Ca11mecowboy Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 I've got a couple of questions specific to how I should go about managing my home network for optimal gaming. This might belong in Techno Babble but the questions aren't that technical in my opinion. This is an interesting time when we are transitioning to much higher internet speeds but many of the devices we work with are not even capable of handling those speeds. I'm wondering if anybody has some input about how to manage a home network for the best results right now. Obviously every network is different, but this might have relevance for more people than just me. I have a gigabit connection with an AC router. I am pulling 970Mbps+ up and down consistently when I'm wired on a device with a gigabit network card. The heart of my question is should I be running everything through the Netduma or do I use the R1 for gaming only while I have everything else flowing through the AC router. The way I see it is the benefit of connecting everything through the R1 is to be able to fully utilize the simplified QOS features (congestion and bandwidth controls). Speaking generally, the only real downside of connecting everything through the R1 is that the max bandwidth is only 100 or so Mbps. But I'm wondering if that really makes that much of a difference in terms of how much bandwidth loss we'd really notice. Most of the devices (phones and tablets) that connect to my network are via wireless and don't have gigabit capabilities anyway. Further, only 2 of the laptops in my house have gigabit cards. On the surface it seems like I'm giving up 700-800 Mbps of bandwith in order to gain be able to use the excellent internal congestion controls. But it seems to me I don't actually suffer that much of a loss because most devices are wireless without gigabit capabilities anyway. On the other hand, I can use the NetDuma for gaming only and use the AC router for everything else. I won't have the QOS capabilities for the entire house (the uverse gateway is not very customizable); but I'm wondering if I need it anyway. So the question in this scenario is because I have so much bandwidth anyway, am I going to going to run into packet loss and congestion on the AC router? Do I even need the QOS services? I've only got 5 or 6 devices running at any one time and nobody is downloading/uploading torrents or streaming...really basic usage like youtube, netflix or the wife on her company VPN for work. I guess what I'm asking is: are limitations in bandwidth are the primary reason that we need congestion control or if there are other factors that cause congestion such as the router you use, firmware, the amount of connections on the network etc? (For example, will my AC router still get "clogged up" even though I have literally hundreds of Mbps to spare at any given moment?) What do you think? I appreciate any input. I also read through the Nighthawk setups but didn't see these questions answered directly. Also, as I was trying to articulate my questions it occurred to me that this may belong in a different thread. Feel free to move it if appropriate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
postal1982 Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Good question I was wondering the same thing, I do have have your speed but 150mb is coming to my area soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Hi could you post your actual internet connection bandwidth as it will help us to better answer this question Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zennon Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 With 970 up and down if this was my set up i would set the duma to upnp forwarding and plug the duma in when i was gaming if i was the only person on the network. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buds Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 I'd be amazed to see what you were running if you ever need congestion control. With that sort of connection I would go: Router --> Netduma --> PC / Games console Use the 2.4ghz wi-fi channel for devices which can't use full speed anyway (so they are subject to the other features of Netduma). Turn off the 2.4 ghz wifi on the AC router and just leave up the 5ghz channel for devices which can connect at speeds faster than Netduma. If you need more wired gigabit ports in future you could also run a gig switch off the AC router in the future as well Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knxwledge Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 With a gigabit connection, you dont need QoS unless you are constantly maxing out your connection. Just plug in the Duma to your AC router and set it up that way Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iAmMoDBoX Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 If you have 970 up and down then I'm pretty sure QOS is the last thing you need to worry about unless you have a sea of wired PCs using up 100% of the bandwidth downloading pr0n 24/7 365 lol My opinion is to just use the R1 for gaming and leave your other router for everything else. You don't need QOS with those kinda speeds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guateuc Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 I have been wondering the same thing. My speeds are 950 up and down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zennon Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 I would always suggest hard wired ethernet over Wifi for gaming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Netduma_Iain Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 Hi, Sorry for jumping late to this thread. The most popular transport protocol for bulk transfer is called TCP. Its designed to max out the end to end connection. It constantly increases transfer rate till the bandwidth is saturated. However most day to day protocols won't have a chance to max out because either the remote end won't have a gigabit. For example I'm pretty sure youtube throttles its traffic so you won't get gigabit speeds from them. So the only time you'll get gigabit speeds is if the all the nodes including the remote end has a gigabit OR you have multiple connections running simultenously. Enter torrent, if you run a torrent that has enough peers you will max out your connection. tl;dr In thoery you will always need congestion control, In practice you personally probably won't need it till everyone else catches up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ca11mecowboy Posted March 5, 2015 Author Share Posted March 5, 2015 Thanks for the input everyone. I really do appreciate you! I've actually been running just the gaming devices through the NetDuma and everything else through the AC router using the same logic you guys have provided. Adam asked so I've attached a couple of screenshots. I did one last night and one this morning. I did them both on the same lap top and was hardwired both times. The numbers are a little lower than usual and you'll see in one of them that the download is quite a bit less than the upload. I'm not sure why there is so much variance. It would seem to me that the variance I'm seeing from a speed test probably wouldn't have much impact on my gaming connection because of how little bandwidth is actually needed for online gaming. On the other hand, we are talking about variance of 100+ Mbps on my line. That would be a big ass deal if I only had a 100 Megabit connection. Do you guys think that it would have an impact on my experience in game? I've been round and round with AT&T trying to figure out how to get more "stability" on the line but they say it's all good. I've made enough of a stink that they're calling me once a week to make sure I'm not having issues. Outside of the variance on the line when I do a speed test, I'm out of ideas. If anyone has an idea of what I might present to them, I'd love to hear your thoughts. AW still plays pretty rough for me and that's where all the players are. I'm of a mindset that the game is the problem...not my line, certainly not my hardware and definitely not the R1. This is especially true because when I play the older titles, things run pretty smooth. I'd be happy to play them too; but because there's not as many players, I end up in more than a few matches with pretty high ping. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Netduma_Iain Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 I can't comment to much on the bandwidth variance. From a gaming perspective there is nothing to concern you. The fact as you say older titles work mean it's not the connection as it won't discern between the two. Sorry I jumped in late to the conversation. Are you having high pings in AW? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ca11mecowboy Posted March 5, 2015 Author Share Posted March 5, 2015 No, I get great pings on AW. It's just that the game is as laggy as ever...I'm sure that it's on their end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Netduma_Iain Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 Oh right the aim of the r1 is to lower ping which should in turn lower lag. Other people have mentioned they don't like certain servers it may be worth moving your home to find new ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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