R1 noob here :) in need of advice

[RL317]

Hi guys, first time poster (long time lurker!). I picked up my Netduma last week as I had reading up on various things that can affect connections on games, such as bufferbloat, and both the geofilter and congestion control settings piqued my curiosity.

 

Prior to that I'd done everything I could on my end to optimise my setup for gaming -- open NAT, optimal DNS and MTU values, playing while no other device was using my connection, as well as getting a PC monitor to reduce input lag. I'm in the UK and on BO3 I would usually connect to local servers at 17ms~. However for months I've been having issues with hit detection, getting rekt by 3 bar players and so on. If I put Ghosts on instead, even with its painfully low player count, I wouldn't have any of these issues unless I connected to a distant player host in Canada or the US.

 

My friend has had an R1 for months - much of my decision to get one was down to his singing its praises throughout Ghosts - and he walked me through getting the initial set up out of the way. I set the geofilter to include only the UK and parts of France/Netherlands/Belgium, set ping assist at 30ms with strict mode on, enabled UPnP forwarding, set my sliders to 70% with my PS4 in hyper lane (just in case other devices were using my connection), input my bandwidth (100/6) and used the reactive algorithm. However, after doing some digging, I found that the preemptive algorithm would be better for stability while gaming, and that was fine as I would simply set my sliders back to 100% with reactive when not gaming.

 

Then I decided to start fine tuning. I ran dslreports speed tests with my sliders at 100%, then slowly worked my way down in small increments until bufferbloat was reduced. Upload was fine as long as it was at 85%, but download would regularly spike towards 100ms and I could never get an A+ grade alongside A+ quality. In order to get A+ for bufferbloat I have to drop my sliders to 30% or so with reactive enabled, but then I obviously lose a lot of my bandwidth and I also take a massive hit to quality with it dropping to F. If I keep my sliders set relatively high (say 67% download, 85% upload) I could get an A for bufferbloat and A+ for quality but nothing higher. I've since experimented with hundreds of different combinations and I managed to get A+ for both on two different occasions. One included using 35% down and 67% up, another 36% down and 64% up, but I had to drop my download speed setting to 50mb on the cc page (with upload kept at 6mb). Unfortunately this isn't ideal unless my console is the only device using my line thanks to massive drops to download, and that A+ bufferbloat grade would sometimes drop to A with those settings anyway. I'm not sure if it's a massive difference in game with either A or A+, but either is better than what I had before so I can't complain

 

Despite all that, this doesn't seem to translate to smoother gameplay online. I'm still having issues with hit detection and feeling behind the action, even when I'm monitoring the host auto ping and seeing just 9-11ms in game. If anything it feels worse than before I got the Duma, which I'd say wouldn't make sense if it wasn't for all the 3 bar gods I see in my lobbies from the middle east LOL. I've been pounded by 0.6KDs in lobbies where I'm literally the only European, and everyone else is on 1-3 bar connections from the Arabic world even if they're supposedly behind the action and getting data to the server slower than I can.

 

I've tried using all kinds of slider combinations with both algorithms and nothing seems to create any consistently with my gameplay. If I put Ghosts on 90% of games are smooth with the occasional blip due to the low playercount. On BO3 it's the opposite. Out of almost 3000 games played less than 100 have giving me the smoothness and fairness I'd expect, and it hasn't improved over the last week or so. I've also set my home in the sea with ping assist as low as 20ms (since my latency is half that in most games) and while I don't struggle to find games, I'm still getting way too many wtf moments. On the other hand several of my friends in the US stream the game and they have no issues with hit detection or feeling behind the action -- one of whom plays on no less than 42ms and his hit detection is flawless and seemingly INSTANT (and he has a Netduma; he's sponsored by them).

 

This game is wildly inconsistent for me. I've played on the New Jersey server at 85ms or the Chicago server at 120ms and had better hit detection than I get with less than a frame of lag on my local server, and so far the R1 hasn't helped create more consistent gameplay. I can run into players who can't average a kill per life yet they appear to have super human reactions and accuracy, and in many cases I feel like I'm being prefired when in reality they had all the time in the world to see me. You might snigger at my complaints when I mention I've got a 3.6KD as a solo TDM SMG player, but that's not saying much as I had higher running specialist package in Ghosts and I had a 3.32/500SPM playing AW TDM in the most horrific lobbies you've ever seen, where I ran into people from San Diego to Dubai and everywhere in between. Also bear in mind my win/loss ratio has dropped to 0.67 because I can leave as many as 25 games in a row looking for hit detection, where my low latency actually feels like it. On the other hand I had a solo win/loss of 1.65 in Ghosts after 150k~ kills and a 1.25 even in AW despite the many rage moments I had thanks to its matchmaking. I have never left so many games so frustrated as I have in BO3, where there is no excuse I can see for these delays. Despite this low latency a lot of my deaths come from delays which can be heard and seen (in the hundreds of milliseconds) on my hitmarkers or I'll simply get no hitmarkers at all. As you can imagine it's quite frustrating when I can load up Ghosts, find a game on a player host and get pristine hit detection on 25-40ms pings. I haven't been able to test other games because my 360 controller broke, otherwise I'd love to test BO2 and MW3 with my Netduma. I imagine it would be great on both.

