IS IT POSSIBLE?

[Raikun]

Hey folks, I've been lurking for a while reading posts and talking to people, and while I may be getting a bit bothersome, I believe in doing my research before buying a product, specially one that, let's face it, it's a bit of a luxury item.

Personally, I tend not to believe in YouTube reviews, specially if the people in them are already sponsored by the company. Now don't get me wrong, I've been a long-time subscriber of both Drift0r and The Xclusive Ace, both of whom have vouched for the R1, but I'd rather hear it from the users themselves.

I practically have the router in the cart, but I wanted to illustrate my situation before I click that Buy button, just to make sure:

 

I live in South America, specifically Colombia, and my base ping is 105-120 ms. I have 10 Mbps DL and 2 Mbps UL, and my game of choice is BLOPS III. Now, I consistently connect o a Dedicated Server, which I'm guessing is either in Brazil or in Florida, according to the swell guy or gal from Netduma that talked to me in Facebook. I already run a modified NetGear with Gargoyle on it, and while it's helped immensely, I still think I can do better.

 

My question is, can this router help me to, at least play reliably within South America, and with stable hit detection?

 

Thanks in advance. Hopefully this post will be my last before I decide, for better or worse.

[Scrizzy]

I personally don't trust any youtubers.  Frankly, they have little incentive to be completely honest, and I find that many of them simply are not technically savvy, and those that are (such as driftor) either overstep the bounds of their knowledge quite regularly and pass along misinformation, or they simply present biased viewpoints to further their own agendas and income.

 

That said, my experience is that the R1 is amazing in comparison to its competitors, for what it is intended to do.  It absolutely will not make you a more skilled player.  If you are bad at the game, you will still be bad at the game!  However, it can optimize things on your end so at least you can differentiate between being bad/good at the game and being a victim to network based quirks that can unduly make the game experience worse than it should/could be.

 

Without question, there is a benefit to restricting host to areas closer to you using the goefilter.

Without question, there is a benefit to optimizing your router configuration to combat bufferbloat using the congestion control and the built in algorithms

Without question, there is a benefit to using the "fast-lane" setting to TRULY prioritize game traffic above all else on your network.

 

The Duma does all of these things in an unrivaled fashion, period.

 

Additional features such as device prioritization, real time network monitoring, peer ping during games, etc. are all done as well as I've seen on any high end router that I've used (several of which are equally priced or more expensive), and does so with a very slick and user friendly interface.  Not to mention the firmware upgrades grant SIGNIFICANT new features with each iteration, which I have never experienced like with this product.  The only notable downsides that I would point out is that the wifi is not particularly strong (though it is a gaming router, and if you are using wifi to game you are already doomed). Additionally, PPPoe connections require a modified setup due to some quirks, and lastly for users with significantly high bandwith packages, there is bit of a tradeoff of efficiency at the sacrifice of max speeds 

 

And believe me, all of this is coming from a completely disgruntled cynic, so I am no hype guy..lol. and I happen to be a COD nerd and veteran as well.  This router completely changed my BLOPS 2 experience.  And although it has required a lot of tinkering with the settings (which despite what some may seem to think, is kind of the point, and well worth the time), I have found my sweet spot with BLOPS 3 as well.  I rarely have a wtf moment, I win and lose gunfights as fairly as I can expect, and I can hold a kd playing loosely that I feel reflects my skill level (about a 4kd 450spm playing solo dom right now, but probably still easily a 3 or so if I stopped paying attention).  The numbers don't matter, its more that I feel like Im no longer scared to play my natural style because of the games bad netcode, I can just rush relying on my actions, not worrying about getting screwed by random connection based BS).  This is true about 85 percent of the time, as opposed to the 50/50 gamble every gunfight used to be.

 

That said, if by base ping you mean that 100+ is your ping using a pingtest or speedtest.net, you have a problem that no router can fix, and your gaming in any fast paced shooter will suffer because of it.  If that's just your ping to BO3 servers, then you would be better served restricting your matches to local P2P connections, which the Duma can certainly do for you.  Your speeds are also pretty low, but the Duma can help you optimize that, so long as there are not too many devices on your network competing.  And even still, with your console in the fastlane, even that isn't as much of a problem for your gaming.  

 

So in summary, I think the router and features are excellent.  And you certainly could benefit, as I have (considerably), so long as the ping issues are because of your distance to servers, as opposed to an issue with your line.  Good luck in making your decision!

[Raikun]

I personally don't trust any youtubers.  Frankly, they have little incentive to be completely honest, and I find that many of them simply are not technically savvy, and those that are (such as driftor) either overstep the bounds of their knowledge quite regularly and pass along misinformation, or they simply present biased viewpoints to further their own agendas and income.

