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A few months in the past, I obtained an electronic mail from Netgear asking me (and others I’m certain) to fill out a survey as a way to obtain a gaming router and swap in trade for a assessment. Considering, “I’m small fry, they’ll by no means ship me one.”, I crammed it out and despatched it off. A couple of weeks later, an enormous field arrived at my door with these two issues in it:
I used to be each shocked and horrified. I’d by no means used a separate router earlier than, not to mention a swap. I simply related each dang factor to my cable modem and been completed with it (which could’ve defined the dropped frames I’d been getting, however extra on that in a second), so I had no thought what to do with the factor, to be completely trustworthy. The directions that got here with the router have been marvelously easy: Use the offered ethernet cable to attach the router to your modem.
So a couple of month in the past, I did, and solely related one factor to the router: my gaming PC. I left all the pieces else — Ps, Steam Hyperlink, and many others — on the cable modem. I then adopted the directions to arrange the in-system software program, known as DumaOS. It comes with a very fairly dashboard, which seems to be like this:
Sadly, it doesn’t like Bitdefender very a lot, so I started getting errors like these:
Oddly sufficient, the software program works FINE in Incognito Mode in Chrome. Regardless, it has a variety of good options. You may see which items of {hardware} are utilizing your router:
And you may set bandwidth settings PER DEVICE, which is so cool, so I completely did:
I used to be then instructed later, on the DumaOS boards, that I ought to tweak my settings a bit like this:
Which has truly been fairly dang nice to date. The software program, general, is approach, WAY extra user-friendly than the software program on the ARRIS cable modem I’d been utilizing, and when it’s not crashing (I’ve learn Bitdefender will launch a repair for this subject quickly) it really works nice. Thus far, the software program portion of the router has been preeeetty improbable.
As soon as I acquired all the pieces arrange correctly. I then examined it with what I believed could be two demanding video games: Frontier Pilot Simulator and Redout Enhanced Version. I figured these quick, demanding video games would possibly put some additional weight on the stream.
As you’ll be able to see, they each look nice, particularly Redout. I used to be additionally joyful to see that there have been few, if any, dropped frames. I used to be fairly impressed by how steady my connection was all through each streams, however the actual take a look at got here a number of days later, throughout my first podcast — on Starmancer — when utilizing the router:
To my delight, I barely dropped any frames in any respect through the present, which is actually extraordinary. Tuesdays are TERRIBLE for the Web, and we often both drop some frames or have points with our Discord connection. Because the background video was only a looped video, it wasn’t TOO strenuous on my connection, fortunately. Nonetheless, the actual assessments have been quickly to return.
Later that week, I streamed EVE On-line, an older, not tremendous demanding recreation, for 3 hours. Since this was a web-based recreation, I figured it’d take a look at the steadiness of the connection a bit, and take a look at it did.
We dropped a number of frames and even stuttered a bit, however general it was nothing severe.
The true adjustments have been but to return although. Glad with the router’s efficiency, I known as Spectrum to ask if they may swap their modem to bridge mode, so I may use the router solely. This was completed earlier than the EVE stream, which seemingly helped preserve stability points to a minimal. Nonetheless, I additionally requested if they may diagnose my dropped body subject. They did a connection take a look at, decided that I used to be certainly dropping packets, and set an appointment for a technician to return out THE NEXT DAY. Conveniently, the appointment was AFTER the EVE stream. Hat tip, by the way in which, to Excelsior on our Discord server for telling me what to say when talking with Spectrum.
The Spectrum technician was GREAT. He gave me a brand new modem, new connectors for the cables in my condominium, and even for my connection within the junction field. We then examined the connection and located no stability points. What higher method to take a look at this, subsequently, than a podcast the place we stream a number of of us speaking over Discord whereas concurrently taking part in a reasonably demanding online-only recreation like Elite Harmful.
Now I gotta inform ya, often on Tuesdays, once we do our podcast, I flip off all the pieces Web-related that I’m not utilizing for the present. Dropbox, Evolve, Teamviewer, and many others. all get killed. Nicely, this time, I forgot to show off Dropbox. That is often a problem as a result of I’m recording audio to a Dropbox-shared folder, so it’s always making an attempt to sync that file, killing my connection. This has occurred earlier than a number of instances, which is how I discovered to show all the pieces off within the first place. This time, nevertheless, Dropbox saved making an attempt to sync sync sync right through the present.
We didn’t drop one body. In two hours. NOT ONE. I used to be totally and fully floored. The router had proved it’s value. Now time for extra testing.
I then took this time between streams to put in the swap. I’d by no means used a swap earlier than, nevertheless it was even simpler to arrange than the router, and in addition comes with a pleasant interface:
From right here, you’ll be able to set bandwidth allotments for every particular person port, and it comes with presets for gaming and media streaming:
I principally have it arrange in order that my PC will get all the bandwidth, whereas the PS3 will get many of the relaxation and so forth. It’s very easy to arrange, and has its personal monitoring suite so you’ll be able to see how issues are going:
As soon as I used to be certain all the pieces was up and operating for a spell with no issues, I ran one other take a look at of a very quick recreation, Ion Maiden, a number of days later and once more was fairly pleased with the outcomes.
That is when somebody instructed me I wasn’t doing sufficient to essentially take a look at the connection. I needed to be streaming a number of issues without delay to essentially put it by way of its paces, so I did. Utilizing Twitch so I may stream music, I loaded up EVE On-line, Spotify, Netflix on my telephone utilizing my account, and Netflix on the PS3 utilizing the spouse’s account. This lasted all of 13 minutes earlier than the connection died. You may see this stream right here, since embedding Twitch streams causes them to autoplay, which is ridiculous.
I then thought, alrighty then, I suppose I discovered the bounds of my connection. The following day, ran one other take a look at simply streaming Netflix from my telephone whereas nonetheless taking part in EVE On-line and streaming music from Spotify, with much better outcomes, which you’ll be able to watch right here for those who like, as once more, Twitch’s autoplay is freaking silly. A part of this recording is muted because of the music, FYI.
I’ve additionally performed on-line video games of Titanfall 2 and Vegetation vs. Zombies Backyard Warfare 2, and never as soon as did I’ve a connection or lag subject. I inform ya, this new gear is actually nice for holding a gaming connection steady.
Past gameplay, the router has distinctive WiFi. I used to have hassle getting sign on the reverse finish of the condominium, in my workplace the place I’m penning this, however as of proper now, my telephone as 47% sign power, and has no issues connecting to the WiFi. The router has two frequencies, the same old 2.4 and 5 GHz, and can decide which machine utilizing which channel by itself, so slightly than setting two WiFi factors — one for for every frequency — as I needed to for my cable modem, now it’s simply the one connection for all the pieces, which is way less complicated. Total, our WiFi connection has improved considerably. On the subject of streaming media on the PS3, whether or not from the PC or from providers like Netflix or Hulu, we’ve not had one drawback for the reason that switchover, which is tremendous necessary since we watch streamed stuff evvvvery day.
Oh, and it even has cell apps like this one!
So I’ve been utilizing the router for a month now, and the swap for a few weeks, and I’m tremendous pleased with the efficiency of each items. They have been simple to arrange, simple to make use of, and have helped make my connection by way of my numerous streams rather more steady. These items is perhaps a bit costly, reality be instructed, however for those who’re on the lookout for one thing to assist make your connection higher, these would seemingly assist quite a bit. I hope you’ve loved this story masquerading as a {hardware} assessment, and thanks for studying it. 😉
Observe: You may observe the hyperlinks on the XR500 or SX10 official pages for purchase hyperlinks and the like.
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