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Latency help ax88u needed

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bboncorr1

Occasional Visitor
so I just picked up the Asus AX88u for gaming, upgrading from a netgear ac1900. Loved it but I couldn’t update the netgear firmware without it putting my download speeds into the ground. this forum has been a great help with fixing the net gear and now setting up this Asus as a stand alone router. So far I’ve manually opened Xbox live ports and some COD ports that help in game NAT. Everything seems to be running smooth. I’m getting good download (750-Gig) and upload (20) which is normal for xfinity in this area, unless y’all have a tip to improve the upload speeds I’m listening. I’m paying for 600mbps btw so I’m getting way over since installing a nighthawk 1150v modem. That specific model modem is required in my area to avoid landline equipment charges.

now for my main concern, “Latency” is sitting around 59 ms. Is there a setting or process I can learn to improve this? Any help to improve latency or bring out the best it can be for a gaming heavy environment I would appreciate. Also I’m hardlined on a very short Cat7 line
 
so I just picked up the Asus AX88u for gaming, upgrading from a netgear ac1900. Loved it but I couldn’t update the netgear firmware without it putting my download speeds into the ground. this forum has been a great help with fixing the net gear and now setting up this Asus as a stand alone router. So far I’ve manually opened Xbox live ports and some COD ports that help in game NAT. Everything seems to be running smooth. I’m getting good download (750-Gig) and upload (20) which is normal for xfinity in this area, unless y’all have a tip to improve the upload speeds I’m listening. I’m paying for 600mbps btw so I’m getting way over since installing a nighthawk 1150v modem. That specific model modem is required in my area to avoid landline equipment charges.

now for my main concern, “Latency” is sitting around 59 ms. Is there a setting or process I can learn to improve this? Any help to improve latency or bring out the best it can be for a gaming heavy environment I would appreciate. Also I’m hardlined on a very short Cat7 line

The only way to improve "upload (20) which is normal for xfinity in this area" would be to give them more money. :)

I'm curious, what was your latency number with the previous Netgear router?

OE
 
Latency was around 74ms with Netgear. It’s improved but just wondering if there’s a way to get it even lower
 
@bboncorr1, welcome to the forums.

If the following suggestions, done precisely, have no significant effect (along with the scripts suggested below), then the only other thing to 'try' is an RT-AX86U with the same treatment. :)

Overview:
Flash RMerlin 386.1 firmware first.

Features | Asuswrt-Merlin (asuswrt-merlin.net)


Follow all suggestions in the links below, as appropriate.

Best Practice Update/Setup Router/AiMesh Node(s) 2021


The scripts I would be using are Skynet, Diversion, Unbound, ntpMerlin (with chronyd), and the version of QoS that works for your environment, either FlexQoS, CakeQOS, or (possibly?) none.

AMTM · RMerl/asuswrt-merlin.ng Wiki · GitHub

Use the guide below to get a working amtm to install on your router (note: while any USB drive will work (for a while), I suggest at least a 128GB Patriot Elite model or larger. Ideally, a 128GB SSD in a PCIe UGREEN external enclosure will give the best long-term performance and reliability (it is made for constant writing/updating whereas USB drives are not).

amtm Step-by-Step https://www.snbforums.com/threads/amtm-step-by-step-install-guide-l-ld.56237/#post-483421
(Note that installing amtm is not needed since RMerlin firmware 384.15_0).



Asus RT-AX86U review: The best Wi-Fi 6 router for the money - CNET

Look at the graph under the heading 'The leader in latency' in the article linked above.
 
I wonder why/how the AX86U handles latency better than AX88U. They're almost have identical inside. Anyone smarter than care to share why it's handling latency better when gaming???
 
I don't know about gaming, but just using the network has been a step up from the otherwise excellent RT-AX88U for me.

The reasons? Simple. A better synergy of RF Design, Theory, and Hardware/Firmware. :D
 
I don't know about gaming, but just using the network has been a step up from the otherwise excellent RT-AX88U for me.

The reasons? Simple. A better synergy of RF Design, Theory, and Hardware/Firmware. :D
@L&LD hope I'm not bugging you but I read one of your threads about the new RT-AX86U.

I was able to find a great value on 1 but already have the AX88U.

I think I read you would setup the 86U as the main router vs the AX88U. Do you still recommend this setup? Should I sell the 88U or use in AIMesh mode?

Any input is greatly appreciated.
 
@Kingp1n if you got the RT-AX86U on sale, you may even make money from selling the RT-AX88U. :)

Do you need two routers of this caliber in your network? And will you be able to give them a wired backhaul at opposite ends of your home?

If the money is just burning a hole in your pocket, it doesn't matter what I or any else says. :)

But if you want the best consumer router today, don't mix the RT-AX86U with anything below it (and the RT-AX88U is, with regards to latency).

 
What "Latency" are we talking about here? In-game latency (as reported by the game itself)?

If you are reporting in-game latency, that is the round-trip-time from your xbox to the game server. It is most likely that the time spent in your home network is closer to 1 ms, with the remaining 50+ ms being spent travelling through the internet (over which you have limited or no control). If the game server is far away, you will get a slower ping no matter how fast the network in your home operates. The only thing to recommend is to run your xbox wired, but I think that you already are "hardlined on a very short Cat7 line".

The difference in latency between an AX88U and AX86U would approach zero if wired, and still be very low over WiFi. If you want to understand the component of latency spent inside your house, vs the internet, just use "ping" and "tracert" (for Windows) or "traceroute" (for Linux). If you "ping 1.1.1.1" you will see the total round-trip-time to the cloudflare DNS server. I get ~7ms. If you run "tracert 1.1.1.1" (or "traceroute 1.1.1.1"), you will see approximately how much time is spent inside your house, how much time is spent in your ISPs network, and how much time is spent getting to the DNS server. In my case, it is taking me less than 3 ms to get to the first box that will respond beyond my router (with the remaining 4 ms spent getting from my service provider network to the DNS server, and back). I have an old AC3100 at present.

