XR1000 - Wondering if I Really Needed This?

[DarkCentauri777]

So I got hold of an XR1000 yesterday.  I had owned a XR500 a few years ago but it got slow and buggy.  At the time, I had decided to take a break from gaming and replaced it with just a regular router.  My interest in gaming has renewed and thought why not try Netduma again.  The problem is I'm not really sure I need it?  Most of the benefits I've seen seem to be geared toward internet connections where congestion on the home network is an issue/not enough bandwidth for one's needs.

I have a 1000/1000gbps connection from my ISP, so I don't think I need QoS.  On speedtest.net my ping is always in the teens.  I mostly play Black Ops Cold War Multiplayer, and never see anything higher than a 60ms connection (usually 20-30ms) in game.  I game on PC, Xbox Series X, and PS5.  The Geo Filter seems to be about 30ms faster when reporting ping to a connected server.  If anything with the Geo Filter enabled, my matches seem to have gotten worse.  It could be just me but when I turned all DumaOS features off my matches were better/more consistent.  Everything is open NAT (or equivalent).

At the moment, I am struggling to justify buying this.  I like being able to see what/where I'm connecting to.  Therein lies another problem where I do have a large monitor, but it is HDMI 2.1, and really don't want to split the screen between console and PC so I can monitor the router while gaming.  Sure I could use a second laptop but that's not really convenient.  The DumaOS and mobile (iOS/Android) browsers don't seem to play nicely.  

Other than what's said above, I am not able to come up with other good reasons to keep this.  Am I missing anything?  

[Newfie]

There’s a beta version of 3.0 available for the xr500, you could give that a go if you fancy seeing the new features.

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Nighthawk-Pro-Gaming-DumaOS-3-0/bd-p/en-home-beta-npg-duma

ive linked the forum where you can read and grab the latest beta firmware. You would need to reset after you update.

Edit, sorry I see you have the XR1000. Give it a whirl and decide from there. 

 

 

[Netduma Fraser]

Unless you have devices that can make use of AX WiFi then it won't really be needed much over the 500 and the 500 is perfectly capable of handling your network. The beta above would be good to try and you can also use the DumaOS app (Play Store or App Store) on either of these so you don't have to split the screen. QoS can still be beneficial especially if you have a lot of devices. See what servers you get with Geo-Filter disabled and then you can enable it and force those each time for a more consistent experience

[DarkCentauri777]

I did download the DumaOS app, but I didn't see anything regarding monitoring (i.e. seeing where you're connected to), but it is a great app.  As far as the Geo Filter, I'm seeing that Cold War seems to be a bit of a weird thing?  Like, the better the connection, the worse the game compensates you in order to be equal to other players who don't have as good of a connection.

I do have a lot of devices, but none that are heavily using the connection... the most usage would be from 2 tv's streaming YouTube TV, Netflix, etc. and one of the consoles gaming at the same time.  Also, if my matches seem worse with Geo Filter, what can I do to improve that?  As stated in OP, my matches seem better without it so I'm not sure what benefits I'm getting.  I live in Houston, TX by the way if that helps.

The beta firmware does look interesting but I am not in a situation where I can experiment as the internet is used for more important things... can't afford to be up and down or deal with bugs for long periods of time.

[Netduma Fraser]

That is the Geo-Filter and is available on the app. You don't have to necessarily force the closest server, some choose to force servers further away as they believe lag compensation kicks in and gives them a better experience. The Geo-Filter itself won't make the connection good or bad but rather the servers you're allowing so try some further away or really close. The latest beta is quite stable really and shouldn't cause much of an inconvenience. 

[DarkCentauri777]

I'll give it a shot.. I am on vacation for the next week so I'll try when I get back

[Netduma Fraser]

8 hours ago, DarkCentauri777 said:

I'll give it a shot.. I am on vacation for the next week so I'll try when I get back

Okay let us know how you get on, enjoy your holiday!

[DarkCentauri777]

On 8/1/2021 at 6:07 AM, Netduma Fraser said:

Okay let us know how you get on, enjoy your holiday!

I'm back from vaca.. couple of questions... Is this firmware also meant for the XR1000 that I have?  Because it says for XR700.  Also, if it is, I download it and is a .img file... when I try to upload it says the correct format is .chk?

[Bert]

It's actually valid points.

 

For XR500 vs XR1000 it's only worth it if you are using AX / wifi 6. But the difference is marginal in most cases and I for one won't touch my wifi until I have wifi 6E clients.

 

The thing that makes the DumaOS routers stand out is really the geofilter.

 

At 1000 mbit you are not likely to need QoS. I use it in my place where I have 600 / 40 connection because of the slow upload but in my other house with 600 / 600 I switch it off.

 

If you need QoS but no geofilter there is more advanced options available IMHO. 

[DarkCentauri777]

26 minutes ago, Bert said:

It's actually valid points.

 

For XR500 vs XR1000 it's only worth it if you are using AX / wifi 6. But the difference is marginal in most cases and I for one won't touch my wifi until I have wifi 6E clients.

 

The thing that makes the DumaOS routers stand out is really the geofilter.

 

At 1000 mbit you are not likely to need QoS. I use it in my place where I have 600 / 40 connection because of the slow upload but in my other house with 600 / 600 I switch it off.

 

If you need QoS but no geofilter there is more advanced options available IMHO. 

I do have Wifi 6 devices so that benefits me.  As for the GeoFilter, for instance in Cold War, I never have higher than a 50-60 ping game (most are in the 20-30 range).

