R7000 & QoS - recommended settings for games/media strea

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slidermike
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 15, 2014 15:55    Post subject: R7000 & QoS - recommended settings for games/media strea Reply with quote
I am sharing how I have my r7000 configured for QoS running kong code.

I did some research since owning my r7000.
I found that the existing documents are dated & refer to older implementations of QoS. The basics are still the same but I added my own real world experience settings.

You need to know a few things about your service provided internet connection to properly plug in values.
So before you apply QoS (turn QoS off if already on) you need to disconnect all devices except 1 hard wired pc/mac for speed testing.
Wireless devices may introduce wireless impacts that wont give correct WAN speeds.

Run speed tests from sources off site such as speedtest.net, speedtest.charter.com or other resources.

What you are looking for is your true upload/download rates. What you pay for isnt always what your true speeds are.
Also, perform the tests multiple times AND during the time frame you will most use it for gaming or media streaming.

Once you know your true rates you are ready to start QoS.
On the QoS page you can choose to apply QoS to the WAN or WAN & LAN. I suggest only WAN unless you do a LOT of LAN to LAN file transfers or otherwise congestion causing traffic on the LAN. (unlikely in most cases)
From my research it appears HTB with FQ_codel offers good performance & low overhead.
Next "Uplink" that is the lower value of your WAN speed.
In my case with Charter I get 30Mbps/4Mbps.
With testing, I can prove I get almost exactly what I am supposed to get.
For QoS to be effective you have to set the values for anything in the range of 80% - 95% of what you actually are getting. More on that in a minute.

Now you have to convert Mbps to kbps. The math is easy. 1024 Kbps for every 1 Mbps.
Lets use mine as an example.
Remember we are focusing on the "uplink" rate for now.
I want to know what 80% of 4 Mbps is.
#1 4 (Mbps) x 1024 (kbps) = 4096 Kbps is my full Uplink rate.
Remember where I said for QoS to work you have to set it lower than your real speed. I suggest starting with 80-85% of your real speed.
So 80% of 4096 Kbps is determined by multiplying.
.8 x 4096 = 3276.8
Now I know what to put in my "Uplink" field.
3277

Next we do the same thing for the "Downlink". This is the max rate you can download from the internet.

In my case it is 30Mbps. Convert that to kbps.
30x1024= 30720 kbps
For QoS I want 80% of that.
.8 x 30720= 24576
Now I know what to put in my "Downlink" field.
24576

Tic all 4 of the packet priority fields UNLESS you do torrenting.
Torrents involve a lot of "chatty" ACK. So if you do torrents then do not tic that field.

Next you will use mac priority.
Put the mac address of your game console/media streaming device (like Roku) in this field and chose a priority of "Premium".
Be careful not to put everything in premium or you will defeat the purpose of it.
When everything else is slowed down, what do you need to keep rocking? Thats what goes in premium.
You can leave everything else alone or you can also assign lesser queues to the other devices.

Mac based priority takes precedence over all other forms of priority so you can use others with different values but if its in the mac section, THATS what the device will get.

Apply that.
Next go to the management section (bottom of page) & make sure you have "Westwood" selected. You can also tweak the TCP/UDP timeouts.
Apply.

Leave your QoS settings like this for a few days and see how your network reacts.

If its good, write down the values for later.
If you want to get back a little of the bandwidth you carved out earlier then now you can test closer to the edge.
Remember when I said set it 80%?
That is the new MAX bandwidth your router will allow to travel in and out your router WAN.
Setting it low like that to start is best.
Now that you have the baseline but want some of the 20% you took away you can begin testing your QoS by increments.
I suggest 5% at a time.
Replace the 80% values with 85% values. Apply and test for a few days. If it does what you want, next try 90%. Then 95%.
Do NOT go 100% as that will most likely defeat the purpose of QoS. Once you find where the QoS doesnt seem to be working as well as before; back it off & thats your new QoS settings going forward.

Hope that helps.

