I've been testing the Lagbuster for almost a week now & decided to update you...

I just finished a two hour phone called with Lagbuster's CEO, CTO, Head Marketer, and two of their engineers. We had many things to discuss, some of which will be publicly available here. As far as I'm aware, it is not a violation of any NDA or privacy agreement. The subject of the call was my Lagbuster test results and methodology. I'll talk about my results and what might be wrong with them by topic. Also, I plan to do a lot more testing this week.



My initial test results with the Lagbuster were not as I had expected. Mixed results would be the best way to describe it. Some features were not working properly and some features were working just fine. However, there may be reasons (on my end) why some features did not appear to work.



For me, the QoS feature did not seem work. I tested it using large downloads on the network such at 1080p YouTube and Netflix streaming. I did this on Insurgency and BO2. It did not seem to help whereas other QoS products did. After talking to Sejent I was informed that the standard QoS that ships with the product, and the updated version that I downloaded from their site, only prioritizes uploads. The Lagbuster was designed to prevent lag if someone on your network is uploading files. Upload punishes your game experience more than download so they build their QoS around upload speeds. This was not public data so I just tested via downloading which I assumed would be more common. So my testing methods were not correct. I was testing nothing. This was a misunderstanding on my part. The engineers promised to give me an and older/private QoS software that will also protect my connection against large downloads. At my suggestion this is also being considered for public release very soon.



Next up, the smart game detection feature had mixed results as well. The instructions said that all PC games were supported so I assumed testing on PC games would be no issue. Unfortunately the update that I downloaded (or something else) required that I also install another program release by Sejent called Tagger so that I can prioritize PC games. It was a new release and not mentioned in my older instruction manual. For testing round #3 I will be setting up this new software as well.



The packet prioritization may have worked. That is one difficult to tell. On Black Ops 2 the game would drop from 4 to 3 bars during my downloads but actual game experience did not degrade. The game felt and played just fine a 3 bar. I have been told this is evidence on the upload packet prioritization working properly. However, the engineers were also very forthcoming in admitting that many players cannot tell the difference between 3 and 4 bars. At least not a good 3 bar. I did some single blind testing and confirmed this to be true. There isn't really a good way to test this without enterprise level software.



The last feature to talk about is the Counter Measure II definitely works. Or, it definitely does something that is noticeable. This feature did change the game state as I changed options. It appeared to manipulate gaming timing and bandwidth options as advertised. The question is, was this to my advantage? The answer to that is, sometimes. I played with the numbers a lot more than I probably should have. Smaller values would sometimes improve the "feel" of my gamestate but not always. Sometimes it "felt" worse. This feature is VERY complicated and requires a lot of trial and error to get just right. Very large values, as stated in the instructions were not helpful. I just lagged myself. I probably need more time to play with and test this feature.



The end result is that more testing needs to be done. I'm going to retest sometime soon this week with new methods and new software. I hope this satisfies your curiosity for now.

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