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XR500 Geofilter not populating PC Unreal Engine (Fortnite) servers; Ping remains elevated

ClockWork_Doc
Aspirant

XR500 Geofilter not populating PC Unreal Engine (Fortnite) servers; Ping remains elevated

I bought the Nighthawk XR500 in order to manage my In-Home connectivity and reduce my ping. I've been victim to chronic and variable ping spikes that directly impacts my in-game performance & streaming (SLOBS to Twitch) ability as well. Unfortunately, it has not worked out so well so far. After reading through several guides to setting up the XR500, I still have no servers populating on my geofilter. I had read that you must ID your PC as a console to register the Fortnite servers, which I have tried with no results. 

As commonly known, the NA-East servers are located in Virginia & Ohio, with Ohio being the closest to me in Cincinnati. I tried limiting my geofilter to the surrounding area to include only the Ohio server (even though the servers were not populating), but no significant change occurred. 

I Ping'ed both servers and somehow the Ohio server has a higher ping than the other in Virginia (average of 41ms & 25ms, respectively). I assumed this was a routing issue and attempted to try port forwarding (Fortnite PC: TCP: (5222,5795-5847) UDP: (5222,5795-5847), however this resulted in no significant change.

Since then I've run several trace routes (tracert) on servers i've been connected to in game while in game, both during normal ping (20-30ms) and ping-spikes (150-250ms).

My knowledge in networking is rather limited unfortunately. While my current general ping (20-40ms) isn't bad, it seems like it could be better, especially considering my proximity to one of the servers. 
Relevant Info:

ISP plan: Fiber Optics up-to 750/250 Mbps (up/down); Averaging 500/200 Mbps
Fortnite Servers: NA-East

 

Model: XR500| Nighthawk Pro Gaming Router
Message 1 of 4
Netduma_Jack
NetDuma Partner

Re: XR500 Geofilter not populating PC Unreal Engine (Fortnite) servers; Ping remains elevated

Hi there,

 

Can you actually see the servers on your Geo-Filter? Or not at all?

 

If not, could you delete any devices you added to the GEo-Filter. Then go to the device manager, click on your PC and change the device type to a Playstation (I appreciate you may have already done this). Then go back to the Geo-Filter, and add your PC to the top again. It should now populate.

 

As for pings, both are solid, but if I were you I would try just playing on the server that you feel plays the best, regardless of where it's located. Of course, this is usually the server with the lowest ping.

 

If you want to invesitgate the route your packets are taking to a Fortnite dedicated server, you could try installing PingPlotter on your PC and then set a Fortnite server as the target. It's possible your ISP is using a weird route. There's a guide to using PingPlotter here: http://forum.netduma.com/topic/23881-ping-plotter-quick-guide/

 

Finally, I would also follow that guide just to run a simple line test on your network to see if you're suffering from any line quality issues.

Message 2 of 4
ClockWork_Doc
Aspirant

Re: XR500 Geofilter not populating PC Unreal Engine (Fortnite) servers; Ping remains elevated

Good Evening,

 

I apologize for the delayed response, I wanted to try a couple other things before replying. 

I can see the servers for some games (Servers populated when playing Apex Legends), but not Fortnite (Unreal Engine) even after doing what you suggested. If you have any other recommendations, please let me know and I'll try it. 

 

Thank you for the additional information regarding Ping. I'll continue to investigate the tracert and ping complications using the pingplotter. 

Message 3 of 4
Netduma_Jack
NetDuma Partner

Re: XR500 Geofilter not populating PC Unreal Engine (Fortnite) servers; Ping remains elevated

That's strange - if you change your PC's device type to an Xbox it really should work in showing Fortnite servers. Could you take a screenshot of your Geo-Filter page when you have done this and we can just check the settings at the top.

 

And sorry to be partonising, but is your gaming PC is 100% connected to the router (rather than your modem)? It's a mistake we sometimes make ourselves when testing!

 

 

Message 4 of 4
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