[Bert]

It's more that if you have Wifi 5 / AC the difference to wifi 6 / AX is not big enough to swap to a new router.

 

ie my iPhone gets about 670 mbit over AC on XR500 and XR700, measured on local LAN with iPerf. Realistically upgrading to AX would probably just lift it over 700ish since there is no support for 160 MHz channels. So really not worth the hassle IMHO, especisally since I won't go over 600 anyway. In your case with 1Gbit you can see a little extra performance.

 

If you purely look at the router you pay a bit of a premium for the gaming functions since the XR models are usually a rebranded unit with upgraded software. Ie a XR500 is actually a R7800 with more RAM and a XR700 is identical hardware wise to a R9000. XR1000 probably also has a equivalent in the Netgear lineup but I don't know the model. So if you don't need geofiltering, you can have the same performance at lower cost.

 

Personally I don't plan on swapping routers until I get WAN speeds over 1Gbit/s. For wifi 6E I will probably swap to a separate AP.

 

If you're upgrading from your ISP supplied equipment though it makes sense to select a AX router at this time.

[DarkCentauri777]

19 minutes ago, Bert said:

So if you don't need geofiltering, you can have the same performance at lower cost.

Based on what I've been reading in other threads, it seems geofiltering benefits most when you're not located near a server or group of servers...  Since I never get above 60ms ping in Cold War, I am reasonably sure I am not connecting somewhere far away.  I live in Houston, TX so that seems pretty central (to me at least), to wherever I happen to connect, doesn't seem to be a problem...  Unless my thinking is flawed I don't really see how I can benefit from the specific features Netduma has to offer?

[Bert]

That's right.

 

From my home in Europe I have max 28ms to the furthest server in Europe so it's not needed as such. My house in Asia can basically only connect to Singapore (30ms) and Japan (100ms) so here it helps a lot since due to SBMM otherwise 95% of my games would be on the Japan server.

 

The game uses active latency balancing anyway so having a lower latency is not always noticeable. 

 

In some cases restricting yourself to a specific server is advantageous however. Ie if you play a less populated mode, restricting yourself to 1 server can sort of mitigate SBMM. But this doesn't work well in densely populated area's.

[DarkCentauri777]

9 minutes ago, Bert said:

In some cases restricting yourself to a specific server is advantageous however. Ie if you play a less populated mode, restricting yourself to 1 server can sort of mitigate SBMM. But this doesn't work well in densely populated area's.

Well that is unfortunate... I really wanted to take advantage of something that a router like this has, but I dont think I am able.. Living in a city of over 2 million (over 6 million counting metropolitan areas)...  I also seem to be having an issue right now where the geo filter won't load despite several restarts (says app is not available)

[Newfie]

7 hours ago, DarkCentauri777 said:

Well that is unfortunate... I really wanted to take advantage of something that a router like this has, but I dont think I am able.. Living in a city of over 2 million (over 6 million counting metropolitan areas)...  I also seem to be having an issue right now where the geo filter won't load despite several restarts (says app is not available)

If you are in an area with lots of neighbouring channels this is where WiFi 6 helps in congested areas. However it’s mighty hard work working out what WiFi 6 features are enabled or supported to insure you gain all the benefits of AX. 
You can look up the chipset and see what support it has but sometimes it’s harder to find out what the manufacturer has included if those features are available. 
TwT, BSS colouring, WPA3, OFDMA in both directions and Mu Mimo in both directions are just the tip of the iceberg for some off the features that could be found on a WiFi 6 router. 

[Netduma Fraser]

I would say the Geo-Filter still benefits you even if you live where there are a lot of servers available, even as much as where there aren't many. Reason being if you live near a lot of servers it means that region has the population to fill all those servers. Some of those servers will give you a really good ping, some a bit higher but they'll all suffer a varying amount of server load which can impact your game negatively. Being able to essentially pick and choose what servers you want to play on is quite valuable in my opinion. Some people also use it to force servers with a higher ping as they believe lag compensation helps. Either way it gives you the control, the game will just put you on whatever server it likes even if there is one that is better suited to you.

Does the Geo-Filter load on a PC? Can you provide a screenshot of what you're seeing on the app please? Go to Settings on the app and clear local storage, close the app, choose the router you have, don't let it auto pick, login and see if it loads

[DarkCentauri777]

On 8/8/2021 at 6:41 AM, Netduma Fraser said:

I would say the Geo-Filter still benefits you even if you live where there are a lot of servers available, even as much as where there aren't many. Reason being if you live near a lot of servers it means that region has the population to fill all those servers. Some of those servers will give you a really good ping, some a bit higher but they'll all suffer a varying amount of server load which can impact your game negatively. Being able to essentially pick and choose what servers you want to play on is quite valuable in my opinion. Some people also use it to force servers with a higher ping as they believe lag compensation helps. Either way it gives you the control, the game will just put you on whatever server it likes even if there is one that is better suited to you.

Does the Geo-Filter load on a PC? Can you provide a screenshot of what you're seeing on the app please? Go to Settings on the app and clear local storage, close the app, choose the router you have, don't let it auto pick, login and see if it loads

I'm afraid it's a bit too little, too late.  After considering other internet needs my household has, I decided that the XR1000 was not for me.  But I do appreciate all of the feedback and input.

[Netduma Liam]

16 minutes ago, DarkCentauri777 said:

I'm afraid it's a bit too little, too late.  After considering other internet needs my household has, I decided that the XR1000 was not for me.  But I do appreciate all of the feedback and input.

Not to worry, thanks for troubleshooting with us!