This was intended to be an update column on bufferbloat, a problem mentioned in my January 2011 predictions that is messing with our enjoyment of bad movies on NetFlix and other streaming video services. There’s good news about bufferbloat but that will have to wait a day or so because this column is about something completely different — LagBuster. If you are a serious gamer you need LagBuster.
The difference between bufferbloat and lag is that bufferbloat is mainly downstream (video server to you) while lag is mainly upstream (you to the game server). Bufferbloat is caused by large memory buffers in devices like routers and in applications like media players messing with the native flow control in TCP/IP. We add buffers thinking it helps but instead it hurts. Something similar happens with lag but it tends to happen at the point where your 100 or 1000 megabit-per-second local area network meets your 3-25 megabit-per-second DSL or cable Internet connection. Lag is caused by congestion at that intersection. You can tell you have lag when you can’t seem to be able to aim or shoot fast enough in your shooter game.
It’s not you, soldier, it’s the lag.
The cure to lag, we’re generally told, comes in two forms: 1) you can get a faster Internet connection, or; 2) you can implement Quality of Service (QoS) in your router. But according to my old friend Ed DeWath, who makes the $220 LagBuster, neither technique really works.
Just think of all the hardened gamers who are paying two or three times more each month for a super-fast Internet connection that isn’t really helping their game play.
Game signaling takes kilobits-, not megabits-per-second. Yes, a faster Internet connection will empty your router cache faster, but not faster enough. Packets still back up in the cache and eventually time out, requiring a retransmission that just adds to congestion. Think of it as one of those freeway onramps with metering lights except that every few clock ticks all the waiting cars are disintegrated with a laser beam as the cache is flushed and a request is sent out for more cars, most of which will be blasted yet again.
Quality of Service is supposed to help and it might, a little, but not a lot simply because it’s a serial cache to which the QoS is being applied. That is the packet you really want to get through fastest is at some point at the back of the line. How do you get it to the front of the queue with all those other bits in the way? Why you blow those to smithereens, too, which takes time and produces further congestion.
The LagBuster is a box that sits between your DSL or cable modem and your router. In the LagBuster is not one buffer but two. Think of it as that metered freeway onramp but with the addition of a diamond or carpool lane that is the second parallel buffer. Network data packets leave the router and enter the LagBuster where they are sorted into game and non-game packets, each of which type gets its own parallel buffer. Game packets on their diamond lane never stop but go straight through into the modem while non-game packets are stored in their buffer and released as the modem is able to accept them. In both cases the idea is to keep the buffer in the modem nearly empty so TCP/IP flow control can operate.
Because there are two memory buffers in parallel rather than the single buffer in the typical router, game packets at the back of the queue are transferred unimpeded by the LagBuster, much faster than using QoS.
The LagBuster eliminates game lag completely, giving those who have one a decided advantage that’s completely independent of total bandwidth. Presumably it could be used to accelerate other packet types, too, but for now the LagBuster is aimed strictly at games.
I like the LagBuster because it is very clever but also because it is made in a factory in Fremont, California with the plastic case made in Alabama. Building it in China, Ed tells me, would have been more expensive.
Interesting.
This looks like a feature that can rather easily be added to e wireless router – especially when DD-WRT is available and can probably be modified with 2 outbound queues instead of a single one.
The problem isn’t the router. The problem is in the modem.
Let’s use your example – you have a fantastic router with DD-WRT and the best QoS in the world. Your router detects a high #1 priority packet and places it at the top of the egress queue so that the high priority packet immediately exits the router at the “front of the line.” Wonderful! Next, the high priority packet immediately enters the “end of the line” of the modem’s single adaptive rate buffer (ARB). Well, modems have no idea about QoS or prioritization, so your high priority packet must wait in queue behind ALL the previous packets before it exits to the Internet. All packets must wait for their turn – there is no jumping to the front of the line in a modem! Put another way, modems remove any semblance of “prioritization” from packets – all packets are equal in a modem. Democracy in action!
