Best router settings to improve latency/lag? Netgear R7000 Nighthalk, Qos, etc.

Bottom line up front: I am in search of the settings that provide the best online experience specifically for Advanced Warfare (single xbox setup). I.E. provide the lowest latency experience.

No I am not having any significant issues and yes I have the latest firmware. And I have the xbox setup with a reserved IP address (Static IP). I connect with a wired connection using CAT 6 Cables from modem to router and router to xbox. I have Home Telecom
for ISP from Moncks Corner SC, I have cable internet 50 mbps down and 10 mbps up.

Things I wish to address/ ask questions about:

Question #1: UPnP, Port forwarding, or DMZ? I can get an open NAT with any of these but which one will provide the lowest latency?

Question #2: Firewall, what are the best settings for xbox live? And if DMZ is used do these settings even matter?

Question #3: MTU some claim this makes a difference I have played with it but can't tell for sure if it affected latency. Will it improve latency to change the MTU to something lower than the default 1500?

Question #4 (Big Question): QoS, First of all the 2 besides the upstream. Wireless WMM, enable or dis enable? Downstream, I notice a custom rule can be setup to the xbox's MAC address, would this help or make latency worse? And finally, the upstream
QoS, enable obviously....

Click Qos priority rule list; setup QoS rule and it shows the current rules and allows more to be created. By default xbox applications is only set to high while Skype and other useless things to me are set as highest. I deleted all rules except Netgear
EVA and the xbox one, I changed xbox priority to highest and Netgear EVA to high.

So to sum up Question #4: did i do more damage than good or is there an even better setup for this? I noticed I can setup custom rules and even just setup rules for the LAN port or MAC address, would either of those be better options?

Question #5: I know when setting up most QoS you have to put in your bandwidth and it must be something lower than your actual or else it all falls apart. (I.E. i get 10 mbps upstream, when I enter my upstream bandwidth in the router I must put
something lower than what I actually get. Speed test vary from about 8 to 9 mbps, therefore i must put a value into the router no more than 8) When I click the button for speed test it auto puts in about 9.66 mbps. but i know sometimes i get less than that
from my isp especially during peak times. So I conservatively set the upstream in the router to 8, does anybody see a problem with this or know why this QoS system would be different from others?

Recap: Upstream bandwidth actual vs. value place in router.

Question #6: Will turning off the wireless radios improve the wired connection latency or stability? and if so, would using a second router as an access point to handle the wireless side be a good option?

Question #7 (Last one): DNS servers. I can change them on the xbox itself, would it make any difference for the xbox if;

I let the xbox get DNS automatically and changed the router's DNS to google's (8.8.8.8),

rather than leaving the default ISP DNS in the router and manually changing them on the xbox to google's DNS?

Okay, so a lot of questions, I am not here to argue about the placeable effect and yes I understand that lag cannot be completely gotten rid of and it depends on many factors. The defaults work just fine but I have been playing Call of Duty for many years
now with multiple ISP's and many different routers and setups I have learned that tweaking a setup just right gives people with no skill (like me) a nice advantage in most games. And if you combine the right setup with actual skill, well....You have all seen
that person that is impossible to kill and you swear is hacking so you report them, but guess what they were not hacking. I know because I had a good setup once with verizon Fios and i was accused of cheating all the time. Unfortunately I cannot get Fiber
optic internet where I live now.

Also, with everything I have tried so far, the Nighthawk is by far the best router I have ever used and I have already improved my average K/D after owning it for only a few days now.

:)

 

Best Router For Xbox One?

Check out Netgear R7000 Nighthawk, their ads said "it's optimized for Xbox one / 360". I got one, an have no problem with NAT being open, on the Xboxes. Great WiFi range, an dual band, and QoS support.

 

Good Routers for Xbox One

Netgear Nighthawk R7000 here.

Absolute beast of a router and Netgear have absolutely nailed it with their implementation of QoS.

