Is it normal to need congestion control at less than 20% to get bufferbloat under control? (Ping optimizer doesn't work at all)

[terry_b]

I've noticed recently that I am getting a ridiculous amount of loss and lag spikes (although I can never get a test to show packet loss, it happens near constantly in games). Ping optimizer just stopped working and I basically have to crank my download slider to the bare minimum to get any improvement. 

I'm on the .54 firmware, *should* be getting 500/20 for speeds. Upload looks ok in testing, but again I suffer in many online games. 70% upload seems ok, but I need download to be at 20% or below before it shows any improvement in bufferbloat. 

I have a suspicion that my ISP (Spectrum) is likely to blame for these issues and I've tried my own modem and theirs with inconsistent results. I don't even know if there's any way to improve if there's a routing issue at the ISP level?

[Netduma Fraser]

What is the model of the modem/router the R3 is connected to and how have you set that to ensure all traffic flows to the R3? E.g R3 in its DMZ, modem/bridge mode

Are ALL devices connected to the R3?

Have you entered those speeds you mentioned into the router?

How have you setup SmartBOOST?

What game are you playing?

What platform are you playing on and how is it connected, via ethernet or WiFi?

Where are you testing the bufferbloat exactly?

[terry_b]

I had a netgear cm1000 v2, but recently had spectrum send me theirs to check it out. This one is their standard docsis 3.1 wMTA modem ES2251 (still unclear if this falls under the whole puma chip issue). 

I've entered 500/20 in the speeds, and when tested from the router I usually see results of 530ish/25ish.

Everything is connected to the R3, my testing and gaming is done from my PC which is connected via ethernet. Everything else is connected via WiFi, and I have to manually select channels to get the best connection. 

SmartBOOST has my PC prioritized, (with a reserved IP). I also have the general "Gaming" category, "EA Games", and "Destiny 2", and "Valve Games" prioritized. 

Those are also the games I'm usually playing - BF2042 seems to work pretty well, but over the weekend the BF6 beta was showing heavy packet loss inside the game and out. Destiny 2 can be noticeably bad at times even in solo PvE activities (hit registration, delays, and laggy enemies, along with random disconnects and error codes), and PvP is frustratingly unplayable unless the conditions are just right and I am on the "good" side of their P2P hybrid connection. 

I've been using the waveform tool, cloudflare's tool, and fast.com - although fast generally shows good results no matter what the router configuration is and waveform and cloudflare show ping increasing under load and even packet loss at times. 

At first ping optimizer was really consistent and lowering the upload AND download ping - now ping optimizer shows 100+ ping and "cannot reduce ping further" whenever I try to let it run on its own. 

I'm also having issues in Destiny 2 where I cannot get an open NAT with UPnP, so I have to forward port 3097. I know I've posted before regarding Destiny 2 because it's literally miserable in PvP games, and I really wonder if Spectrum just doesn't like that traffic for some reason? I've tried running a VPN on my PC to see if that affects the routing and surprisingly, it does seem to increase my hit registration, but it also results in strict NAT and overall it makes *everything* more laggy. 

[Netduma Fraser]

Ping Optimizer just reduces the Congestion Control percentages and uses a different speed test server than you're using to test against so it's not doing anything special that you're not already doing, it's just a case of finding what works specifically for you. If you're prioritized the entire PC then the speedtest results you're getting are also going to be influenced by that, disable that then try testing.

Follow this guide https://support.netduma.com/frequently-asked-questions/legacyfaqs/test-your-ping/ while downloading & start with 95% for Congestion Control (set to Always), check results, decrease by 10%, check, decrease by 10% etc, until you get to a value that is pretty good & then try 5% either side of that value to see if it can be improved. Download & Upload on Congestion Control don't have to be the same value & you may have a better experience with differing values.

[terry_b]

That has pretty much been my process thus far, and I get no meaningful improvement until download is below 20%. Upload seems fine at anywhere from 70-90%, and starts to cause problems when it's too low.

[Netduma Fraser]

Have you used something like Ping Plotter shown in the guide? As that will provide more real world results and should be more accurate overall