That said, the LagBuster solves the modem lag problem by precisely matching the ingress and egress flow rates, and limiting the modem to only one packet in the ARB at any time. Further, with LagBuster’s dual buffer, the high packet priority status is retained. With no other packets in the ARB to cause queuing delays, the LagBuster can always send high priority packets from the high priority buffer at maximum speed.
Lastly, the dwell time (“lag”) in the modem is basically proportional to the modem’s buffer size and upstream bandwidth. A consumer grade modem may add up to hundreds of milliseconds of delay to the packet stream. For example, a typical modem buffer is about 300KByte, and a typical upstream speed is about 5Mbps, which can result in as much as 500ms delay for a packet flow. QoS routers cannot ever solve that delay. LagBuster does.
“QoS routers cannot ever solve that delay. LagBuster does.” But it is in SERIES with the modem. The delay is still there. I must be missing something; thanks for providing the link to your website.
OK, I reviewed the videos on the Lagbuster site. The narrator introduces “delay” by uploading a video to YouTube. So as far as he is concerned, the delay is caused by competing traffic not by the modem. Perhaps Bob will clarify this article when he discusses bufferbloat again. I ‘m not a networking expert, but it sure looks like the concensus here is that Q of S in the router would be just as good.
SPECTACULAR OFFER AT END OF THIS REPLY
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Ronc, I like your style! You are one of the few who actually wants to learn something.
You deserve an answer. It’s a bit long, but it will give you some insight. Of course, you can always call me at Sejent if you want more information.
Let’s do a little engineering modeling and, horrors, some math. (I sure hope I did the math correctly here!)
Let’s assume the following:
QoS Router
Egress rate = 100Mbps (Ethernet speed)
Modem
Ingress rate = 100Mbps (Ethernet speed)
Egress rate = 5Mbps (Internet speed)
Game packet
Size = 500 bits (UDP)
Send rate = 50 pps (packets per second)
Packet interval = 1/50 = 20ms
Let’s start with a worst case engineering example. And assume that the modem starts with an empty buffer – no bits in the queue.
Using QoS, the router send a glorious 500 bit UDP game packet to the modem at 100Mbps. The UDP game packet then takes 500b/100Mbps = 0.005ms to enter the modem (ingress). Not too shabby a delay!
Then 20ms later (the packet interval time from above), the router (again using QoS) sends a second 500 bit game packet and the ingress time (0.005ms) is repeated.
Now, let’s look at what happens BETWEEN game packet transmissions, during the game packet interval. For 19.995 ms (20ms – .005ms) the router is sending other packets (video, torrent, email, pictures, etc.) to the modem at 100Mbps. That is, the router can send to the modem up to 100Mbps x 19.995ms = 1.9995Mbits (2 Million friggin bits!). Keeping in mind that a router is organized as a bit serial “pipeline”, and the bit egress rate is 5Mbps, then the time between those lovely 500 bit game packets is 1.9995Mb/5Mbps = 399.9ms. OMG – that is so awful!
Think about that delay. At Internet speeds of 5Mbps, the modem can introduce delays many times longer than the packet interval. What happens? Dropped game packets. Not good.
Now let’s have some variety.
Let’s say you have a DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem, and your ISP gives you “up to 5Mbps” service. Yeah, sure. Except when other people are also using the loop. Your “up to” can drop down to 1Mbps Internet speed, or worse. Now, do the math: at 1Mbps you have up to 2000ms of delay. Game packets dropped. Really, really not good!
Go the other way. Let’s assume the upstream Internet speed is 50Mbps. WOW! Do the math: you now have 40ms delays, or two packet intervals. What happens? Game packet is dropped. Also not good.
Do you see where QoS has had any influence on the lag issue? No? Ah, thought so.
Okay, I admit it; these are engineering examples to make a point.
Fortunately, we have a real-world test lab where we have cable, DSL, wired and wired and wireless routers from dozens of reputable manufacturers (Cisco, Motorola, D-Link, etc.). We have professional game testers who play all the latest online games on PCs, Xboxes, and Playstations. We also have game testers in the field (some are our customers) with the best equipment at their home. Some even have Verizon FiOS, just to keep up with the latest. They all provide us with real-world data on what they play, and the computers and applications they normally use. We gather tons of data and use it to characterize the “typical” home environment.
