Netgear vs DD-WRT Router Firmware.

[Memhorder]

Hi all. I'm trying to justify switching firmware on my brand new Netgear WNDR-4300 router. It seems that QoS doesn't do anything when I set it. While playing online multi-player games my ping shoots up to 999 when someone plays Netflix and Youtube videos which is very annoying. I've set my computer by port, MAC to highest while every other device is Low. I've also set the uplink to 94% and it just doesn't stop the unplayable Lag that occurs when people stream. So I've came across DD-WRT and pages like this

http://www.howtogeek.com/56612/turn-your-home-router-into-a-super-powered-router-with-dd-wrt/

say it's absolutely the best thing you can do. I'm just wondering if it's worthwhile because I can potentially "Brick" the router. Can anyone vouch for this?

One thing to note as well. My service is currently WiMax which is wireless service going off Microwave towers because I live in the country and it's the fastest I can get. My modem sucks because it's a cheap Huawie hence the reason to get a decent Router for QoS. I am currently getting only 1.45 MB down right now and I've complained because I pay for the highest which is only 6 MBs and they said I would be compensated and get all new gear which hasn't come yet. They also said they are deploying new tech which is LTE from WiMax which is good. Should I just wait for the new gear and see what I can do or flash the firmware to DD-WRT version because it's just better? I just have a hard time believing Netgear doesn't have the best firmware already for their own product and I've never used DD-WRT. Thanks in advance

 

[bill001g]

Your problem is the QoS is limiting outbound...ie upload traffic. You problem is likely you are overloading your inbound especially if you can only get it to run 1.45m. Very technically there is no way to limit the inbound traffic with QoS. The ISP has already decided what traffic to drop or delay before your router even knows about it. You router can not recreate the dropped traffic or change the packet delays after they have already occurred. To really do this the ISP would have to do QoS and none want to deal with this issue on a consumer connection.

DD-WRT to a point has some more option. You can drop even more traffic to hopefully get the other users to slow down. Your problem is your bandwidth is so low and is not I suspect any fixed rate so it gets almost impossible to know. If you could say limit all the other computers to say .5m it should leave 1m for your game but with number that small it doesn't work real well. The way it really works is if a user would receive 1.5m of traffic you would drop 1m of the traffic and only give him .5m and hope the application slows down and only requests .5m to avoid errors. Still during periods of time they will still use all your bandwidth you will just pretend they didn't.

It works for many things that like say youtube that will slow down if it detects errors but it does not work on all applications. It is a complex configuration because you are not guaranteeing your mac address you are limited all the other mac addreses.

Hard to say if it will buy you a lot it only really works well when you know for sure you have a certain amount of bandwidth if it changes from time to time then it is hard to set this since you must key in fixed values to limit it to.

On a small link like yours it may just be easier to block all traffic except yours when you are playing games. If your game needs 1m and you only have 1.5m you are in effect preventing anyone else from using the connection anyway since they will fight over the remaining .5m and likely get very little.

 

[Memhorder]

Thanks for the answer and I just did an evil laugh. Yeah just talked with ISP support and they are currently testing the towers and have been for a month now. LTE sounds promising. Anyway, it's not always 1.45 down. Normally I was getting around 5 Mbs and still QoS didn't help so you just said exactly what I was wanting to do. Throttle everything and me the rest when we do get our new modem and antennae. Hopefully soon. Do you think I should just wait? Flash the router when there is ample bandwidth to play with? Does Netgear QoS even work? I mean would you flash it anyway and ditch Netgear Genie? Regardless

 

[bill001g]

It likely works upload very few routers even offer the option to limit download. But limiting upload when you do not have a issue has no effect

 

[Memhorder]

Does DD-WRT enable download Cap? I mean there is various pages that say DD-WRT unlocks the routers full potential is that right?

 

[bill001g]

dd-wrt has a download cap as well as a few other options for limiting traffic. DD-WRT can do lots of things but it is like many complex tools it takes lots of reading to use some of the more advanced ones. The vast majority of the very advanced options are configured by editing files in the underlying unix system. Maybe there is a GUI for the QoS....I tend to always edit the files but that is because I have used a lot of this stuff before they added gui for most of it.

 

[Memhorder]

Alrighty Bill. Thanks a lot for your input. Appreciated. I'll update this thread once I get everything in order. I think I'll switch over just too see. I know it's not a guarantee but it's some hope.