 

That said, my experience is that the R1 is amazing in comparison to its competitors, for what it is intended to do.  It absolutely will not make you a more skilled player.  If you are bad at the game, you will still be bad at the game!  However, it can optimize things on your end so at least you can differentiate between being bad/good at the game and being a victim to network based quirks that can unduly make the game experience worse than it should/could be.

 

Without question, there is a benefit to restricting host to areas closer to you using the goefilter.

Without question, there is a benefit to optimizing your router configuration to combat bufferbloat using the congestion control and the built in algorithms

Without question, there is a benefit to using the "fast-lane" setting to TRULY prioritize game traffic above all else on your network.

 

The Duma does all of these things in an unrivaled fashion, period.

 

Additional features such as device prioritization, real time network monitoring, peer ping during games, etc. are all done as well as I've seen on any high end router that I've used (several of which are equally priced or more expensive), and does so with a very slick and user friendly interface.  Not to mention the firmware upgrades grant SIGNIFICANT new features with each iteration, which I have never experienced like with this product.  The only notable downsides that I would point out is that the wifi is not particularly strong (though it is a gaming router, and if you are using wifi to game you are already doomed). Additionally, PPPoe connections require a modified setup due to some quirks, and lastly for users with significantly high bandwith packages, there is bit of a tradeoff of efficiency at the sacrifice of max speeds 

 

And believe me, all of this is coming from a completely disgruntled cynic, so I am no hype guy..lol. and I happen to be a COD nerd and veteran as well.  This router completely changed my BLOPS 2 experience.  And although it has required a lot of tinkering with the settings (which despite what some may seem to think, is kind of the point, and well worth the time), I have found my sweet spot with BLOPS 3 as well.  I rarely have a wtf moment, I win and lose gunfights as fairly as I can expect, and I can hold a kd playing loosely that I feel reflects my skill level (about a 4kd 450spm playing solo dom right now, but probably still easily a 3 or so if I stopped paying attention).  The numbers don't matter, its more that I feel like Im no longer scared to play my natural style because of the games bad netcode, I can just rush relying on my actions, not worrying about getting screwed by random connection based BS).  This is true about 85 percent of the time, as opposed to the 50/50 gamble every gunfight used to be.

 

That said, if by based ping you mean that 100+ is your ping using a pingtest or speedtest.net, you have a problem that no router can fix, and your gaming in any fast paced shooter will suffer because of it.  If that's just your ping to BO3 servers, then you would be better served restricting your matches to local P2P connections, which the Duma can certainly do for you.  Your speeds are also pretty low, but the Duma can help you optimize that, so long as there are not too many devices on your network competing.  And even still, with your console in the fastlane, even that isn't as much of a problem for your gaming.  

 

So in summary, I think the router and features are excellent.  And you certainly could benefit, as I have (considerably), so long as the ping issues are because of your distance to servers, as opposed to an issue with your line.  Good luck in making your decision!

 

Wow, you sir, just answered exactly what I needed to hear, no bullshit, and plain straightforward. Kudos to you, rarely you see such a great answer in any forum.

 

One question though that got me thinking: my base ping (calculated by Speedtest and PingTest) is between 90 to 110ms, mainly because those tests measure against American servers and I'm in South America. So far, I don't think I have a bad line, I'm guessing that type of ping is based on distance, and my connection is pretty standard country-wise. Would that be a dealbreaker in the sense that the R1 wouldn't help me due to my distance-based ping?

 

I'd appreciate it if you clarified that issue on an otherwise fantastic reply.

[Netduma Fraser]

You can change the server on speed test so you're right you may not have that bad a base ping. 

 

You can ensure you get the closest dedicated servers to you, those most likely being Brazil/Florida or P2P games if you're lucky.

[Scrizzy]

Wow, you sir, just answered exactly what I needed to hear, no bullshit, and plain straightforward. Kudos to you, rarely you see such a great answer in any forum.

 

One question though that got me thinking: my base ping (calculated by Speedtest and PingTest) is between 90 to 110ms, mainly because those tests measure against American servers and I'm in South America. So far, I don't think I have a bad line, I'm guessing that type of ping is based on distance, and my connection is pretty standard country-wise. Would that be a dealbreaker in the sense that the R1 wouldn't help me due to my distance-based ping?

 

I'd appreciate it if you clarified that issue on an otherwise fantastic reply.

Youre very welcome.  As Fraser said, if there are no local speedtest or pingtest servers, I would try to choose a server closer to you to ping that would better approximate a peer to peer game in your country.  You could also run a pingtest from your computer to google dns servers 8.8.8.8.  If your base ping isn't the issue, then peer to peer games should play better for you, and the Duma can certainly facilitate ensuring the closest hosts possible.