What we know is that “lag” is not constant. It comes and goes. It depends on a combination of factors such as the Internet speed (which can vary wildly in short periods), how many people are on the LAN (using the same router), what they are uploading, what movies they are watching, what games they are playing, and so on.
What we also know is that the primary contributor to lag is inherent in the design of today’s high-speed modem. It is not the router, it is not the Internet, it is not “ping”, it is not distance. Sure, those factors make a contribution, but it is small in comparison.
In my previous reply to Tsahi Levent-Levi (Sept 28) I gave away the big secret. No one seems to have caught it. LagBuster’s magic is to keep the modem buffer empty, or hold not more than one packet at a time. To spell it out: an empty buffer has virtually no delay (lag). Or, an empty buffer is a really well-behaved buffer!
HERE’S AN OFFER: the first person to independently and CORRECTLY explain how the LagBuster works will get a free LagBuster from Sejent. Better, if the explanation is accompanied by a really good technical analysis, we can talk job offer from me to join an elite international team.
Edward, I don’t think your product is a bad idea. CBWFQ/LLQ QoS policies are not something the home user should need to worry about, and it seems your product can fit a niche market. But I take issue with your misleading claims about QoS, that it is somehow not enough.
QoS is simply unequal treatment of network traffic. It makes an otherwise fair network unfair by favouring certain classes of traffic. How you accomplish this has nothing to do with the term QoS, so suggesting that LagBuster doesn’t use QoS is wrong, it would have to use magic instead.
Your product is applying Class Based Weighted Fair Queuing / Low Latency Queuing and a shaper that is matching the serialisation delay (clock rate) of the modem. I’m interested to know how it is detecting the clock rate, hopefully not in a way that is adding more load onto the WAN link. You’re possibly also applying Link Fragmentation and Interleaving, but probably not as your product isn’t targeted at guaranteeing transmission of non-priority data.
Any router with multiple queues and at least one priority queue should be able to achieve what lag buster claims, minus the apparent dynamic adjustment of the shaper. All of the mechanisms I described above come under QoS.
I don’t understand.
While running my favorite game in a window, using Trace Route at the command line, I see my first few hops from my house onto the (charter broadband) internet have very low latency, starting at about 9ms, maxing out at 28ms.
Then I see higher up the network route several hops up to Denver, then Chicago adding around 150ms+ of latency.
So how is traffic shaping / QoS at my router going to effect anything, especially since there is very little other traffic load from my house to compete with?
I think this probably another gimmick that Bob has drank the cool-aid on without even considering the real issues.
Please tell me how I am wrong. Unless this product uses some sort of high-priority VLAN/VPN tech to create a high priority tunnel past or around these bottlenecks (not a bad idea), I don’t see how this would significantly effect my ping.
The cache function of the modem must be removed to eliminate the modem’s bottle neck.
LagBuster monitors the condition of the modem cache as packets are being sent. When the cache is empty, LagBuster detects this cache condition and increases the number of packets per time unit that it sends until a packet is placed into the modem cache. LagBuster detects this cache condition and decreases the number of packets per time unit that it sends until the modem cache is empty. LagBuster detects this cache condition and the cycle continues.
This governing action allows the maximum number of packets to be sent at any given time, even with a fluctuating bandwidth size. Indeed, this is the most efficient way to maximize a variable bandwidth.
In effect, this removes the modem’s cache function and transfers it to the LagBuster where the high priority packets are processed accordingly. Therefore, the bottle neck caused by the modem cache is eliminated.
I’m inclined to agree with hung_over. It’s all about the total ping time. All you can do at your end is remove the delay caused by competing traffic from your own network, which is what Q of S is for. Even Lagbuster’s video tutorials introduce delay by adding competing upstream traffic from the local network. Incidentally, I don’t think the videos even mention the Q of S function that might be built in to the router.
Totally agree with hung_over.
I don’t see how lagbuster can help if there are no competing sources of packets on the home network.
