Looking for a good, affordable router with a working QoS

[konakona]

I was a skeptic at first, but I am convinced after reading through these threads:
http://www.dslreports.com/foru...223-Best-gaming-router
http://www.tomshardware.com/fo...page-224556_28_50.html


Some of you here might have been ticked off by virtuallarry's earlier thread on gaming routers, but I fully understand that routers don't do squat for anything that happens outside your local network. What I am interested in is rather a working QoS for upstream; I can speak from my personal experience that no amount of throttling is going to let a torrent nut and a gaming addict get along together.

After an ample amount of testing at varying upload limit, I came to a conclusion gaming experience is less than ideal to be polite, and the effect of having bittorent (or equivalent bandwidth hog on the uptstream) is quite noticeable. Not a big torrent user myself, but whoever I decide to share internet with would most likely. Since games I play happen to be either p2p or have servers located couple tens of thousand miles away, every bit of help counts and makes a difference between manageable and frustratingly unplayable.

Price is a definite concern here, the cheaper the merrier, though I am willing to fork up $100 or so at most. Other features concern me little if at all as long as QoS works well as advertised - that includes wireless, I could totally live without it.

I am currently looking at D-Link's DGL-4300 (could be had for $80 AR from egg) and Zyxel X-550 ($77 from amazon or buy)

Again, my sole and foremost priority is best latency for online gaming in presence of bittorrent or equivalent traffic. The one I use now (WRT54GC) does not even let me lower MTU, which is proven to have drastic effects in gameplay. (It does have an option built-in, but would not let me enter anything lower than 1200)

EDIT: in retrospect, I should have worded it differently. What is good for you may mean next to nothing to me. As I did not care one bit about the wireless part of it, I should have just said a router with strong QoS capability (akin to the now discontinued Qos Device from Hawking). What you may list as a requirement for a good router is not necessarily mine.

 

[jvnk]

It's usually the firmware on a router that determines if QoS packet scheduling is available. You could try flashing your existing router to something like Tomato or DDWRT, which are third party, open source router operating systems. I'd have to double check, but I'm fairly sure they all support various forms of traffic control.

If you definitely want to go for a new router(and who would blame you, with a WRT54 ;D), then most modern routers probably come with QoS functionality. I personally recommend an Actiontec, simply because I'm forced to use one with Verizon's FIOS service, and the HTTP interface for the router's IOS is _phenomenally_ rich with features.

 

[pdo]

get an Asus WL-520GU and flash it to Tomato. Tomato firmware seems to be better then DD-WRT at QOS.

 

[konakona]

well, I already check it out a while ago. the version I have (wrt54gc (c for compact I believe) does not allow third party firmware, sadly.

pdo, I suppose thats what you use personally? By any chance, have you tried measuring ping like the other guy did in that link?

 

[kevnich2]

A second here for DDWRT router (asuswl520GU, Asus 500G Premium vs, WRT54GL etc) I personally use DDWRT, I like it's stability and it's the most feature rich firmware out there IMO. I definitely would not recommend actiontec. I do tech support on actiontec's, not the most reliable thing out there. Anything DDWRT compatible is also tomato so you can try out both if you'd like. My DDWRT, once configured can stay up for months at a time with no need for power cycles. My QOS also seems to work just fine as well.

 

[Gibson486]

I know i am not adding much, but that actiontec router with verizon is one big big pile of ape crap.

 

[JackMDS]

While we have Needs, Wishes, Dreams, Demandes, etc., it does not mean the Actaul reality always conform with them.

A Router that conform with the above setiment of some gamer would be very expensive and thus None of the manfacturers are willing to pick up the task.

That said.

The two reasonable inexpensive option would be.

Asus WL-520GU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16833320023

Inexpensive Flashable with DD-WRT*.
Zyxel 550 -

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...181218&Tpk=zyxel%2b550

Not compatible with DD-WRT but as is features rich and Good Wireless.


It is fashionble to buy the more expensive Wireless router with Giga switch build in.

Using a separate good Giga switch yields better wire result, thus it is beetr to skip the Combo Wireless Giga Routers, and tolerate an addtional small plastic box.

This Giga switch is inexpensive and works very well.

TrendNet Giga Switch - http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16817111480

------------------
*What is DD-WRT?