**update 12/5/2014**
If your wondering which of the multiple ways to enable QoS will take precedence over the other, here is a list explaining which is used first/over the others. It is also a first hit & done method.
The order the precendence is as follows:
◾ MAC - If you have specified a MAC address priority then it takes precedence over all others
◾ Netmask - The IP address entries are applied in the order that they appear in your netmask table. Interestingly only the first match applies. For example if you have an entry marking 192.168.1.10/32 as bulk followed by an entry marking 192.168.1.0/24 (all 192.168.1 addresses) as premium the traffic from 192.168.1.10 would be marked bulk because it was the first match. Also if a match is found in this table it does not matter what you put in the services table.
◾ Services - The services entries are applied in the order that they appear in your services tables. Again, only the first match will apply.
◾ Ethernet Ports -
only works on old models with ADMtek switch chips. That is, the Linksys WRT54G v1.0, 1.1, 2.0, 2.1 and the WRT54GS v1.0. It appears that this Ethernet Port Priority option has been removed for many models that do not support it, but many Broadcom G spec models that do not support it still display it.



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Thank you James
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_________________
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R7000 specific Tips/Tricks.
http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=264152


Last edited by slidermike on Fri Dec 05, 2014 17:02; edited 3 times in total
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Vishwa
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Location: Edmonton, AB

PostPosted: Tue Jul 15, 2014 16:22    Post subject: Reply with quote
Great post, Mike. I don't need it now but when I do, I know where to come back.
JAMESMTL
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 15, 2014 16:39    Post subject: Reply with quote
Personally I prefer HTB FQ_CODEL vs HFSC FQ_CODEL as I find HTB seems to kick in quicker than HFSC when under load
slidermike
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Joined: 11 Nov 2013
Posts: 1487
Location: USA

PostPosted: Tue Jul 15, 2014 16:45    Post subject: Reply with quote
HTB is a good one also. I would see no issue with choosing it over HFCS.
I adjusted the lead in for HTB instead of HFCS.
Both are acceptable but since I am using/suggesting a queuing mechanism that benefits more from HTB thats why I made the change.
Thank you to James.

Supporting document.
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Quality_of_Service

_________________
Router currently owned:
Netgear R7800 - Router
Netgear R7000 - AP mode

R7000 specific Tips/Tricks.
http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=264152
atag
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Joined: 16 Jul 2014
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 21:52    Post subject: mac priority through a lan switch Reply with quote

is MAC address prioritizing only works for devices
connected directly to the router or also devices
connected to the router through a LAN Switch ?
as english is not my native language here is a simple illustration

|R7000|------>|SWITCH|---->MAC Address for a device

please note that iam only prioritizing WAN Traffic.

Thank You slidermike for sharing this helpful article.
KALIROB2K6
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Joined: 29 Sep 2008
Posts: 127

PostPosted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 23:02    Post subject: Reply with quote
i see they closed the last topic about the r7000, is there a new one for it, Mike? there are so many r7000 topics i'm just curious in worst case scenario. Confused

- jenn
slidermike
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Joined: 11 Nov 2013
Posts: 1487
Location: USA

PostPosted: Thu Jul 17, 2014 1:16    Post subject: Re: mac priority through a lan switch Reply with quote
Atag,
Yes it should work for both in your question.
atag wrote:

is MAC address prioritizing only works for devices
connected directly to the router or also devices
connected to the router through a LAN Switch ?
Thank You slidermike for sharing this helpful article.

_________________
Router currently owned:
Netgear R7800 - Router
Netgear R7000 - AP mode

R7000 specific Tips/Tricks.
http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=264152
atag
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Joined: 16 Jul 2014
Posts: 8

PostPosted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 0:06    Post subject: Re: mac priority through a lan switch Reply with quote
slidermike wrote:
Atag,
Yes it should work for both in your question.
atag wrote:

is MAC address prioritizing only works for devices
connected directly to the router or also devices
connected to the router through a LAN Switch ?
Thank You slidermike for sharing this helpful article.


Thank You for answering my question.
RealtorRod
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Joined: 20 Oct 2009
Posts: 17

PostPosted: Wed Oct 29, 2014 9:35    Post subject: Reply with quote
Old thread but a terrific one nonetheless. Thanks
Spritzup
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Joined: 10 Nov 2010
Posts: 11

PostPosted: Wed Dec 03, 2014 12:50    Post subject: Reply with quote
I'm sorry for bumping an old topic, but your thread seems the closest to the answer Smile

I'm curious as to how the "manual" setting works in relation to the rest of QoS? Is it simply reserving that much bandwidth, thus essentially being the "highest" priority?

