Congestion Control Issues

[varmint]

I did read the QOS wiki before trying anything, what I would really like is to have various important applications categorized separately so I can identify various data traffic easily, also I wanted guaranteed minimum bandwidth available to certain traffic types e.g. being able to watch 720p youtube videos while someone is using skype or torrents.
Although the traffic is identified correctly most of the time qos doesn't seem to make much of a difference e.g. torrents go down to 200-300kbps when someone is using skype or youtube video render at lower resolutions. Also congestion control in MINRTT mode works to aggressively sometimes cutting bandwidth down to around 8000kbps or even 3/4000kbps from 12000. Should I change my ping target and/or ping limit?

I'll go through the wiki once again but any insights or suggestions regarding my specific issue will be much appreciated. Also I am not sure if upload and download qos work independently or in conjunction, e.g. if I set high percentage of download bandwidth for streaming videos and set no minimum or very low upload bandwidth would that affect the stream rate of the video negatively?

Really appreciate your response!

[varmint]

I know the above post is long so sorry about that but to summarize this is what I wish to achieve with qos:

1) Give highest priority to game traffic to minimize lag, upload never exceeds 250 kbps

2) Give skype or voip second highest priority with guaranteed min down of 3000 kbps and min up of 500 kbps

3) Be able to watch youtube videos at 720p if some one is downloading or using skype, 5-6000kbps should be sufficient for this.

4) Torrents get least priority but get full bandwidth when no other traffic is being transmitted.

5) Simple browsing should be fairly responsive though this has never been an issue.

Also I'll be getting upgraded to 16 mbps in a few days but I am still limited to 1 mbps upload speed

[nworbnhoj]

1) Give highest priority to game traffic to minimize lag, upload never exceeds 250 kbps

http://www.gargoyle-router.com/wiki/dok ... eforgamers

http://www.gargoyle-router.com/phpbb/vi ... 261#p30122

[Volaris]

Not all of the applications listed in qos work simultaneously only two or three so I don't think combined load ever goes above max bandwidth, should it be setup to be lower than total bandwidth in any case?

How many people (at most) use the Internet at the same time? If not more than 3, I doubt you need to have so many rules.

I think my qos setup may be causing this issue. Should I post screenshots of my qos setup?

It can only help. If you want you can post both your upload and download qos setup and we can give you tips.

also I wanted guaranteed minimum bandwidth available to certain traffic types e.g. being able to watch 720p youtube videos while someone is using skype or torrents.

Are you using the Youtube L7 rule? If so, test if it actually works (as in, load a 1080p Youtube vid and see if it registers anything for the Youtube rule). Due to the increasing popularity of HTTPS, many of those rules are completely broken. If it doesn't register any Youtube traffic, remove the rule.

Although the traffic is identified correctly most of the time qos doesn't seem to make much of a difference e.g. torrents go down to 200-300kbps when someone is using skype or youtube video render at lower resolutions.

QoS might just be confused from having so many rules. For example, it's being told to give X percent but it's also being told to give minimum X kbps, but even if there's just two rules active (say, Youtube and Torrent download) + another one like Steam/Skype/SmartTV it's already above the available bandwidth, especially at times that minRTT is aggressive.

Also congestion control in MINRTT mode works to aggressively sometimes cutting bandwidth down to around 8000kbps or even 3/4000kbps from 12000. Should I change my ping target and/or ping limit?

It's normal for minRTT to be that aggressive. That's basically telling it to F bandwidth capacity and do whatever is necessary to keep ping low. My observations have been that there's almost no difference when activating minRTT, and it's gentler on bandwidth capacity with it off. You can try a different ping target (I find Google's DNS 8.8.8.8 works better than my ISP, for example) to see if it's better.

Also I am not sure if upload and download qos work independently or in conjunction, e.g. if I set high percentage of download bandwidth for streaming videos and set no minimum or very low upload bandwidth would that affect the stream rate of the video negatively?

They work independently so you can set different rules, but it's very important that your upload QoS is properly set (as in, give enough upload for all but not more than what's available... usually no more than 90% of what you have available) for download QoS to work properly.

2) Give skype or voip second highest priority with guaranteed min down of 3000 kbps and min up of 500 kbps

Easy to do (and you probably have it right) but just want to make sure you know that Gargoyle uses per IP sharing by default. So if two people are on Skype (or three, or four, and so on) they'll automatically get half (or a third, and so on) of the min bandwidth instead of 3000 each. This is a reason why I'm against having so many rules.

3) Be able to watch youtube videos at 720p if some one is downloading or using skype, 5-6000kbps should be sufficient for this.

Same warning as above, but make sure it actually is able to detect Youtube traffic. If it isn't, it might just be lumping it with regular browsing and might explain your troubles of 720p streaming. Only takes about 3-4k to stream 720p well.

4) Torrents get least priority but get full bandwidth when no other traffic is being transmitted.

If you want least priority for torrents, remove minimum BW of 4000.

[ispyisail]

@Volaris

Are you saying the wiki entry is wrong or needs improvement?

[varmint]

Thank you volaris for your detailed response.

I've already seen the gaming qos link you shared above. I am sharing my qos setting. I tried to minimize qos rules but don't know how that can be done as the only way to classify traffic is to use port range and the static ip of hosts.
Almost all the rules work fairly well except torrents which open up too many random tcp connections to be classified properly, although bulk of udp traffic is correctly identified and the rest goes to normal or slow class.
If L7 worked it would be awesome but tried various l7 presets and none worked.
There are at most 4 active users who use up most of the bandwidth, two hosts use skype but rarely together, I am on the only person who games, at most three hosts download torrents.

Link to screenshots:

http://imgur.com/a/VdZk5

[varmint]

Also want to add that I am used to high pings while playing minimum I get is like 200ms, I don't mind the high ping as much as the jitter which practically makes games unplayable, used to be pretty bad before Gargoyle did improve it quite a bit but its still far from ideal with sort of 'surges' in jitter. If that can be minimized that would fulfill my purpose of getting Gargoyle.
Also I'd turn minrtt off but how badly would that affect games and Skype?
I don't think google or open DNS would work very well as ping targets because of distance, should I ping something closer beyond the gateway?

[ispyisail]

If L7 worked

I thought I read that Openwrt had removed support for L7 in CC?

[varmint]

Just to check I deleted all the qos I set and only let the default ones stay. Now congestion control seems to actually work, with it updating link limits and link loads fairly quickly.
I am now on 16mbps connection and with both upload and download qos disabled I get 1.9~2.0 MB/s when downloading ubuntu whereas with it enabled and congestion control in active mode I get 1.7~1.8 MB/s.
It goes to the max link limit I set in download bandwidth which is 18500kbps. With no other traffic shouldn't it be giving the same speed or does simply enabling qos take away some bandwidth?

[Lantis]

it takes away some, but it can slowly increase to pretty close to max speed if given enough time and a stable connection.