XR500 & MW2 Best Settings

[harty]

Hi Guys,

I picked up my first netduma router yesterday, a second hand XR500 - I work in IT so I have configured the device to the best of my ability and I have it to a point where its working well on my network outside of playing games.

I have a few issues and questions - all COD related, that I am hoping someone will be able to iron out for me.

Firstly, what are the best settings to be using for MW2. I am based in the London, UK with a 900mbps line, I average 30ms of PING every game. I am getting stomped every game and although I understand bot lobbies may not be possible, how can I improve my chances of getting better lobbies? I have a PIA VPN service and have tested this on my XR500 and it works, how can I best utalise this? 

Secondly, I dont quite understand how the geo-filter works, it looks like geofencing doesnt seem to be working - I will set my location to say Turkey, using both home mode and polygon mode - it will auth me using UK servers and then my PING will spike to 148ms and sit there, I find very few games and the ones I do find, same strong SBMM issues. 

I have filtered the console using filter mode and again the same issue, perhaps alot of this is education based on my side and im happy to learn but cant figure it out, I can allow and deny servers but not quite sure whats the best way to filter through these, if that makes sense? 

Also I have tried to use the Ping Heatmap for MW2 but the servers are failing, I see this is in the process of being updated - but how will I use this in conjunction to the other pages? 

One minor thing, this router is second hand from CeX, maybe im just being paronoid but is there a way I can ensure no dodgy firmware has been sideloaded onto this device, this may be the wrong thread so tell me to shutup if it is, but I have wiped the device when I got it and updated the firmware, if there is anything else please let me know and ignore me if im being annoying haha. 

Some other misc bits, all traffic rules are disabled etc, QoS has been setup for games console rather than DumaOS clasified games etc, I apprecaite this is alot and as a 2nd line engineer myself i'd hit the roof if I was asked all this in one LOL but I greatly appreciate any advice, just trying to get the best out of my product and stop getting rekt'd! 

Cheers guys. 

 

[Netduma Fraser]

Welcome to the forum!

Generally we recommend doing a radius of 1000km around your location which will give you a decent amount of servers. There is one in the UK so if you just cover the south of the UK you should get a pretty good ping to that. SBMM isn't something we can advise on getting around as it's not something we can condone.

Most likely you have Ping Assist enabled, if you set this to 0 this will allow you to force servers more easily.

Allow/deny is primarily used for adding friends, denying servers you never want to connect to again etc - you shouldn't/don't need to use this as the primary way of filtering, if a host is outside your radius it will be blocked, if it's inside then it's allowed so set your radius accordingly for what you want to do.

You can use Ping Heatmap to identify where the lowest ping servers are in relation to you, you could then go on the Geo-Filter and set the location to where you identified a particular server on Heatmap.

I'm sure it would be absolutely fine but you could use TFTP to load a new firmware on during the boot process and then do a factory reset from there, that would give you the freshest install possible.

Are ALL devices connected to the XR? What is the model of the modem/router the XR is connected to? How have you set Congestion Control?

 

[harty]

Thank you thats extremely useful - action your above points.

So the network is setup like this Virgin Media Super Hub 4 in modem mode > to Netgear XR500 running V2.3.2.134 > Xbox (My primary console) Hardwired to the back of the XR500 > Deco Mesh WiFi points setup plugged into the XR500 and in AP mode to provide the WiFi throughout my house.

Congestion control is currently set at 70 percent both up & down. 

Can you also advise when the MW2 Ping heatmap will be working again please? 

Thanks for your help 

[Netduma Fraser]

Okay that's all good, 70% is our recommended starting point but it won't be perfect for everyone so we do suggest experimenting based on what your experience is like. We're trying to do an update today but if not then tomorrow.

[Nuschler22]

On the XR500, as discussed in another topic, it's not allowing you to GeoLocate in CoD, so that doesn't seem to make a difference in any way.  Setting your circle, or polygon, hasn't mattered in the slightest as I've yet to get any servers inside it with Ping set to zero.  With Geo Locate set to incorporate the usual two servers I've used in past CoD's, which show up when I play this game as well, it's not ever selecting them.  In Cold War, it works fine as does Geo Locating to another area to reduce lag compensation.

