What Is Anti-buffer Bloat?

Question

What the $%&amp;*! is Anti-buffer bloat??
&nbsp;
Hey Nighthawks,
&nbsp;
Here's a quick explanation of one of the most powerful features in the OS that powers our Nighthawk Pro Gaming routers, anti-buffer bloat.
&nbsp;
What is anti-buffer bloat? Before we can answer that, we should answer what the heck is buffer bloat? Buffer bloat is a major cause of high lag in networks caused by excess buffering of packets or information. Bufferbloat can also cause packet delay or jitter, as well as reduce the overall network speed. When a router is configured to use excessively large buffers (like HD video or several streaming devices), even very high-speed networks can become practically unusable for many interactive applications like voice over IP (VoIP), online gaming, and even ordinary web surfing.
&nbsp;
Simply put, if you have a device or multiple devices like Google Chromecast, Amazon Firestick or smart TVs, the preloads for showing you a little bit of that movie or show is buffered. Now, it’s great that they can serve up that content immediately, but that’s contributing to bufferbloat. All of those devices add up and start to vampire a little of your overall internet until things start to slow down.
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
Anti-buffer bloat is designed to remedy this problem by reserving a percentage of your overall internet for interactive applications like VoIP and online gaming.
&nbsp;
Think of it as a bouncer that let’s your gaming traffic into the VIP line and things like streaming services get to wait in line like everyone else.
&nbsp;
Till next time,
&nbsp;
ZarduBen

gwager08 · Answer

I am confused as to how the buffer bloat works.  I know there are sliders for adjustments but are those sliders for gaming consoles or other devices?

gwager08 · Answer

When trying to use the anti-buffer bloat, how does netduma know your online gaming versus surfing the web? Why not set the sliders to 1% for greedy devices when your gaming so all bandwidth goes to the game console? Also confused about traffic prioritization, how do you configure just for an Xbox?

Netduma-Fraser · Answer

The Anti-Bufferbloat sliders work across ALL devices on the router, it does not restrict to gaming devices. That would throttle your internet to the point you couldn't do anything as it works across all devices. We always recommend having it set at 70% for both download and upload. This ensure that there is no local congestion in your home and everyone is happy! You could set it to apply always or when high priority traffic is detected (basically when you're gaming). Scroll down to Traffic Prioritization on the QoS page, make sure DumaOS Classified Games is enabled and your Xbox will be automatically prioritized.

gwager08 · Answer

How does lowering sliders to 70% reduce congestion? By doing so the bandwidth at the same time is reduced according to numerous speed tests online. The whole reason to have faster up and download speed is to have more devices connected without any buffer problems/ less congestion. So how does Antibuffer-bloat provide a better gaming experience when reducing sliders means reducing overall bandwidth? How does this make any sense especially with Qos burger graph to allocate bandwidth prioritization?

Netduma-Fraser · Answer

You can use the ? icons on the router panels and they will explain each feature in more detail and how to use it. In short though, downloads will always go as fast as they can so it doesn't matter if you have more bandwidth the download will go just as fast as that and still cause you lag. By effectively telling the router that 70% is your new maximum it ensures theres headroom so that your connection cannot be saturated and therefore is room for gaming and other applications etc. All devices can use the internet as normal. Speed test results being the only downside but everything will run fine regardless of that. Bandwidth Allocation will provide bandwidth using whatever the available total is according to your Anti-Bufferbloat settings.

Forum Discussion

What Is Anti-buffer Bloat?

10 Replies