Also, does anybody have any updated breakdown of traffic? The last one I was able to find was the following -->


    Exempt: 60% - 100%
    Premium: 25% - 100%
    Express: 10% - 100%
    Standard: 5% - 100%
    Bulk: 1% - 100%


Thanks in advance for any help Smile

~Spritz
justyourimage
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Joined: 04 Nov 2014
Posts: 113

PostPosted: Wed Dec 03, 2014 13:17    Post subject: Reply with quote
If you setup QoS to favor specific Devices it might create a Bottleneck for every other Devices (either in the Direction of overloading your total WAN-Capabilities or in artificially limiting your Device Bandwidth) which somewhat defeats the purpose of QoS in my opinion. You're basically white-listing any junk-traffic from that Device as important even if it 's just any background service.

Especially since you don't seem to have any priorities for specific important services setup in your Tutorial like DNS or HTTP.

QoS per se works with Services rather then Devices - that it won't always work is true since not every Stream can be categorized correctly and often Ports are different for different Application Versions (hence are not identified correctly).

However that is how QoS is intended to work - and how for example Netgears QoS that doesn't have any configuration options is working > somewhat < behind the scenes (as in per Service rather then per Device).

You could combine them - IF - and only if the MAC Priorities are all considered lower then the service priorities. However I'm not sure if the QoS in DD-WRT is working as layered / intelligent like this (and by that I doubt it unless someone proofs me that it 's working - which isn't easy unless you have a look into the code or did code it yourself).

_________________
The Netgear R7000 is a beast!

My contributions:

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My Devices:

Netgear R7000 running DD-WRT BS 25648 with wl0_ampdu=off as Router
ASUS AC66U running DD-WRT Kong 23900 OLDD downclocked to 500 MHz as Repeater
ASUS N66U running 374.43_2 MerlinWRT with BL1.09 downclocked to 500MHz as WET for my Mainmachine
Linksys E2000 running Tomato v121 as WET for my Synology DS214play and Minix Neo X7 Mini
slidermike
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Joined: 11 Nov 2013
Posts: 1487
Location: USA

PostPosted: Wed Dec 03, 2014 15:06    Post subject: Reply with quote
I disagree with several of your statements (at least how I read them).

#1 This was a basic "how to" using my specific environment at home & it works great. I don't want anything to get better/higher priority than my Roku's.
In the case of the Roku there is no "junk" traffic going across the wan that I am worried about. Once a week or so it auto checks for updates but that is super small & inconsequential traffic.

#2 You are mistaken as to what QoS is intended to be.
QoS should probably be called QoE or quality of experience.
You use Netgear as your validating example. Netgear is using an application database to best guestimate what is most commonly categorized important & less important etc... Netgear is using "Auto QoS" to help the average layperson who doesn't know nor cares to know how to manually configure QoS.
This does NOT mean that it is the correct or only way to implement QoS.
I am a professional network engineer for my daytime job & I setup both auto QoS & manual QoS on enterprise equipment. One is not right or wrong over the other.

#3 You suggest we are possibly creating a bottleneck for other devices. There is no bottleneck unless the bandwidth is at or above your subscribed rate. Thus the bottleneck exists whether we use QoS or not.

The 1st 1/2 of this statement makes no sense. At no time did anyone suggest you overstate your WAN bandwidth. That breaks QoS as it will never work as intended.
Quote:
either in the Direction of overloading your total WAN-Capabilities or in artificially limiting your Device Bandwidth

As for the 2nd 1/2, the only way to ensure you get the expected results from manually configuring QoS is to run several baseline bandwidth tests. You will notice that you will almost never get the same results so you have to use a lower end average or else QoS might not give you the expected results.

#4 Mac based priority take precedence over all the other forms of priority on the page. The hierarchy goes from most specific match to least specific match. Thus mac based is most & network based is least.

Feel free to add your own suggest/recommended QoS configuration to the thread. The more solid additions we get, the better off the community is.
Just to nit pick with your own opinion really does no one in the community any good.
Hit the reply button & post some of your suggested settings. We are always happy to get more quality guides in the community forums.