Hardcore gamers don’t have any competing packets on the LAN : They’ve learned to turn off the torrents while they game. So their lag comes entirely from external sources, i.e. network hops outside the house. At best, lagbuster might allow them to leave the torrents running and remain at the same levels of lag they currently experience.
Casual gamers generally don’t notice / understand / care about the lag much. So they generally don’t bother turning off other appliances to refine their gaming experience. Do they care about lag enough to spend money on lagbuster? Maybe, I don’t know.
I am not sure if someone answered correctly to win the free lagbuster, but after search around the internet for a while and stumbling on this product i will get it a shot.
downspeed is rarely ever a problem as the pipe is much larger coming IN than the upspeed is going OUT. if you have your xbox or whatever as the sole appliance on your networkl, Lagbuster wouldnt make much/any difference in your setup. however, if you have a full network with other processes/downloads/whatever happening that is all sending outbound data, the buffer in the modem gets filled up with a long line of data on its way out which while if you use QOS, the xobx might get priority when the data comes IN the router to head out, but the modem could be bottlenecked from OTHER data that it recieved while the xbox was between data packets. funny his theoritical measurement was 399ms as my uplink at Netalyzr measured 400ms! weird.
anyway, Lagbuster acts as a buffer gatekeeper for the modem effective keeping its bottleneck wide open and it acts as the bottleneck, however when a gaming data packet comes in, it get s automatic priority to that and that packet moves to the front of the line at any point in time instead of getting backed up in the modems buffer.
since the xbox has data priority, it eliminates the execution lag [not the incoming lag from what i gather from their statements and their videos]. obviously nothing can be done by the end user for external lag, that would be up to the netcode and the game developers to tweak and refine.
am i right? i would love to test out a Lagbuster and see if it does really do what it claims to do.
When correctly implemented in a router QoS has multiple queues the same as lagbuster. Buy an open source router and you are done for 20% of the cost of lagbuster. Cringely seems to have been suckered by his buddy this time.
Agreed: this sounds like the QoS “Priority Queue” that Cisco routers have had for over a decade.
Cisco has implemented QoS well in their equipment. They have an extensive VoIP and conferencing product line. So for them to be successful QoS HAS TO WORK WELL. Unfortunately some makers of other equipment, especially consumer products have poor QoS implementations.
I wouldn’t dismiss the value of this product too quickly. How many people have professional level Cisco gear in their home? In scanning the other comments I see a number of good ideas. I hope the maker of this device is reading them. He may want to consider licensing his technology to others.
Cisco Priority Queue is exactly what I was thinking as I read this. I fail to see what’s new here other than it’s preconfigured in a box you can easily insert at home. Any real QoS implementation should be able to do the same thing though. Perhaps the real problem is that a lot of the “QoS” built into home routers is bad, that is fixable in software though.
When you are juggling packets at Ethernet speeds it takes a serious processor to manage a buffer or two, prioritize and sort packets in the buffer, etc. Home/consumer products usually do not have the fastest processors. While those processors are amazingly capable for very low prices, they will be challenged when juggling packets at high speed. The latency through a home/consumer network product under load is measurable. Yes you can improve it with better software, but there is only so much you can do. Even a cursory look inside a commercial Cisco product will show you there is some serious electronics and processing power.
I’m pretty familiar with the Cisco stuff, I use it for a living. I think it’s FUD to say that they have lots of processing power and that’s why they can do QoS right. These things are running on miniscule amounts of RAM and processing power (for these days) and consumer routers are not really much behind. The good consumer routers are running over 700MHz and have 128MB or better of RAM which should be plenty sufficient to manage queues for the amount and speed of traffic on a home network.
Search google for the article > worthplaying hardware overview lagbuster < .
Adam Pavlacka explained the QoS issue and lagbuster on Aug 23, 2012. Pavlacka writes:
“In order for QoS of any sort to work, you must have an accurate estimation of your Internet bandwidth. Most of us figure this number out by running a test or three at https://www.speedtest.net. While the number is generally accurate, it is only valid for a particular point in time. For most consumers, the actual speed they get can vary with the time of day. Cable modem users also have to worry about how active other users are on their node. As a result, your speed on Monday at 5:00 pm may not be the same as your speed on Friday at 5:00 pm.
