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How much does disabling early_demux actually matter?

It depends on what kind of packet rate one is pushing through the device, what type of hardware is being used as the router and how sensitive ones applications are to such things but if you want a better scientific answer run as many load tests as you can that measure packet rates, lag and jitter then disable them and run your tests again. I should add this is just one tunable related to routing. If bored dig into this a lot deeper and one will find there are many things that can be adjusted at the NIC, in the OS network stack and so much more.

Some people like defaults because it is less cognitive load and some like to tweak things until they can't get better results. I believe that everyone should be able to choose their own path to satisfaction. If the defaults and fq_codel work for you then that is probably the right answer.

by jcalvinowens5 hours ago|

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I was just curious if you'd benchmarked it. I've always guessed it makes no measurable difference for packet rates achievable on a residential internet connection, but never bothered to check.

by Bender5 hours ago|

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Per the documentation it compensates for some overhead. The numbers on my hardware based on my usage patterns will not match the numbers on your hardware and your usage patterns. I have tested it on several different routers and saw a difference but by itself nothing to write home about in my testing. Just as there is the concept of a death by a thousand cuts, there are also notable improvements by adjusting each layer of the stack to be optimized for the workload. In the big picture it is enough difference for me to bother with along with a few dozen other settings especially for gaming.

I predict some day this will be one of many things that will get adjusted by the "tuned" daemon if they add a profile for routers.

by jcalvinowens4 hours ago|

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On the other hand, I can think of a lot of things I've seen done and done myself because they were "obviously" beneficial, which turned out to make no difference or be slightly harmful when I rigorously tested them.

Finding the balance is hard. I find as I get older I'm less inclined to twiddle knobs, but that isn't necessarily a universally good thing :)

by Bender4 hours ago|

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Well like I said, some people like defaults because it is less cognitive load and some like to tweak things until they can't get better results. I believe that everyone should be able to choose their own path to satisfaction. If the defaults and fq_codel work for you then that is probably the right answer.