 

Has anyone (particularly from Europe on PS4) found any settings that really improve connections for you in BO3, or any specific servers that tend to play better for you? Before getting my Duma I initially thought bufferbloat was my sole problem, but even with that reduced to average an A grade or better that "off feeling" is still there and it feels like I'm playing on a 2 bar most of the time I know it's not the Duma because it's a fantastic piece of kit, and it's worked wonders for finding smooth games on the dying Ghosts, but I thought it would help me with feeling behind the action on BO3. I did just find a thread on this site (I believe it was from Lukasz? Dont quote me on that ) which recommends inputting bandwidth lower than you actually receive from your ISP, enabling deep packet processing, then running command prompt ping tests and dslreports speed tests simultaneously while tweaking sliders to find the point where you get A+ for both bufferbloat and quality, and when my network is quiet tonight I'll probably spend a long time playing with that. Hopefully it'll help because I'm desperately seeking something that will help me enjoy my games again!

 

Any input from experienced Duma users and forum goers would be massively appreciated. I really just want to enjoy my game

[BIG__DOG]

i had really bad games until i ditched my isp provided modem and bought my own. i know this doesnt help as I live in the UK and i have a base ping of 6 - 8 and my up is 20 and my down is 80. I tried all sorts of combo's but i stay with reactive and my sliders at 55% as my router/modem i bought to go with the duma has excellent QoS controls on it. You are always gonna have bad games because that's just how bo3 is F.U.B.A.R!

 

u need to provide isp info up and down speeds and hopefully someone on here in your state and on your isp can help you further!

[RL317]

Hey big dog. I honestly had no idea you could buy a different modem; obviously routers are a different story, but I thought you had to stick with the ISP modem lol. I've still got so much to learn.

 

I'm on Virgin Media (I know, but the performance they give me is actually great for gaming), 100mb down 6 up, although I usually get more like 7 up... not sure how when my modem's max traffic rate on upstream is apparently 6.4mb. Like I say other games have always been solid for me (even without the Duma) but BO3 has always caused problems dor me, and I can't begin to think what's to blame other than the game itself. I was just hoping some of the more experienced heads around here had found a trick or two to improve things

[Netduma Fraser]

Hey, welcome to the forum!

 

I assume you have put Virgin in modem mode and have ALL devices connected to the R1? It sounds like you're getting a low ping which is what the duma is designed to get you but can you include the screenshots from this guide please and I can take a look at your settings. http://support.netduma.com/en/support/solutions/articles/16000022425-lag-support-instructions-to-post-on-the-forum-

 

I don't really pay attention to bufferbloat all that much but we usually recommend 70/70 which should eliminate any local congestion. In regards to preemptive vs reactive, in terms of speeds you should be on reactive but some do find preemptive is better for gaming. It's about finding what works best for you.

[RL317]

Hi Fraser, and thanks!

 

Yeah that's correct; Superhub in modem mode, PoE to the Netduma and then everything else goes through the R1 so I have control over my devices.

 

It's great for guaranteeing low latency games (especially in games where it has been a struggle due to low player count) but the problem is always BO3! Lol 10ms to the UK server should not be causing me problems at all. The sad truth is it often feels just as rough as playing on a south American host on any other CoD. I sit there and think to myself "these numbers aren't adding up to how fast/slow my shots are actually registering".

 

I've been spending hours on the forum doing some digging for settings that help improve BO3, but I rarely get consistent results. I tried something suggested by A7Legit last night and had the longest run of somewhat decent games I've had for a while, but as I'm naturally pessimistic I'm putting it down to placebo until I've tested it for a while longer

 

Like I say 10ms is a blessing in any other game: it just doesn't feel like that on BO3. Hit detection is not smooth, it's often delayed (with no jitter/spiking occurring), while players will sponge and melt. Superhuman reactions and accuracy are demanded of me just to keep up against players who rarely average a kill per life. I can next to aimbot someone on max sensitivity with the superior weapon, and they can kill me while drawing a Z around me with hipfire with an ICR LOL. I just really want to experience the same game I watch my friends play, because it looks fun

 

My only real problem with bloat seems to be on the downstream. With upload I can guarantee an average of 5ms~ with the slider set as high as 85%, but in order to go from A to A+ I have to really drop both down towards the 30s on preemptive, or 35~ on download and 65~ on upload on reactive and this seems to degrade my line quality. As long as I've not got 100% sliders and my console is in Hyper Traffic, I imagine A BB/A+ LQ is perfectly fine for gaming? I often play online while my console is the only device using the connection anyway.

 

Is it possible to attach screenshots to messages from the mobile format of the forum? If not I'll have to get my dusty laptop out

[BIG__DOG]

agh, if you are on virgin then you have to use their supplied router/modem as it is a coble modem running on docsis......but you can put it into modem only mode so that everything runs through the netduma.....i cancelled my virgin as it is not very good for gaming ( my opinion) so i switched over to bt infinty 2.

[Netduma Jack]

A lot of the problems are caused by the other players connection to the game, as well as the servers themselves; and also your base ping is a factor. These are all things that cannot be fixed by the Netduma at present, unfortunately. The problem can also be your ISP Hub, and virgin is one of the ones our users have issues with when gaming. You could try a different ethernet cable / different Netduma port, and doing a ping plotter test would help get to the bottom of it.

 

It should be possible to attach a screenshot on a mobile, but if not, use Imgur.com and post a link instead.

[RL317]

Yeah I've heard many bad things about VM since I signed up with them at the end of '14, but I must be one of the lucky ones because it's been really good for gaming so far. I was contemplating going with BT Infinity when I moved house a few months ago but stuck with VM since it was less hassle.

 

Like I say I have zero issues with other games and the network is solid on my end; it's just BO3's inconsistency I'm struggling to get to grips with. If I play on the New Jersey server with a couple of Murican pals it's a cakewalk lol

 

I've been doing some more fiddling with settings today and I'm having good results thus far. When I'm done I'll get the laptop out and screenshot everything that's required of me

[Netduma Fraser]

I mean like I said sounds like the duma is performing how it should be but do give us the screenshots and we can see if anything can be tweaked.