To combat this problem, the LagBuster is continually monitoring your Internet bandwidth. When the Internet speed fluctuates, the LagBuster compensates, always keeping a segment of bandwidth reserved specifically for gaming. This auto-adjustment is important because QoS schemes can only work properly with an accurate measurement. If you simply run QoS on your router and your Internet bandwidth falls below a pre-configured speed, the QoS will fail. That's not an issue [when using a LagBuster].”
“If you simply run QoS on your router and your Internet bandwidth falls below a pre-configured speed, the QoS will fail. That’s not an issue [when using a LagBuster].” The question remains…what does speed have to do with priority of packets. On the freeway, the carpool lane works the same regardless of the speed of traffic.
I just noticed Darron’s answer below. He is correct.
QoS is not so much about “prioritization” as it is about bandwidth allocation. Think of it this way: you have so much bandwidth available from your ISP. You want your applications to share the bandwidth – your high priority gets so much bw, your next priority get so much bw, and so on. In the router you specify how much bandwidth each gets. Dandy. So long as you have an ISP contractual guarantee for the total bandwidth you need, great. But the majority of folks have “best effort” service — that is, the bandwidth may be “up to,” and is frequently below that. Worse, bandwidth changes all the time. So, if your QoS requires 5Mbps, and the line drops to 1Mbps, the whole prioritization scheme falls apart. QoS goes south, screws up the network, and so on. On a LAN, QoS is well behaved, reliable, and works. I know, I use it. But when it comes to the Internet, forget QoS as anything other than occasionally useful – only you’ll never know when that is.
You do realise that games use UDP, not TCP, right?
I’m not a gamer so I don’t need this.
Glad to hear it’s made in the USA, and I wish the company all the success in the world!
Alabama is sorta like our own version of China.
We all like playing games fast. When the game lags, it is the most irritating thing! Let’s see the lagbuster in action!
I agree. I hate lags. They suck the fun out of the games.
Reminds me of the ‘Killer Nic’ (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_NIC), a piece of hardware which like ticket master, knew it’s market- not so bright, but with money.
I’m wondering how many kids will pester their parents for one this holiday season?
I’d guess that most gamers don’t have a lot of other network traffic on their connections when they’re playing, if any. Surely they’re smart enough to turn off their automated remote backup during game-time. Are they watching Netflix while playing? (I suppose an exception would be people playing with headsets for in-game audio communications; it’d be nice to give those packets secondary importance.)
Incidentally, the problem with Netflix, at least for PC users, is the ridiculously small buffer in their Silverlight client. Last time I checked it was only 1MB, which is only enough to stay a couple of minutes ahead, even at lower quality. I live in a remote area where 768Kb is the biggest pipe available to me, so if I get disconnected or lagged for even a minute, the buffer runs out and I’m waiting. If it had a 10MB buffer or larger, that wouldn’t be a problem, because I could start it, pause it, and go make a snack while the buffer filled up, then watch without interruptions. I don’t know if their tiny buffer is part of the attempt to prevent piracy, or just stupidity on the part of people with fast enough connections that they never have the problem themselves.
I’m guessing you don’t have a family?
The gamers I know who complain about lag don’t, no. But that’s a good point, if you’ve got multiple computers around the house, other people might be using it too. I guess I’ve just had low enough bandwidth for enough of my life that I think of gaming as something you do with anything else that might use resources turned off.
“If it had a 10MB buffer or larger…I could start it, pause it…while the buffer filled up, then watch without interruptions.” That assumes all the packets are present and not corrupted. If a retransmission is needed it won’t be detected until it reaches the computer. I think you are describing the main reason why the bufferbloat issue exists…buffers are too big. On the other hand, if all the packets were received, checked for errors, retransmitted if needed, and watched later there would be no problem. But that’s not streaming…it’s downloading for viewing later.