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/ind...hat_is_%22DD-WRT%22%3F

Qos under DD-WRT, http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Quality_of_Service

 

[jvnk]

Originally posted by: Gibson486
I know i am not adding much, but that actiontec router with verizon is one big big pile of ape crap.

It's possible you had an older model. The one I spoke of was recently issued to us when we upgraded our bandwidth plan up a tier. The router's HTTP interface is by default dumbed down quite a bit, but it's easy to access the more complex features(a lot of which are very handy for router management and I haven't seen in other commercial home router IOS's.

 

[JackMDS]

I never saw a real prime time Modem/Router given by an ISP.

I do not blame them; the only reason to give a Router is to avoid costly support call when the user cannot deal with the authentication.

As a result many DSL ISPs give a Modem/Router, thus the authentication is done by the Router and not by the user's computer (that is also accounting to the fact that most of these units have only one LAN port),

If the ISP would give a real good Modem/Router, they would go "broke".

Thus, they find 2nd/3rd tier vendors that sells it to them the somewhat "Lame" devices for less than $20.

The FIOS is somewhat a different story.

Verizon really wants you to buy from them a package that includes Internet, VOIP, TV, and more.

Therefore, they provide a Router that can support more features as related to their offers.

Having the features that are of concern to Verizon business model does Not mean that the device possess the quality that Enthusiasts want.

It works OK when you have one or two computers using the Internet for mundane tasks.

When One needs more it seems to get into trouble.

 

[kevnich2]

As far as the actiontec router being more advanced or feature rich than most home router's, I highly disagree, especially when compared to firmware such as DDWRT. I've seen the new router from verizon, it's a piece of crap router. It has a lot of pretty colors but I have seen a lot of routers that lock up on a regular basis (wireless locks up, you can't connect to it, port forwarding doesn't work, etc) and these are the newest DSL & FIOS routers from verizon. The fact is, most user's don't use their internet for much more than web browsing, downloading, etc. Most don't do advanced things on their internet. If you do, you can always put the router into bridge mode on DSL or simply switch out the FIOS router for a 3rd party router and it'll work just fine.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: konakona
I was a skeptic at first, but I am convinced after reading through these threads:
http://www.dslreports.com/foru...223-Best-gaming-router

For gaming, I consider any router that have Ubicom's StreamEngine in them to be best. These include D-Link's DGL + DIR routers, XyZel X-550, Linksys WRT-330N, and Trendnet's TEW-633GR + TEW-631BRP. They work as advertised while being transparent to the user. I have ZyXel's X-550 and I could be playing TF2/UT3 @ 20ms-40ms and my sisters could be browsing YouTube, Veoh, and uploading pictures to Flickr while I run torrents on the side (at near maximum speeds).

That sounds like as good a testimonial as any. I was going to suggest the DIR-655 myself.

 

[jvnk]

I never said DDWRT(or tomato for that matter) weren't valid alternatives, and they certainly are damn good router firmwares, but when was the last time a router came with those pre-installed? I didn't know that the OP was at a knowledge level where he/she was prepared to flash their router to get quality QoS functionality. I know that packet scheduling on my ActionTec router from FIOS is fairly decent(not as good as some, and "some" definitely includes DDWRT and Tomato, but then again it's leagues ahead of the WRT54*'s firmware).

I understand ISP-issue modem/routers are never of mid-to-high-grade quality, but I've never had an issue with my actiontec(once every few months I have to hard restart it - I think this has to do with an overheating issue, however, due to where it's placed in my office). My network consists of 4 wired and 2 wireless hosts. One of the hosts is a leaf on an IRC network, and as such is always on and always using my internet connection. I would call my configuration needs upon my router rather demanding, and I've never found any functionality that it lacks. I digress, however, the port forwarding mechanisms are shifty.

Originally posted by: JackMDS

It is fashionble to buy the more expensive Wireless router with Giga switch build in.

Using a separate good Giga switch yields better wire result, thus it is beetr to skip the Combo Wireless Giga Routers, and tolerate an addtional small plastic box.

Out of curiosity - what would this achieve? Saving money? The only performance benefit I could think of would be that it would allow gigabit speeds on your network, however nothing outside of it. In addition to that it would allow you to attach more hosts to the network, which is always a plus. I can definitely see where this might save money, as commercial home routers with gigabit switches attached are typically a bit more expensive than ones with 10/100 ethernet connections. Perhaps I'm missing something else, however.