 

Geo Locating doesn't work (putting yourself in a location that you're actually not located) as there is growing evidence you get shadow banned. Multiple You Tube channels are reporting that they're not finding games doing this and specifically showing their NetDuma OS as they try.  It's the same for using a VPN, so it seems there is something within the cheat buster software that disables any geo locating by ND or VPN at all.

Maybe this isn't true of everyone, but it's true of enough of us unfortunately.

 

[Netduma Fraser]

It should be working fine, could you provide a screenshot of the Geo-Filter page showing what you see when you're in a game please?

[harty]

On 11/8/2022 at 3:48 PM, Netduma Fraser said:

It should be working fine, could you provide a screenshot of the Geo-Filter page showing what you see when you're in a game please?

Okay just want to second this, when you use the geo-filter in game - my servers still show as london, although my ping is slightly reduced, as the chap above says you cant geo-locate to other regions and play on those servers. Again using the VPN has similar results, although the location in-games changes, all the players seem to be from my region but with just a higher ping. 

[Netduma Liam]

2 hours ago, harty said:

Okay just want to second this, when you use the geo-filter in game - my servers still show as london, although my ping is slightly reduced, as the chap above says you cant geo-locate to other regions and play on those servers. Again using the VPN has similar results, although the location in-games changes, all the players seem to be from my region but with just a higher ping. 

That's interesting, what are you seeing on the Geo-filter map when you try to locate to other regions? Which regions specifically are you trying to connect to?

[harty]

21 minutes ago, Netduma Liam said:

That's interesting, what are you seeing on the Geo-filter map when you try to locate to other regions? Which regions specifically are you trying to connect to?

When you say what are you seeing Liam, can you be a bit more specific please? Normally, I will locate my region using either home / polygon mode, add device and filter by Call Of Duty (Non Pc) from here I will select the my region of choice, mostly countries in europe and then the above behaviour applies as per my last post. 

I also get strange behaviour such as allowing servers from outside the designated perimiter, such as the demonware auth server of the coast of Ireland. I can demo this to you if you wish?

[Netduma Fraser]

As in are you seeing dedicated servers, servers with white circles, are they outside your radius - if you could provide a screenshot of the Geo-Filter when the issue happens that would be really helpful. The auth servers will always be allowed so that’s normal behaviour.

[harty]

So this example, I just picked a random location when booting into the game - it will authenticate using the demonware auth servers that are allowed. 

 

Searching for a game, it doesnt show any of the denied servers etc, just one or too allowed servers & when I play it doesnt feel like im in a different region at all, 

Even if I go as far reaching as say Egypt, all the players sound western, gamertags are english etc - im not convinced my location is being spoofed.

Furthermore, the games should feel slightly easier as well, I know ND doesn't condone bypassing SBMM but irespective of that, a country thats all at work or fast asleep, will have less populated servers, meaning less skill games and more connection based ones. I really think activision is zoning in on this type of geofiltering and its not working for a reason. 

[Netduma Liam]

You won't see too many blocked icons when searching for a game, that's expected.

In the second screenshot you've sent, you're on a French server, so ping would be pretty good. It's also likely many other players connecting to that server are also English, so you might not notice much of a difference in their Gamer tags or language.

When you connect to a server in Egypt, does Geo-filter show the server icon being down there somewhere? What's your ping when you're in that game?

Just to clarify, Geo-filter isn't spoofing your location, it's simply forcing you to connect to a specific server. The game client and game server will still be very much aware that you're based in the UK. If you're trying to connect to a very distant server, it's not uncommon for the game client/server to refuse to connect you. That's not new to this CoD, happened in the older titles too.

[oRaGaMi]

6 hours ago, harty said:

So this example, I just picked a random location when booting into the game - it will authenticate using the demonware auth servers that are allowed. 

 

Searching for a game, it doesnt show any of the denied servers etc, just one or too allowed servers & when I play it doesnt feel like im in a different region at all, 

Even if I go as far reaching as say Egypt, all the players sound western, gamertags are english etc - im not convinced my location is being spoofed.

Furthermore, the games should feel slightly easier as well, I know ND doesn't condone bypassing SBMM but irespective of that, a country thats all at work or fast asleep, will have less populated servers, meaning less skill games and more connection based ones. I really think activision is zoning in on this type of geofiltering and its not working for a reason. 

I've had to resort to using a vpn