Help a noob understand

[HQ2]

Hi guys - apologies if you get this twice - website said it was down after clicking post although doesn't appear to be duplicated. 

 

Recently got a Netduma thingy, have a few issues, which I hope you can help with. 

 

We're on BT Infinity, but a few miles from town so around 10mb down, 0.75up. Still have the white infinity box but not the BT router. 

 

Gaming seemed a little improved on initial plug and play, but perhaps by me dicking around with settings, things are a little hit and miss. 

 

I am rarely offered an 'update' button which a quick search would suggest it's a dedi. Is this the case in Euroland though? I now have loads of denied hosts on the west coast US, but relatively few in Europe/UK. If I enter a description and rating it will just disappear. 

 

I'm too old for my one-trick, run-and-gun style really, but if I get rage (and blame the connection of course!) I might try and deny a server - normally one outside my geo range, but I guess with a good ping. I can still get the very same host another day. Perhaps this means I've blacklisted a US dedi, but then I would have been offered an update button which in theory shouldn't happen. I understand being offered a dedi again regardless of rating, but my deny list is huge (as US hosts seem to all offer update button) while my allow list is teeny (rarely offered update button) - annoying for those great hosts. 

 

I unclick 'strict' while searching for a lobby and it is almost always US based, so what value is there to re-click once in a lobby? Can I specify geo AND ping and still have half a chance of a UK/Euro host?

 

Broadband is for gaming only, rest of my world is 4g  (so-so for gaming and brings carrier grade NAT issues although not fussed about party gaming). 

 

I'll probably have 100 more questions over the coming days, as I am pretty simple when it comes to tech, so any help appreciated. 

 

 

[Netduma Iain]

Hi guys - apologies if you get this twice - website said it was down after clicking post although doesn't appear to be duplicated. 

 

Recently got a Netduma thingy, have a few issues, which I hope you can help with. 

 

We're on BT Infinity, but a few miles from town so around 10mb down, 0.75up. Still have the white infinity box but not the BT router. 

 

Gaming seemed a little improved on initial plug and play, but perhaps by me dicking around with settings, things are a little hit and miss. 

 

I am rarely offered an 'update' button which a quick search would suggest it's a dedi. Is this the case in Euroland though? I now have loads of denied hosts on the west coast US, but relatively few in Europe/UK. If I enter a description and rating it will just disappear. 

 

I'm too old for my one-trick, run-and-gun style really, but if I get rage (and blame the connection of course!) I might try and deny a server - normally one outside my geo range, but I guess with a good ping. I can still get the very same host another day. Perhaps this means I've blacklisted a US dedi, but then I would have been offered an update button which in theory shouldn't happen. I understand being offered a dedi again regardless of rating, but my deny list is huge (as US hosts seem to all offer update button) while my allow list is teeny (rarely offered update button) - annoying for those great hosts. 

 

I unclick 'strict' while searching for a lobby and it is almost always US based, so what value is there to re-click once in a lobby? Can I specify geo AND ping and still have half a chance of a UK/Euro host?

 

Broadband is for gaming only, rest of my world is 4g  (so-so for gaming and brings carrier grade NAT issues although not fussed about party gaming). 

 

I'll probably have 100 more questions over the coming days, as I am pretty simple when it comes to tech, so any help appreciated. 

 

Hi Skn,

 

Welcome to the forum. So few things you asked there I'll try answer them.

 

Firstly, you can't block dedicated servers that is correct. I would suggest going to "Settings > Misc" and in the cloud section tick "Autcloud" and "Bleeding edge" then click apply. This will give you the latest database. So if you have managed to block a server before we detected it this will be undone. Incidentally in the next firmware we hope to have a temporary server block feature.

 

Onto the next question, the key is that ping is king. Sometimes servers are in the wrong location. So always look at the ping, for example if your ping graph is below 40 ms and you're connecting transatlantic then its a wrong location. You don't need to worry about it, that is why the ping assist feature exists.

 

I suggest you set your Geo-Filter to around 2000km distance and your ping assist to 50ms for quick plug n play with strict mode off. That will get you games quick, check the ping graph if they are always relatively low then I'd stick with it till you want to being playing around with settings.

 

Also what version are you on? Look at the bottom of each page it will have a verison number there. 

[HQ2]

Thanks for the reply. I'm on 1.03.4 (as of an hour ago).

 

Poking around the forums and I've tested for bufferbloat as some suggest. I can't get my rating above 'C' (tried maybe 10 varied settings), but a regular ping test shows around 9-11ms.

 

Also any reason why so few euro hosts offer an update button?

 

Yesterday it was playing OK and my NAT seemed to flick between open, moderate and strict (without much impact to be fair), today it's been moderate all day and I've followed the instructions online to resolve.