I used to have a Netgear WNR3500L on my BT Infinity 2 (FTTC) connection, with speeds of 74.3Mb DL/17.3Mb UL with average latency of 5ms to sites like google.co.uk and bbc.co.uk and although the speeds have remained the same (which I expected), the Nighthawk's
QoS blows the WNR3500L out of the water.

 

To clear things up, this is what I have done so far and gotten good results with this router. (But I want to make it the best it can be so if you know how to answer any of these questions please explain)

under advanced settings; WAN settings;

Disable port scan and dos protection checked

Default DMZ checked and my xbox's static ip address entered

Respond to ping on internet port and Disable IGMP parodying both unchecked

MTU default 1500

Disable SIP ALG checked then to the right open selected

Advanced settings; LAN setup:

at the bottom add reservation setup a static ip address

Advanced settings; QoS settings:

For upload check enable upstream QoS (optimized for gaming)

For the bandwidth; (should be about 80-90% of max) I get 10 from my isp, i set it to 8 because there must be something to throttle or the qos engine falls apart (or at least most qos engines) so if i set it to 10 and at the moment i am only getting 8.5 from
my isp then the qos engine doesn't work right. If anybody KNOWS otherwise please explain.

then click Setup QoS rule and delete all except for the xbox and Netgear EVA rules and change the xbox priority to highest and netgear eva to high.

The only other things I changed which should have no impact was the system time, wifi name and password router login password

Everything else is default UPnP enabled by default (shows xbox ip and port 3074 in the list) and I have no port forwarding rules setup.

Again I had open net and connected just fine without changing anything, however in games such as COD every millisecond counts and I noticed a big improvement with the above setup vs. defaults.

 

Very detailed post and questions. I've had a lot of the same questions and found the following:

Question #1: UPnP, Port forwarding, or DMZ? I can get an open NAT with any of these but which one will provide the lowest latency?

A #1) To really check your latency to MS/XB1 servers, test Multiplayer Connection in Network. After the test is done, hold LT, RT then LB, RB all 4 at the same time to bring up advanced network test parameters. You want <100ms Latency, 0% packet loss and
>1.5MB Download. That will tell you if you have a good (COD AW) connection.

Activision recommends the following in order of priority:

1) UPnP

2) Port Forwarding

3) DMZ

*Only one of these should be used at a time. If multiple are enabled they can conflict and slow your connection down. I found success with only enabling UPnP and auto assigned IP on my X1.

Question #2: Firewall, what are the best settings for xbox live? And if DMZ is used do these settings even matter?

A#2) Firewall like ZoneAlarm is on your PC and won't/shouldn't affect other devices like X1. Your router is your physical firewall between your devices and the internet. But yes, with X1 in DMZ it's not inside the firewall and so potentially vulnerable to
'attacks'. BUt there is nothing on your X1 to hack so there's really no danger of X1 in DMZ.

Question #3: MTU some claim this makes a difference I have played with it but can't tell for sure if it affected latency. Will it improve latency to change the MTU to something lower than the default 1500?

A#4) I have no idea on MTU or effectiveness. I'm curious if there is any relation to MTU and latency.

Question #4 (Big Question): QoS, First of all the 2 besides the upstream. Wireless WMM, enable or dis enable? Downstream, I notice a custom rule can be setup to the xbox's MAC address, would this help or make latency worse? And finally, the upstream QoS,
enable obviously....

A#5) I was just looking up QoS and came across this post. QoS assigns priority to different types of traffic on your network. If someone is streaming or downloading in your house while you're gaming, you'll want to enable QoS and possibly assign priority
to X1 over other devices streaming YT for example. However I turn QoS off as it didn't make much difference. One less feature my router has to do and I ask my wife/kids not to stream videos while I game.

Question #5: I know when setting up most QoS you have to put in your bandwidth and it must be something lower than your actual or else it all falls apart. (I.E. i get 10 mbps upstream, when I enter my upstream bandwidth in the router I must put something
lower than what I actually get. Speed test vary from about 8 to 9 mbps, therefore i must put a value into the router no more than 8) When I click the button for speed test it auto puts in about 9.66 mbps. but i know sometimes i get less than that..