Gamers, the world over, are always trying to keep their latency down, but this is difficult. There are novelties like WTFast which will supposedly get you through the network "faster", but there is no guarantee it will work (and it can even be slower). You can try different service providers (one provider might have a faster path to the game servers you typically use, or their networking gear might have less congestion or lower latency). Some people play around with their DNS server on their xbox to speed up their in-game latency (though I don't see how that works, unless some DNS servers are providing IP addresses which are closer to, or farther from, you). You really have limited control over this component of your latency, which is usually the biggest by far (unless you want to move to near where the game server is presently running ;0) If you have the name or IP address of the game server, you can identify the components of latency using tracert/traceroute.

Some latency results follow. I use 1.1.1.1 in my casual ping tests just because I know that this DNS server is the fastest to respond for me. You can use any address of something which is likely to be "close" (like 8.8.8.8 for google DNS) and fast (not underpowered). It does not need to be a DNS server, just anything in the internet which responds. I then do a traceroute (or tracert in Windows) to see how much time is spent at each hop on the way to the DNS server. The address 192.168.1.1 is my AX3100 router. I don't know exactly what 123.72.16.1 (below) is, but it is the first hop in the IP network beyond my router. If I ping it directly, I can see the total time spent in my house (note that this also includes a significant amount of gear in the ISP network, if aggregated over layer 2, so it is much more than just the time spent getting through your router). I did change some of the IP addresses being shared below out of paranoia (but kept them consistent).

ping 1.1.1.1
PING 1.1.1.1 (1.1.1.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 1.1.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=59 time=7.46 ms
64 bytes from 1.1.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=59 time=9.16 ms
64 bytes from 1.1.1.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=59 time=8.98 ms

traceroute 1.1.1.1
traceroute to 1.1.1.1 (1.1.1.1), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 _gateway (192.168.1.1) 0.237 ms 0.823 ms 0.798 ms
2 123.72.16.1 (123.72.16.1) 2.647 ms 3.064 ms 3.087 ms
3 not_showing_name (213.87.239.102) 10.368 ms 10.427 ms 10.404 ms
4 not_showing_name (213.66.41.113) 10.470 ms 27.632 ms 10.472 ms
5 * * *
6 one.one.one.one (1.1.1.1) 10.329 ms 7.490 ms 8.533 ms

** I then ping the first IP address AFTER my router (192.168.1.1) to isolate how much time is spent getting to/from this first hop.

ping 123.72.16.1
PING 123.72.16.1 (123.72.16.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 123.72.16.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=254 time=2.58 ms
64 bytes from 123.72.16.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=254 time=0.646 ms
64 bytes from 123.72.16.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=254 time=2.57 ms

In-game latency, or ping, involves your home network, your ISP network, the internet, and the game server... It's lucky anything works ;0)

Good luck!
 
You said it: "MEASURABLE"
I own an AX86U and will report my results when I (finally) upgrade. I am eager to see how it performs.

You can compare WiFi latency by simply pinging the router (192.168.1.1). This is less than 1 ms (for a very small packet) with my very old router.
While I expect improvement, it will be a very small number (since results are already under 1 ms).

You can compare packet forwarding latency by pinging the first IP hop beyond the router which was returned by any traceroute/tracert.
As explained above, this measurement isn't just the latency of your router, but also whatever gear is in the ISP network before hitting an IP hop.
In my case (FTTH), this ping always returns a number close to 3 ms, or less, with AC3100.
When I move to AX86U, I expect the number to go down, but it clearly doesn't have far to go...

The majority of any internet latency measurement is typically OUTSIDE the house (in the service provider's network or the internet), unless you are wildly overworking your router. In the link you provided above, in the section "The leader in latency", they were testing ping against a server on the internet. There are too many confounding variables when measuring a router's performance using a destination somewhere in the internet. The test is NOT scientific.

I must note that I am using the default PDU size in my ping tests above. I am attempting to represent gaming lag. Most games use very small packets, where latency is what matters, so a simple ping is a good measure as compared to a speed test.

I am just saying that for a 59ms in-game latency, the vast majority of that time (like 56 to 58 ms) is spent outside the house (unless you are overwhelming the router with traffic).

I am not knocking the AX86U. I am just saying that it really can't reduce in-game ping time by very much (unless the router is overwhelmed with traffic).
 
Who's talking about gaming?

Read the article I've posted. It's measured.
 
Original poster was talking about gaming. I was attempting to address the original poster's question.

As stated above, the "The leader in latency" section of the article you posted is not an accurate way to measure the router's latency. It is mostly measuring the latency of the service provided by the ISP. It also includes the time spent getting to the destination server, so it is measuring the performance of a small slice of the internet as well. Both of those things can vary somewhat. The router's latency is an incredibly small component of this measurement. While I appreciate them endorsing the AX86U, that test is anecdotal evidence. In short, it was a bad test (and bad reporting ;0). I think the AX86U is great, but I don't think it has a significant impact on ping (to a speed test server or game server) because it will be such a small component of the overall latency.
 
Everyone who has bought or used a network with the RT-AX86U and would notice has noticed, how much more 'immediate' this router makes the 'net feel.

The testing done in that article is how you're suggesting it be tested too. But yours is correct and the article is 'bad reporting'?

It just seems like an order of difference between the RT-AX86U and any other router he showed.

Let's see what you say when you finally test yours. :)
 

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