Sorry, I may have gotten my buffers confused. Thanks to Bill’s comment, I read your post more carefully. Since your are talking about buffering “in the client” (Silverlight) that would be equivalent to downloading for viewing later so the more buffering the better.
Aaron, even streaming at 2Mb/sec (which isn’t going to provide a great visual experience for a movie) 10MB would provide less than a minute of buffering. I don’t dispute that a larger buffer might help your situation, but I think 10MB is aiming much too low, especially given that while watching a movie it’s likely you’re not actively word processing or using other high memory apps.
As I sit here working from home, it strikes me that this concept has potential applicability for remote work forces. Email and IM traffic are fine until you start to add VOIP, video and Webex/Livemeeting into the mix (as we increasingly rely upon). Lag greatly impacts the effectiveness of remote workers to keep up with home office folks or customers. If my VOIP or video becomes choppy, my boss and my customers get frustrated, so working remotely is kept to a minimum. A device or upgrade (that I would even pay for) to streamline these communications would be greatly valued.
This is not a cure for bufferbloat. It just adds more parallel buffers (not “caches”), something already done/configurable in many routers, even consumer ones.
Bob,
Really? a $220 endorsement for what is essentially a pre-configured QoS implementation?
DD-WRT can easily do this in QoS — you simply tell it what your game(s) is/are and give them highest priority.
https://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Quality_of_Service
You bring up a good point. But it needs some amplification.
Refer to the link you provided. It says, in essence, that QoS functionality depends on the bandwidth that you provide by setting your upload and download speeds.
Here’s the fine print: “Set your upload and download speeds. You can use a speed test like DSL Reports or Speedtest.net to check your actual connection speed.”
Let’s examine that without getting too technical:
QoS requires a minimum upstream bandwidth to be guaranteed by the ISP in order to provide a specified level of performance (e.g. bit-rate) to a given data flow (e.g. game packets). Unfortunately, actual available bandwidth can, and will, vary hugely depending on time of day and how many people are sharing the local ISP bandwidth. Since many factors outside the control of the ISP can affect speed, the majority of ISP’s will only provide residential networks with “best effort” service, which means they don’t support QoS and will NEVER actually guarantee any minimum level of service to you.
For example, with cable, upstream bandwidth can vary from 5Mbps to 150Kbps, and back again, in a few tens of milliseconds. For gamers, this causes havoc on the game packet transmission timing. Worse, packets drop like crazy (reduced throughput). Remember, a dropped UDP game packet is not retransmitted – so, to the game host/server, it looks like INFINITE LAG (because the packet never got there.)
Now, some high-end (expensive) routers can “auto measure” bandwidth once (and only once) when they are first powered on. This measurement is used for applications such as QoS. Unfortunately, a one-time measurement is practically useless since actual bandwidth varies rapidly, even on the best connections. As an example, if you have cable with burst (“PowerBoost”) you will measure a very high bandwidth at first, but in a few minutes your bandwidth will be throttled down to significantly less. Thus, when you first power on a game router that measures bandwidth, boost will result in an initially high speed measurement, subsequently rendering QoS useless for gaming (since your actual bandwidth will be throttled by the ISP). A one-time bandwidth measurement makes a mess of QoS and is a practically useless feature for gamers.
“A one-time bandwidth measurement makes a mess of QoS and is a practically useless feature for gamers.” What does a bandwidth measurement have to do with prioritizing packets. The game packet goes first regardless of speed. (It’s like the carpool lane.)
Then the prioritized packets file single-file from your home Catalyst 6500 router (doesn’t everyone have one of these?) into the modem’s oversize buffer and thence, eventually, to the RF interface whose upstream data rate varies wildly at the whim of the CMTS/DSLAM. LagBuster’s secret sauce is to somehow monitor the performance of the RF interface’s upstream channel and/or the modem’s upstream buffer and keep the modem’s buffer as near empty so that high-priority packets sent by LagBuster hit the cable sooner.
