms.

Nope. I’ve done some minor testing and have a few theories but don’t know if there’s any substance to it yet.

Not sure who you are replying to but my understanding is that geo filter has to be turned off completely rather than using ping assist. I haven't been on today so have you tested if this works?

Thanks @Netduma Fraser 👍 It looks like we have to disable geo filter to get games and then forced to connect to US servers if the game selects a US server.

@Netduma Fraser help!!!

Thanks @GBDJG. That pretty much confirms what I was thinking and expecting…this will only accelerate the death of the game for all players outside of America.

Where are you based and what servers are you now connecting to @GBDJG without geo filter?

This is the statement from Unyshek regarding latency and geo filter: [quote="Unyshek"] Good morning all – today we wanted to share a few updates around Halo Infinite’s matchmaking and online gameplay experience. In this post we’ll be focusing on the impact of “geofiltering” in matchmaking and what we’re doing to improve your online experience. [In another post that went live today on Waypoint, we dive into “desync” and the online gameplay experience within Halo Infinite. ](https://www.halowaypoint.com/news/closer-look-halo-infinite-online-experience) We recommend reading both to get the full picture but since you’re here right now, let’s talk about geofiltering. * **What is geofiltering?** Geofiltering is when players manipulate their system files or router settings in an effort to force the matchmaking system to give them matches hosted on servers located near them. Many do so thinking that they are creating their own “server selection” within the matchmaking system, but that is not what’s happening. Instead, they are simply forcing the game to be played on their chosen datacenter, regardless of where the other players in the game are located. * **Why is it bad?** Normally, when a match is created, the matchmaker hosts the game on a server with the best connection for the highest number of players in the lobby. That means sometimes it will select a server that is in between all the players and other times it will pick a server that’s closer to where the majority of the people from the match are located. However, if one of the players in the lobby is geofiltering, they will then force the game to be played on their datacenter. To be clear, this means a geofiltering player’s actions take effect after all of the players have already been selected for the match. This happens because the matchmaking system pulls the lobby together when it still believes that all our data centers would be available to host the game. Then, in the process of picking the best data center to host this match, the manipulation blocks out any servers that the geofiltering player does not allow. When players do this, it creates a small benefit to them at the cost of making the match worse for everyone else. To provide a real-world example, below is a match between players from Regions A, B, and C – where Region B is located in the middle. For this match, picking a server in Region B would be the fairest to all players, with the lowest overall latency. However, the Region C player geofiltered their ping data and forced the match to occur in their region. Here’s a ping comparison (in milliseconds) between what our matchmaker detected and what the players were forced to play on due to a geofiltering player in Region 😄 |Player location|Expected ping to optimal server in Region B|Actual ping after being geofiltered to Region C| | --- | --- | --- | |Region A|67ms|144ms| |Region A|86ms|155ms| |Region A|74ms|147ms| |Region A|61ms|130ms| |Region B|26ms|94ms| |Region B|13ms|82ms| |Region B|26ms|84ms| |Region C|97ms|40ms| As you can see, geofiltering allowed this player to block the optimal server and negatively impact the experience of the entire lobby in a pretty dramatic way. It also wouldn’t feel great to be a player in Region C and get matched into Region B frequently, and further below we share the actions we’re taking to reduce how often that happens. Given the example above, one geofiltering player can degrade the experience of between 7 (Arena) to 23 (BTB) other people per match, meaning they could impact hundreds of people in one gaming session. Then, take those hundreds of lower-quality experiences and multiply that by the total number of players geofiltering around the world, and you can start to see why this practice is harmful to the game and your fellow Halo players. Not to mention, as players are forced on to these higher ping servers, they begin to either geofilter themselves, play the game less, or stop playing entirely. All of which increases the likelihood that the people playing the game normally are going to run into someone who is geofiltering and have a lesser experience. It became a vicious cycle and, as a result, the quality of online matches began to deteriorate at a rapid pace. If geofiltering was acting as a makeshift “server selection” feature, we may have considered turning a blind eye to it. However, since that isn’t the case, we needed to fix it and ensure that players are getting the best experience possible. * **Addressing the desire for better connections** Speaking of creating the best experience possible, it’s clear that people were geofiltering because they didn’t feel like we were making matches at that bar. So, our first round of updates is directly aimed at prioritizing connection and improving our matchmaker. Halo Infinite’s matchmaking system takes into account the locations of players when matchmaking, but sometimes it matches players from other regions. This most often happens when one region has a low population at that time, and the system sees a good match across regions. We’re taking steps to reduce the frequency with which this happens, as it was happening more than we expected when designing the system. In addition to preventing geofiltering, we’re also taking these additional steps to improve match quality: * As of today, we’ve increased the priority of low pings to our servers in the matchmaking process. This step should help you match with local players, and therefore have a better connection, more often. As you get more of these local matches, instances of playing on further data centers will also decline. * Separate from the bullet point above, our Services team has taken additional steps to help ensure you can have quality matches with players from your respective regions, more often. We expect this to have a noticeable impact when making matches for players in less populated regions around the world including - but not limited to - Australia and Asia. This update, which went live yesterday, has already shown promising results and should take further advantage of this morning’s changes. Please keep an eye out and let us know how your games start to feel. In combination with the changes above and additional tuning to our matchmaking system, we believe that we can create better and better matches over time. If we ever feel like the matches we are making do not meet player expectations or our quality bar, we will evaluate additional means of improving the online experience - including considering features like a server selection similar to MCC or search preferences similar to Halo 5 - further down the road. * **How did you prevent geofiltering?** As we touched on above, we can’t let geofiltering continue because of how it degrades the experience for our players. So, earlier today, we made an update to our online services that should prevent geofiltering players from searching in matchmaking. If our services detect that a player is geofiltering, that player will receive a message saying, “No ping to our datacenters detected.” Once a player removes their geofilter, this message will go away and they should have no issues queuing into matchmaking. Before we wrap up here, we do want to acknowledge that there’s still work to do to improve ranked matchmaking as well. We’re always investigating matches in which players report bad experiences, whether it’s related to ping, desyncing, or Ranked, and our work here will continue throughout the life of the game. We hope this post answers some of your questions and helps outline a few of the steps we’re taking to improve your experience online. And, as a reminder, we highly recommend reading [this post about “desync” and how latency impacts gameplay in Halo Infinite ](https://www.halowaypoint.com/news/closer-look-halo-infinite-online-experience) to get a look at the full picture. See you all on the battlefield! *Please note: If you’ve used any of the methods shared online to block matchmaking servers and you are now unable to revert the change, the Halo Support team will not be able to troubleshoot or resolve the error messages for you.* [/quote]

@Netduma Fraser @Netduma Liam @Zippy So 343i have finally released an official statement with regards to both geo filtering and the online multiplayer experience. I haven’t tested if their fix against geo filtering works in any capacity but your thoughts and feedback to both of these articles would be interesting: Halo Infinite - Update on Latency and Geo Filtering: https://forums.halowaypoint.com/t/halo-infinite-update-on-latency-geofiltering/501149/ CLOSER LOOK: HALO INFINITE’S ONLINE EXPERIENCE: https://www.halowaypoint.com/news/closer-look-halo-infinite-online-experience

Unyshek doubling down on geo filter being the cause of high ping lobbies for players: https://mobile.twitter.com/Unyshek/status/1487244375801229315 At least some of the comments are actually questioning his stance this time.

What’s the difference between using DumaOS geo filter and editing the host files on PC? They refer to exploits so is this something that could negatively effect the game or impact other players if someone did edit the host files?