QoS for Gaming

[Nicksterr]

Does anyone know if QoS should be enabled in my network adapter, specifically for gaming? I don't experience any lag and my router logs show no packet loss. Just curious as to if there would be any benefit?

[Soulburner]

Yes it should be enabled, no reason not to.

[rogard]

Does anyone know if QoS should be enabled in my network adapter, specifically for gaming? I don't experience any lag and my router logs show no packet loss. Just curious as to if there would be any benefit?

From my experience unless you are in a corporate enviroment (and have a fully AD/GP deployment) it makes no difference whether there is a QoS binding to a network adapter or not.


..I guess its slightly more tidy if you uninstall it.

[Soulburner]

QoS has greatly increased the responsiveness of all computers on the network when browsing the web, while heavy network traffic is underway (uTorrent).

It prioritizes information passing through the network. I have uTorrent set to 250 priority so basically everything else goes virtually uninterrupted. And you know how torrents can hammer a router with work.

If you have nothing else going there is probably no benefit.

[rogard]

How have you set uTorrent to 250 priority(using gpedit)? and ensure that gets "respected" all the way to your router?

It has always been my belief that unless you have windows QoS Packet Scheduler at both end of the link or a router that is DSCP enabled it is effectively useless?
(source:http://www.dslreports.com/faq/3688)


And that in a domestic enviroment QoS Packet Scheduler is better disabled:
http://www.petri.co.il/increase_inte...windows_xp.htm


Please let me know if you have had any success with your setup and any details would be helpful.
thanks!

[STEvil]

QoS is useless pretty much. Great example of a program that will kill your router whether enabled or not is STEAM. Sends out thousands of packets of data when updating/refreshing server list which crashes many routers.

[YukonTrooper]

QoS is good if you have the need for it. Most people don't though.

Steam is a biotch. Sends out tons of UDP packets to refresh servers. The problem is that it doesn't close them right away after pinging the server, so some routers flood because their ip table fills up so quickly. STEvil do you know any wireless routers that don't track connections? I'd like to replace my WRT54GL so I can avoid this Steam bullcrap.

[rogard]

Qos is great! but QoS Packet Scheduler and any MS implementation of QOS is really bad.(with the possible exception of ISA Server)

Most routers use stateful packets inspection and maintain a state table, routers that crash normally during steam/p2p are normally doing so because the state table is too small (there are other reasons of course ) and becomes overwhemed, and these days you will be hard pressed to find a router that is not stateful (if at all)

Your best bet to find a new wireless router which does well for p2p traffic like this review:
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/which-ro...eview-686.html


I have also used the d-link_dgl-4300 and had good experiences with p2p,steam and gaming.

[STEvil]

Friend has one that is rebadged as a "Telus" unit.. dsl router + wireless (no antenna's). I forget the model, though.

Sometimes it'll drop the net, sometimes it wont.. hasnt for quite a while since I turned it on its side though.. heavy use with 3 pc's on steam/torrent at any given time

[jspace]

Dig up some old PC and throw Smoothwall on it. Then get rid of those routers and get a switch. Latest version has QoS built in and I haven't been able to crash the thing once (uTorrent while playing TF2 worked). If you need wireless I don't know what to say.

[halo112358]

How do you set priority of applications with gpedit? I've been googling it for the last couple of hours and the only thing I'm finding is garbage about the 20% bandwidth reservation myth.

[rogard]

How do you set priority of applications with gpedit? I've been googling it for the last couple of hours and the only thing I'm finding is garbage about the 20% bandwidth reservation myth.

Under Computer Configuration->admin templates->network->QoS packet Schedualer.
In there you can sent tell XP the DSCP values of Best effort traffic for example.
But as above, you have to have a "proper" environment in place.

I still have no idea how Soulburner set priority to 250 and how that ties in with the
QoS packet Schedualer?

I have the feeling that Soulburner has either HTB or CBQ running on a router and that is how he is doing it.


If you want QOS or Traffic shaping use this freeware:
http://bandwidthcontroller.com/trafficShaperXp.html

[Soulburner]

It's in the router.



It prioritizes all traffic ahead of uTorrent so web browsing is mostly unaffected by the high amount of simultaneous connections (50-200).

[kiwi]

QoS is a typical router feature and regular PCs don't usually need it. The only reason I can think of if you use torrent or download something and wanna game without interrupting it. Then you can use some software to do it but I still dont suggest it. Just pause/stop download and start gaming, after that continue download

[halo112358]

I'm interested in setting high priority for packets generated by particular applications (games) on a congested network (multiple people torrenting).

Personally, it's a pain in the ass to track every port that a game uses and then setup priority rules on the router - that's why I was curious about setting per-application QoS priority directly on the client machine.