_________________
Router currently owned:
Netgear R7800 - Router
Netgear R7000 - AP mode

R7000 specific Tips/Tricks.
http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=264152
justyourimage
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Joined: 04 Nov 2014
Posts: 113

PostPosted: Wed Dec 03, 2014 15:44    Post subject: Reply with quote
I didn't technically said that your example would create it per se or that it would be totally wrong I just said excluding Services (or Applications like you describe for the Netgear QoS - which is in the end the same) in a Basic Setup isn't a good idea to my opinion (see below).

The "only" Bottleneck (if you want to call it like that) in your example are your manual Settings in the Netmask tab. Those settings make sure that those Devices would never be able to aquire the full bandwidth to my understanding (I don't have insight of the technical implementations of the QoS in DD-WRT but I guess MAX means MAX in that case).

That is of course to not create a Bottleneck on your global WAN-Connection for other Devices like you've said above but it is (in my personal opinion) not optimal at least not with manual settings. So the other side of the Bottleneck that one could create here if the total Bandwidth of all Clients would exceed that of the global Limit (that set on QoS as well as that of your ISP) introducing all kinds of troubles and fighting inbetween the Clients (or better said Services running on them between each other).

What I ment with the Junk-Traffic getting prioritized higher then Bulk is that you have multiple Devices setup with Premium and Express Standard-Priority. While you say you know there is no junk traffic I can't believe this will hold true for every device listed there and might lead to others thinking it 's ok to do so by default (that 's where my intend was not by criticizing you - only to make people think about it).

Unless you 99% know what kind of traffic is coming trough it 's better to set the priorities per Service (Application) rather then per Device since it is more intelligent then the other way around (especially if you have many Clients running or if you have Friends that visit and want to connect to your Wlan with their Smartphones for example).

Despite that your priorities would be fine as a second layer in case you have the default Services such as DNS, HTTP, Ping set higher then those in the Device Tab.

That is of course only if you want everyone to be at least be able to surf the web while almost full utilizing the full Bandwidth with your high priority devices.

I hope I could explain what I meant properly now. It 's a bit hard in that case since English isn't my native language so excuse me if anything is sounding a bit odd. That said that is all only my understanding of how it works by theoretical means. Smile

The term QoS = Quality of Service is perfectly fine tough since it can also be seen as the Quality distribution of the Connection that 's been Service 'd rather then it pointing at managing only Services per se.

Sounds weird ... tough.

Cheers

---

As for an example for an somewhat Standard-Service Setup that could be included (beware you might have to adjust the Priorities here to make it work in conjunction with Devices):


_________________
The Netgear R7000 is a beast!

My contributions:

[Script] Adblock Plus Filters for Privoxy (without Optware)
[Privoxy-Template] PVXY Modern (officially integrated in DD-WRT starting Build r25541)

My Devices:

Netgear R7000 running DD-WRT BS 25648 with wl0_ampdu=off as Router
ASUS AC66U running DD-WRT Kong 23900 OLDD downclocked to 500 MHz as Repeater
ASUS N66U running 374.43_2 MerlinWRT with BL1.09 downclocked to 500MHz as WET for my Mainmachine
Linksys E2000 running Tomato v121 as WET for my Synology DS214play and Minix Neo X7 Mini
Spritzup
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 10 Nov 2010
Posts: 11

PostPosted: Wed Dec 03, 2014 16:47    Post subject: Reply with quote
Well I'm glad I brought this topic back from the dead and was able to get some really good discussion going. However, I still haven't seen a good explanation as to how the "manual" QoS setting works? Did I miss something?

Thanks again!

~Spritz
slidermike
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Joined: 11 Nov 2013
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Location: USA

PostPosted: Wed Dec 03, 2014 16:56    Post subject: Reply with quote
dd-wrt QoS is all manual Qos.
netgear implements auto-Qos.

Each users environment is unique so one size wont fit all.

Without knowing your exact environment no one could say how best to manually set up QoS for your situation.

In my original example it was a basic enabling of QoS with setting up some device specific queueing.

I have always thought about QoS like wireless. Each network/environment poses its own challenges & requirements.

Lifehacker has a decent basic QoS step by step tutorial.http://lifehacker.com/326543/ensure-a-fast-internet-connection-when-you-need-it

_________________
Router currently owned:
Netgear R7800 - Router
Netgear R7000 - AP mode

R7000 specific Tips/Tricks.
http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=264152
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