@beardofturtles 

I'm also interested to know more about that.

Have you had a look at this?

Otherwise I suggest you find another forum to ask your question. TP-Link support always take a long while before answering questions here.

beardofturtles wrote

I'm struggling to get my head round this whole NAT thing with my MR600.  I understand what NAT is but just want to understand how my router deals with it all:

 

In the WAN interface of the router settings there is a button to turn NAT on or off.  But isn't NAT on 4G routers a weird type of double NAT called CGNAT?  Coupled with a ever changing IP address, this is the reason for NAT issues in online games?  So seems a bit too good to be true to have an on/off button.  It's on by default but surely people would want this off?

 

Will turning it off affect my Upnp which seems to be doing its job in automatically letting through Call of Duty via the ports.

 

My main questions really are:

 

1. Will turning off NAT in my router help to give me open NAT in games? (see screenshot of NAT on or off)
2. Should I turn off NAT boost (as i dont get over 100mbps where i read its only useful for?) and opt for QoS?
3. Is QoS worth the effort?  Looks like complex and all I'd want it for is prioritising my gaming PC.
4. Does NAT Boost have anything to do with NAT in terms of opening/closing ports for things like gaming?
5. Will my uPnp be affected by messing about with either my NAT on/off or NAT Boost?

 

Hope all that makes sense!  Theres only some much googling you can do before your brain goes mush.  Things also get very hardware specific and my situation is compounded by having a CGNAT internet provider (EE) and having 4G home internet!

 

This is what I understand about NAT etc and may help to answer some of your questions?

Will turning off NAT in my router help to give me open NAT in games? (see screenshot of NAT on or off)

You typically need NAT turned on so that you can hide your local IP addressing behind a public IP address on the Internet using your router.  CGNAT is where your ISP will hide your local IP addressing behind a public IP address.  If your ISP supports CGNAT then I believe you can turn NAT off on your router after contacting them?

Should I turn off NAT boost (as i dont get over 100mbps where i read its only useful for?) and opt for QoS?

NAT boost or NAT acceleration, which is a form of cut through forwarding, where your router sends the data as it is being received with out any error checking.  I believe NAT boost improves the peak connection speed of your home Internet connection?

Is QoS worth the effort?  Looks like complex and all I'd want it for is prioritising my gaming PC.

QoS is designed to ensure enough bandwidth for critical network traffic under limited network capacity conditions.  I believe this means when you have used up all your home Internet bandwidth then your router will prioritise which traffic will use your Internet bandwidth first.  I believe If your Internet bandwidth is ok then QoS will not make much difference?

Does NAT Boost have anything to do with NAT in terms of opening/closing ports for things like gaming?

See above answer.

Will my uPnp be affected by messing about with either my NAT on/off or NAT Boost?

See above answer.

Hope that helps?

CheerZ

@Fl1nst0ne thanks for the reply dude. I'll maybe just try turning off NAT on that menu and see what happens.  Just dont want to bugger up my connection permanently.

Regarding NAT Boost and QoS, I've not noticed any speed reduction with NAT boost off but if i'm not going to use QoS (because i cant work it out yet).  I worry that NAT boost off will affect my online gaming NAT though.

I am afraid the QoS on the MR600 may be broken altogether. See also here.