 

[kevnich2]

Using a separate giga switch will give you the same performance as getting a router with built in gig switch but much cheaper. I'm not sure why you said the only permance benefit I could think of would be that it would allow gigabit speeds on your n etwork however nothing outside of it? Last I looked, there isn't a single home ISP that offers internet speeds above a few dozen mb/second so it's not like you would need gig speeds anywhere BUT your network?

 

[jvnk]

Originally posted by: kevnich2
Using a separate giga switch will give you the same performance as getting a router with built in gig switch but much cheaper. I'm not sure why you said the only permance benefit I could think of would be that it would allow gigabit speeds on your n etwork however nothing outside of it? Last I looked, there isn't a single home ISP that offers internet speeds above a few dozen mb/second so it's not like you would need gig speeds anywhere BUT your network?

This is true. I don't know if the OP has the hardware for a gigabit network, however. He never said anything about it. But it's definitely a much cheaper alternative to a router with a built in gigabit switch(which often only have 4-5 ports, anyways)

 

[konakona]

Ok, time for some gravedigging.

I just chose not to do anything while downloading and lived ok with my WRT54GC. But recently the thing just keeps on malfunctioning sporadically (the power light goes off, all computers lose connection to the local network) and I am in for a cheap replacement.

In the meantime, I have googled enough to learn people that have used both streamengine and DD-WRT/tomato prefer the former. You could be the most educated network person in the world, but your opinion isn't as credible if you havn't used it yourself for gaming few hours each day. Feel free to provide some convincing counter-example to this, I am open to new ideas. But until that happens, routers not equipped with streamengine are out of question.

Newegg carries DIR615 for $40 shipped, DIR625 for $60 shipped. Eggreviews seem better for the 625, but given my needs (not worried about anything that has to do with wireless at all, all my computers are wired anyway), would 615 work well enough?

A used DGL4300 can be found for around $50ish I heard, though difference between these and the DIR series is small to none hardware-wise IIRC.

 

[Engineer]

Very good (IMO) tutorial on QOS and explanation on how to set it up properly.

The OP made me think of this.

 

[Emulex]

just use a small pc; the units like the wrt600n have 64 meg or less ram will get overloaded by massive # of connections (torrent?) and hang or lose performance until they are reboot.

i was actually thinking about scheduling a self-reboot every few days on a regular schedule.

128meg if you have alot of connections for sure. torrent+ip cam + auto'ftp can easily crush a cheap router esp. if it is relied upon for both routing and switching

 

[konakona]

Interesting, I do have a spare PC with 768mb of ram + venice @2.5. Truly an overkill, but it's not getting used for anything anyway.
Thanks Engineer, I will read up on that now.

EDIT: one little problem, I will need two more NICs at the very least (two clients) to go with that old comp, which unfortunately I can't get hold of for free. Since dedicated NICs seem like thing of the past for most home computers, it will cost me a bit to get them. That combined with increased power bill and such... wouldn't $40 for a router that does all that and more be a good deal?

Of course, there is an added benefit of learning linux and networking with that computer setup. I just don't think I have time to sit down and learn all that right away.

 

[Emulex]

actually it is possible to use a single nic to route but that might be over your head on the first try

 

[konakona]

Um, you mean with ICS? Actually, it would be much better if there is a decent enough traffic shaping software (that does prioritize different type of traffic, not just throttle bandwidth) that runs on vista. That would allow me to use my secondary computer as usual without requiring to run yet another computer on top of that (not to mention with three NICs between two comps to ICS, I really can't add another computer to the chain)
This one is free and has a windows version. Not sure if the QoS section is robust enough to work for me. We will see

 

[kornphlake]

Originally posted by: konakona
EDIT: one little problem, I will need two more NICs at the very least (two clients) to go with that old comp, which unfortunately I can't get hold of for free. Since dedicated NICs seem like thing of the past for most home computers, it will cost me a bit to get them. .

I usually see NICs at thrift stores for a couple bucks, I've got no idea if they work or not and they may not be 100mbps, but skipping one meal to find out doesn't sound too bad. I'm working on getting a hold of a second box to setup a firewall/proxy/content filter myself.

 

[konakona]

Yeah but I don't have a car and getting to a thrift store is a bit of a hassle (not that I know if there is one around where I live anyway). I already got the ICS up and running, now I just need to decide between netlimiter and untangle.