But how does it look inside the modem? Without sticking a sniffer on the upstream port of one, I couldn’t tell you for sure. Given that cable companies have an intense dislike of people sniffing around their gear, I would rule out SNMP. My first attempt would probably be something like measuring the round-trip time to the next hop gateway (CMTS/DSLAM) with ICMP echo during startup, before enabling traffic, to establish a baseline round trip time, and using the usual link-flooding TCP speed tests to establish a baseline upstream data rate. Then, during operation I might carefully insert ICMP echo requests to the next hope gateway into the upstream queue to verify that upstream packets are getting out and back timely, and choke back on the upstream data whenever the round trips run too long. If the situation supports it, I might use some of the more esoteric options in ICMP/IP (timestamp, LSRR) to try to distinguish between upstream and downstream delay. I think the same basic idea would work against DSL, but since upstream bandwidth isn’t shared in the same way I don’t think it would be super effective.
This product may not have much of a shelf life, though. I understand that DOCSIS standards of recent vintage mandate system-tunable upstream queues and sensible levels for those queues (24kB is mentioned as the largest queue an operator should expect in a CM). In a few years, it might just be a very expensive 2-port Ethernet bridge. I say sell the tech to Netgear and run. 🙂
Umm. You do realize that this makes everybody but you lag? It actually causes the other team to lag and makes you look good.
Why the hell are you marketing a hack that can/will get you banned?
Why in the world would this cause others to lag, or have latencies any worse than they normally would? Game communications are typically a star topology, not round-robin or some such. When one person goes linkdead, does that make everyone else go linkdead? No.
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Wanna bet? Happens every time with my friend that uses a lag switch on PS3. Talk to gamers that either use it or experience someone on their team or other team that uses it
The question remains…why?
A lag switch _increases_ your lag. The device Cringely is talking about is supposed to _reduce_ your lag.
Incorrect. Lag switch causes other people to lag/freeze… This is when you would kick some ass and take advantage of others going slow or frozen.
At least on PS3… Can’t vouch for other systems.
I don’t cheat… so I can’t explain why. I can only say I know people using similar products and the whole team hate them because 1 person will do great and others fail.
If LagBuster could chime in on this so we can get some clarification, it would be great.
How about this for the FAQ:
If your game system finds out you using LagBuster, can you get banned?
That’s because game hosting of PSN is peer-to-peer, which means if you’re the ad hoc server you can mess with everyone else. Plus if PS3 games trust clients to perform calculations, then you’re certainly asking for problems, as allowing an interruption of the packet stream, performing actions on that world state, and the having the ad hoc server allow the results from that client to be valid, is just ludicrous. No PC game of note every allows that kind of network behavior, as it will *instantly* be exploited.
Regardless, this device doesn’t appear to act in that fashion at all. It is skipping unnecessary outbound retransmissions, not ignoring inbound packets like the device you are comparing it to.
Cringe, this statement needs to be qualified:
2) you can implement Quality of Service (QoS) in your router. But according to my old friend Ed DeWath, who makes the $220 LagBuster, neither technique really works.
Is he saying that QoS in general does not work or that the implementation in common home routers is poor? I do not see why using tc in Linux would not ‘work’, so I call BS on that statement given that many folks routers are running Linux.
If he wants to market it as easy, foolproof, and superior — fine, but at least be honest about it.
Liked the visual regarding being disintegrated at a freeway ramp metering light. If I have a panic attack while stuck in my next ramp, it’ll be from you.
Generally called “queues” and a firewall like pfSense (www.pfsense.org) allows you to implement queues for just about anything. I use them to throttle my cloud backups and allow full speed access to the mail server no matter what else is going on.
Selling a canned version like this box is a great idea for the average gamer who probably shouldn’t be trusted as a firewall admin anyway. Easy and automatic – what’s there not to like about that?
But if you want to roll your own, download pfSense and load it only any old box with two or three network cards and have at it. It’s easier than you would think.
$220?!? There’s some serious profit margin built into this product.
Obviously snake oil. I was giving the poster the benefit of the doubt of not knowing any better and just helping market the device for a friend until I read the following.
“The LagBuster eliminates game lag completely, giving those who have one a decided advantage that’s completely independent of total bandwidth. ”
That statement is such a bald-faced lie that I felt compelled to respond. The simple fact of the matter is that lots of things cause in-game lag and lots of those things can’t be fixed at the client end of the connection.