A#5) With COD AW there is some discussion that throttling your bandwidth on your router you'll somehow get a better game experience. It's counterintuitive but possible. I've noticed when playing solo, I put my UL limit to 400kbps and 200kbps, even 160kbps.
The game only requires 20~30kbps so these ranges should be fine. Playing solo I have had killer games with throttled UL speeds. I don't know why. But playing in a party (which is pretty much always), the party chat suffers as well as my game. It must be something
with the AW netcode that regulates lag compensation. i.e. fast internet and low latency connections are handicapped by the netcode through lag comp. So, if you throttle your connection/latency you take advantage of the lag comp. I've removed all QoS and bandwidth
limiting and the game runs good.

Question #6: Will turning off the wireless radios improve the wired connection latency or stability? and if so, would using a second router as an access point to handle the wireless side be a good option?

A#6) It shouldn't. Routers are good at multitasking and keeping other features enabled without affecting your wired connection. However if other devices on the wireless are streaming or downloading, then yes, you will suffer.

Question #7 (Last one): DNS servers. I can change them on the xbox itself, would it make any difference for the xbox if; I let the xbox get DNS automatically and changed the router's DNS to google's (8.8.8.8), rather than leaving the default ISP DNS in the
router and manually changing them on the xbox to google's DNS?

A#7) Your router is your DNS inside your home. I believe, you want the X1 DNS to be your router's IP address. I don't think you want (or even can) have your X1 use a google or ISP DNS while inside your router's LAN.

And lastly, if you're an AW (or Destiny) gamer and looking for a gaming community; check out rG: Rapturegammingcommunity.net. It's a good gaming community that's recruiting, we have an MLG competitive team and we kick *** at clan wars!

Cheers.

 

-rG TripleAce,

Thank you for taking the time to reply,

When I do the network test I more than meet the requirements for xbox and AW. I usually get about 87 - 90 ms on ping. Now the ping doesn't really change with the xbox test very much as I change router settings but in game I notice big changes therefore
using that test to determine best settings doesn't help a whole lot.

Question 1:

Now with UPnp, port forwarding, or DMZ I agree with you about only using one, but I have read many other posts where specifically DMZ and UPnP were used together with success such as people with multi consoles or whatever. So I wasn't sure if those two were
actually incompatible, I have been trying it with UPnP off and on but havn't determined if it makes a difference.

To remind you what the question was, which of the 3 will give lowest latency? Just because UPnP is recommended doesn't mean that it provides lowest latency.

Question 2:

To clarify I am not concerned about security risk. For my specific router these settings are found under LAN settings. With some routers these settings must be changed for a smooth online experience, my router is also one of them. Just wondering if checking
or unchecking anything specific will improve Latency at all. And yes I use DMZ (outside of firewall) but just wanted to make sure that that means firewall settings don't matter for the xbox then.

By the way routers also have firewalls and settings for said firewalls in the software (it is not just a physical firewall)

Question 4:

My specific router was designed to work with Xbox's, by offering a rare upstream QoS (compared to the normal downstream) Upstream is what makes the biggest difference for gaming, or so they say. QoS controls who can use how much bandwidth but I am also under
the impression that it can give priority to packets. So for an example two packets enter the router, without a priority set the router will just send one packet before the other therefore increasing the latency of the second packet (since it was paused before
sending) so when you give the xbox for example a priority of highest then all xbox packets will be analyzed, processed, and sent prior to anything with a lower priority setting.

Your answer to question 5: I was more talking about the qos setting rather than what you are talking about. I believe what you are talking about is throttling to the point that the xbox servers will not use your connection to co-host the game and therefore
people tend to get a better connection because of that. Besides the actual host other people in the game with "good" connections are used to co-host and that takes part of your connection to help take some of the load off of the actual host and to provide
an overall better experience for people with less than good connections.

