Need help getting QoS to work, at the end of my rope.

I'm trying to set up QoS on my Netgear WNR2000v3 router so that I don't get lag spikes during gaming when other devices on the network are simultaneously using up bandwidth, i.e. streaming videos or downloading stuff. I currently game through WiFi on my laptop. My connection is only about 7.5 Mbps down/1.2 Mbps up so there's not a lot of bandwidth to go around. Considering the number of other people and devices in my house sharing this connection, online gaming is often very frustrating. If even one or two other people are downloading or watching HD YouTube videos then my ping goes through the roof, often increasing by several hundred milliseconds. It's impossible for me to schedule my gaming around others' Internet usage and I can't just tell them to get off or kick them so QoS is my last hope.



Those are my current settings and ones which theoretically should allow QoS to work if my hours of research and tweaking are correct. I set the upload bandwidth control to about 90% of my maximum upload because I read that is required for QoS to work properly. I added the MAC address of my laptop as highest priority on the priority rules list. The effect off this setup is no different from having QoS disabled and games still lag.

Alternatively, I have tried adding my individual games and their respective port ranges into the priority rules and setting them to highest priority. I also added the MAC addresses of the other computers on the network set them to low priority in conjunction with all of the above. None of this has done anything either.

Furthermore, I tried using DD-WRT, since my router is compatible, in hopes that it has working QoS. The DD-WRT QoS is even worse than the one in the stock Netgear firmware and doesn't even let you set priority for MAC addresses, so I reverted back to Netgear's.

Am I doing something wrong? Or is there something wrong with my router hardware or firmware? Any advice or insight would be greatly appreciated. I have also asked this on the Netgear forums but it is not very active and nobody seems to know anything there based on my past experiences.

 

Bump. Nobody knows anything about this?

 

QOS has no effect on your down stream speed, only on the up stream. To quote my Cisco help screen about QOS support:

"Internet Access Priority

QoS is only applied to traffic streams that are uploaded to the Internet."

Therefore, when others are using up your download bandwidth, your gaming will suffer, because the download speed is not given priority under any QOS setting.

 

Thanks for the clarification. So there's no point in using QoS in my case as it will not help? What is the main purpose of QoS then? What are real-world cases in which it would be beneficial?

 

I'm pretty sure someone will offer you an explanation on what QoS offers and how great is it but in my opinion it's a useless technology.
Check if your router supports a firmware that helps your to allocate bandwidth (check Gargoyle)- that might be helpful.

 

I would assume you are the "tech-guy" of your family consider you know how to access the router. So I would assume you can access all the computer in the house.
If you cannot do it through the router, throttle clients( I.e family machine) bandwidth using software directly on their computer.

If they use p2p stream, reduce the connection number, as some older router can not handle too much simultaneous connections.

 

Well nobody in the house uses P2P, mainly just watching online videos, surfing, gaming, and downloading stuff. Problem is if anyone watches, let's say, a 1080p YouTube video or starts downloading a game on Steam, that uses up all of my download bandwidth and games start lagging like crazy. Those aren't activities I can throttle in the application itself, to my knowledge, except for Steam game downloads.

Previously on DD-WRT I had the ability to throttle clients by IP or MAC address on the QoS page. But I'm no longer using DD-WRT and I kinda feel bad to throttle everybody else to, say, 768 Kbps/128 Kbps. They'd probaby get mad at me for slowing them down so much but if I give them anymore there's not enough bandwidth for my games.

I think what I'll have to do is get a better Internet package, maybe something like 25/5. Other people hogging the downstream traffic is my biggest problem and since QoS can't control that it looks like the only thing that will help is to get more bandwidth.

 

1. Find what each user is going to be doing during your gaming time.
2. Figure out a time table for when big downloads need to be done. (I have 10/10mbit line with alot users. But your only allow to download p2p,steam. After 1am until 7 am.)<- Example.
3. With Almost any Qos. Only one port or program can be set for the highest. Or they start fight to much.(No facts on such just alot experience.) (Choose wisely)

Yahoo,MSN,aim,google talk don't need to be high (not less user are file sharing or video sharing.)

What you may have to is restrict client side data. (It's sucks yes, but it's the only when you need bandwidth)
Figure how much bandwidth each user really needs. If you give them just enough that they won't know. They won't know they are being limited.(Again something I do.).