I don’t see how this is any different than simply plugging the game system directly into the modem. In fact, doing so bypasses a few device hops too.
I work for a companyin the Silicon Valley and one of my products is WAN Optimization. WAN Optimization typically works in a symmetric configuration (appliance in Data Center and one in the Branch or 2nd Data center) with QoS, protocol optimization, compression, and caching to drive performance and decrease bandwidth consumption.
In order for gamer to get much better performance its going to have to be more than just QoS. UDP is an extremely fast protocol so actually very little can be done to optimize it. Given that gaming graphics are typically objects (e.g. shoot’em game – player, guns) if this device were to have a large cache (e.g. 10GB of Flash minimum) then it could provide performance by serving repeative objects for screen builds locally. Otherwise the Manufacturer claims are striking me as bit bogus.
Oh.
So it’s essentially the consumer breaking net neutrality on their end of the pipe.
Sort of, but not so much.
Basic public infrastructure, such as subways, buses, telephone companies, etc., are not allowed to discriminate, restrict, or differentiate common access, and this is the core concept behind net neutrality as well.
Unless you are a public service provider – what you do with packets inside of your home, is your own business.
I totally agree, just pointing out that the prioritization of the bits based on content and purpose is the same idea.
So who had the tc rules to implement this ourselves in Linux? This device itself almost certainly uses Linux to work its magic.
Mr. Cringely, first off I will say that I have an immense amount of respect for you and the articles you write for us. I have enjoyed reading your stuff for well over a decade now.
However, and I am not exaggerating here, this article is full of so many half truths and falsehoods that it should just be taken down. It’s pretty clear to me that you are just repeating what your friend Mr.Dewath has told you. I have been doing online game programming for many years and I can assure you that what he has told you is not correct.
As others here have pointed out, the only scenario under which Lagbuster will actually remove lag is if you are playing your game at the same time that you or someone else is completely filling your upload bandwith with other traffic. But seriously, how often does that happen in real life? Never in my household.
But most importantly, there are many many other sources of “lag” that Lagbuster doesn’t help with. Other sources of lag include: other players with slow connections, cheaters/hackers, inadequate server hardware, ISP side problems, poorly coded server software, network topology. In the real world, these things are far more likely to introduce lag than a saturated upload pipe in a residential side modem.
Now I have no problem with the product itself. Providing a router with preconfigured QoS is totally legit, and could be useful for the majority of gamers that don’t know how to configure a router. But it is this statement from the Lagbuster website that really bugs me.
“With a LagBuster, your network will never again hold you back from enjoying a smooth, lag-free experience ”
This is 100% false, as I’ve explained above. I’m no lawyer, but in my opinion this is misrepresentation. And if Mr.Dewath has any actual experience with online game programming, he should know better and this is an outright lie on his part.
” “With a LagBuster, your network will never again hold you back from enjoying a smooth, lag-free experience” ” The website’s quote you are quoting may be ok since it says YOUR network, meaning self-gererated competing traffic.
Agreed. How about this whopper though: “Eliminate lag with LagBuster…”
What really interests me about Bob and his writing is that he / it is insightful, thought-provoking and very interesting to read . . .
. . . and, almost always WRONG.
(Like reading it though . . .)
[…] you read my last column on LagBuster, you know it’s a hardware-based workaround for some aspects of bufferbloat aimed especially at […]
How is this different from the old but magical Hawking HBB1, for gaming instead of VOIP? Bought mine for $20 before they were discontinued.
https://www.tomsguide.com/us/quickview-hbb1,review-493.html
What about D Links “Gaming Routers”? How does game fuel differ from what Lagbuster does?
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The gamers I know who complain about lag don’t, no. But that’s a good point, if you’ve got multiple computers around the house, other people might be using it too. gaming as something you do with anything else that might use resources turned off.
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I have a question, I use DSL and have can’t play games well due to it, My Compay I have my internet through, says im maxed for “3mb” but I don’t ever get that I get like 1 mb or under will lag buster help me?
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