Question 6: Again I'm not talking about what works just fine. I'm talking about maximizing the connection for the xbox to the max extent possible. And if it did make a difference if using a second router as an access point would be a good option.

Question 7: Yes, yes you can. Try it. It allows you to use any dns on the xbox while everything else connected to the router to use the routers dns (if you want)

Again thank you for the reply but remember what I am searching for. Not a resolution to any "problem" but the best experience I can get.

And trust me it can and will get much better than just open NAT if you get the settings just right.

 

Important Update Important!

With my suggested settings, everything worked awesome at first. Then I started having some issues. I checked the system log and saw some weird activity to my xbox one (192.168.1.8)

There are many weird ports that are not used by xbox live. I believe that may have been the cause of my issues.

I reset WAN settings (Firewall) to default.

I will continue to troubleshoot getting the best connection while preventing this weird activity.

[LAN access from remote] from 195.64.208.167:29873 to 192.168.1.8:23011, Friday, Dec 19,2014 09:14:46

[LAN access from remote] from 218.77.79.43:54421 to 192.168.1.8:3389, Friday, Dec 19,2014 09:14:37

[LAN access from remote] from 89.46.100.25:54955 to 192.168.1.8:9064, Friday, Dec 19,2014 09:13:23

[LAN access from remote] from 222.244.215.213:55247 to 192.168.1.8:23, Friday, Dec 19,2014 09:12:26

[LAN access from remote] from 112.85.42.106:52982 to 192.168.1.8:9064, Friday, Dec 19,2014 09:10:40

[LAN access from remote] from 162.253.129.202:13614 to 192.168.1.8:23011, Friday, Dec 19,2014 09:09:30

[LAN access from remote] from 60.173.11.195:6000 to 192.168.1.8:9064, Friday, Dec 19,2014 09:07:09

[LAN access from remote] from 93.174.93.106:53672 to 192.168.1.8:143, Friday, Dec 19,2014 09:05:46

[LAN access from remote] from 107.160.10.74:46557 to 192.168.1.8:3128, Friday, Dec 19,2014 09:05:34

[LAN access from remote] from 89.99.0.16:57430 to 192.168.1.8:23011, Friday, Dec 19,2014 09:03:40

[LAN access from remote] from 121.125.71.200:9090 to 192.168.1.8:22, Friday, Dec 19,2014 09:02:52

[LAN access from remote] from 63.141.246.107:12200 to 192.168.1.8:9064, Friday, Dec 19,2014 09:00:45

[LAN access from remote] from 66.240.236.119:22552 to 192.168.1.8:1234, Friday, Dec 19,2014 09:00:16

[LAN access from remote] from 93.174.93.106:53672 to 192.168.1.8:22, Friday, Dec 19,2014 08:59:18

[LAN access from remote] from 184.75.211.244:13614 to 192.168.1.8:23011, Friday, Dec 19,2014 08:58:34

[LAN access from remote] from 189.68.182.204:6881 to 192.168.1.8:23011, Friday, Dec 19,2014 08:52:39

[LAN access from remote] from 218.77.79.38:34876 to 192.168.1.8:3306, Friday, Dec 19,2014 08:52:03

[LAN access from remote] from 60.173.10.166:6000 to 192.168.1.8:9064, Friday, Dec 19,2014 08:50:55

[LAN access from remote] from 218.150.191.216:1548 to 192.168.1.8:53413, Friday, Dec 19,2014 08:49:23

[LAN access from remote] from 50.56.25.41:2900 to 192.168.1.8:445, Friday, Dec 19,2014 08:47:46

[LAN access from remote] from 122.225.109.202:6000 to 192.168.1.8:22, Friday, Dec 19,2014 08:44:02

[LAN access from remote] from 60.173.11.227:6000 to 192.168.1.8:9064, Friday, Dec 19,2014 08:41:44

