Openwrt for gaming

[u/Necessary_Yard_9201]

Hi, I have an FTTH fiber connection with 2.5 Gbps download and 1 Gbps upload speeds. I’m looking for some recommendations on how to optimize my setup for competitive gaming using my Flint 2 router running official OpenWrt.

[u/cdf_sir]

with that kind of bandwidth, I dont think your router can even handle QoS to begin with, enabling QoS can make it worse. Heck I dont think youll be worrying about buffer bloat with that amount of available bandwidth.

I think your just looking for issues that youre not really having in the first place.

[u/BCMM → u/cdf_sir]

I agree that they're unlikely to have significant buffer bloat, but it wouldn't hurt to check.

As to whether the router can even do 2.5Gb/s SQM, that's not impossible any more thanks to cake_mq, but it'll depend on whether the Flint 2 has multiple hardware queues (and that's not shown in the ToH yet).

[u/NC1HM]

First, be sure your gaming device is connected to the router by wire. Wi-Fi is more likely than not to have random latency spikes.

Next, let's see if you need to optimize anything at all. From a device connected to your router by wire, run the bufferbloat test (read the instructions before running the test):

https://www.waveform.com/tools/bufferbloat

Post the output here; let's see if there are any issues to fix at all. Here are the important items needed to evaluate your situation:

Bufferbloat grade: _____
Latency: 
  Unloaded:        _____
  Download Active: _____
  Upload Active:   _____
Speed: 
  Download:        _____
  Upload:          _____

Use this as a template to post your results.

[u/Klaritee → u/NC1HM]

The grade Waveform gives you is not valuable information, instead focus on the maximum spikes in the box and line graphs below. If the top number only shows +10ms and gives you an A but the ping ended up spiking to 160+ a few times your QoS is not tuned well.

Also consider running a second test here mainly because it tests bidirectional bloat which most tests ignore.

https://test.libreqos.com/advanced/

[u/ComeSwirlWithMe → u/Klaritee]

https://ibb.co/2GDDg52

https://ibb.co/B5Vrr7z0

Is this good boss?

[u/shirtlesscook]

With that setup, you only need to worry about making sure you're on Ethernet. With that router, qos may hinder it and will reduce your speeds a lot lower than what you have.

If anything you could test it with Qosify and see how it affects your bufferbloat, if you have any, and speeds.

[u/ollm-tux]

Network-firewall-routing/nat offloading-software flow offloading

[u/xenongaming720]

i like openwrt

[u/DutchOfBurdock]

Your going to be very close to maximising that router out with a 2.5gbe WAN, it's rated about 4.8gbps routed/NAT over it's ethernet ports (2.5gbe in WAN and 2.5gbe out LAN = 5gbe routed traffic, something peoples forgot).

Perform stres tests: Helps to have a lot of devices locally for this. Do this before setting any offloading, IRQBalance, Multicore scheduling (Packet Steering) or SQM. Install htop to OpenWRT and watch the IO and CPU states as your perform tests

First, bufferbloat test: https://www.waveform.com/tools/bufferbloat when nothing is using your bandwidth to get a baseline.

• Fire up BitTorrent and download a Linux DVD

• Be ready to perform both speed tests and bufferbloat tests

• Fire up a 4K HDR@60fps video service/stream

• Open up Facebook or some other SNS infiltrated with ads and unpredictable media

Start the whole lot and wait for Torrent to pick up speed (both ways). Speed test on one PC and bufferbloat test on another. Use this bufferbloat test as the extreme.

Now enable offloading and repeat the steps ahead.

Now disable offloading and enable packet steering if available. Test again.

Disable and enable SQM. Test again.

Now enable Packet Steering with SQM still enabled.

Do not use Offloading with SQM, it won't work well. But, do try Packet Steering and Offloading without SQM.

Whichever one provides the bandwidth and latency needed under load without thrashing the router is the most ideal.

[u/mystiquebsd]

qosmate

Congestion Control Algorithms (bbr is available)

qdiscs.. fq is the lowest overhead

Find that mt6000 custom image.. not sure if Ethernet was optimized; but lots of other things were

Get some local dns servers, and play around with ECS; see if it makes a difference

ethtool tweaks..

:dunno:

You’d need a problem for us to fix..

HTH

[u/Reaperabx → u/mystiquebsd]

Nope and many many nopes.

[u/SuperDefiant]

If you mean in terms of latency, it doesn't really get much better than that

[u/Terminhater69]

A ping reduction that you could achieve on your router on a fiber connection is going to be so small and so impossible to quantify that it would be a waste of time. If your blaming your deaths on bad ping its you my guy.

[u/adde0109]

Actual OpenWrt is not really optimized for 2.5Gbe. I tried using it and it maxed out at round 400-600mbps.

[u/xGhostFace0621x → u/adde0109]

What hardware do you have openwrt installed in?
I’m using an x86 old computer with an i7-6700 and I’m getting consistent shaping speeds at 1.5 Gbps

[u/adde0109 → u/xGhostFace0621x]

Qualcomm Atheros IPQ4018 700mhz 4 cores, 256mb ram

[u/lizardhistorian]

You need to ensure NAT hardware offloading is working and disable anything that might interfere with it.