[Time synchronized with NTP server] Friday, Dec 19,2014 08:41:31

[Internet connected] IP address: 98.124.111.89, Friday, Dec 19,2014 08:41:26

[LAN access from remote] from 95.31.167.239:11660 to 192.168.1.8:23011, Friday, Dec 19,2014 08:38:35

[LAN access from remote] from 108.61.126.52:2536 to 192.168.1.8:3389, Friday, Dec 19,2014 08:36:31

[LAN access from remote] from 203.50.20.254:53 to 192.168.1.8:12883, Friday, Dec 19,2014 08:36:14

[LAN access from remote] from 186.89.118.198:2780 to 192.168.1.8:445, Friday, Dec 19,2014 08:35:25

[LAN access from remote] from 122.225.109.115:6000 to 192.168.1.8:22, Friday, Dec 19,2014 08:34:56

[LAN access from remote] from 115.186.104.244:4973 to 192.168.1.8:445, Friday, Dec 19,2014 08:34:46

[LAN access from remote] from 23.94.149.242:42700 to 192.168.1.8:80, Friday, Dec 19,2014 08:34:22

[LAN access from remote] from 137.63.74.210:13614 to 192.168.1.8:23011, Friday, Dec 19,2014 08:33:21

[LAN access from remote] from 212.57.16.98:38793 to 192.168.1.8:8080, Friday, Dec 19,2014 08:24:55

[LAN access from remote] from 162.219.179.100:13614 to 192.168.1.8:23011, Friday, Dec 19,2014 08:23:16

[LAN access from remote] from 89.46.100.25:32864 to 192.168.1.8:9064, Friday, Dec 19,2014 08:21:42

[LAN access from remote] from 61.174.50.188:6000 to 192.168.1.8:22, Friday, Dec 19,2014 08:18:56

[LAN access from remote] from 61.160.224.129:34626 to 192.168.1.8:3389, Friday, Dec 19,2014 08:18:41

[LAN access from remote] from 203.191.150.102:5498 to 192.168.1.8:3389, Friday, Dec 19,2014 08:17:00

 

Ok this is what I'm trying now and has been working very well (not as well as in DMZ, but oh well)

I setup a static ip address (DHCP reservation) in LAN setup

QoS setup: WMM both disabled/not checked, downstream disabled/not checked,

Upstream enabled/checked (I get 10 up from my isp but i enter 8 into the router) many people with actual knowledge of qos engines will tell you to only input a value of 80% - 95% of what you actually get. If you prefer to throttle to the point that you
won't be used as a host then put this value to something below that which will automatically disqualify you from host. (I don't know what value that is)

And the most important WAN settings/ Firewall settings:

Everything is not checked except for the bottom one

The only thing that should be checked is Disable SIP ALG then check open instead of secured.

so to clarify what is not checked is:

Disable port scan and dos protection

Default DMZ server

Respond to ping on internet port

Disable IGMP proxying

Under advanced setup disable UPnP and delete all port forwarding rules.

Now if you were paying attention i have no UPnP, no port forwarding and no DMZ and I still get open NAT with this router. If you have a different router then you may need to use ONE of those (but only one).

DMZ gave me the lowest latency but it also allowed attacks that seemed to destroy my games, when I was not being attacked however it gave me some of the best games I have every had in any COD game.

Other things to consider if you are having problems:

Input lag of your TV, I personally spent a lot of extra money to ensure I got a TV with low input lag (only works when i use the "game mode" however)

I also had a lot of issues once and found my xbox was connecting wired and wireless at the same time, clear the wireless settings if this is happening to you as well.

 

And of course DNS, I have had a lot of success with setting this in the xbox network settings rather than getting automatically from router. I use google's but sometimes my isp dns is actually faster according to name bench but the isp dns is less consistent.

 

Something else that has seemed to help after some testing is checking/enabling respond to ping on internet port

can be found in WAN settings.

And if I didn't mention before with the upstream QoS, I deleted ALL of the defaults rules and created a new one for my xbox's MAC address.

 

Which setting do you think just gives me better ping?