• DW6000/DW4020 Users Please Read!!
• What is DrTCP and how do I use it?
• Important Info for WIN2K SP1 users using DrTCP!!
• Optimal Settings for Dial Return, White Dish Systems
• Optimal Settings for DW4000 (Two-Way) Systems
• Optimal Settings for DirecPC Classic, Gray Dish, One-Way Systems
• Is there something I can do to improve my upload speeds with SRS?
• Is there anything I can do to improve the performance of the DW4000 proxy server
• Reduce your cache for better browsing
• Can I tweak my Starband system with DrTCP?
• Should I try speed patches I see at other sites?
• I Tweaked with DrTCP but the Tweak Tester doesn't report the changes.
• [DW4000] I'm sharing my connection on a LAN. Do I need to do more?
• Can I Tweak FireFox/Mozilla?

Please note that the tweaks listed in this FAQ section are NOT intended for users of "self hosted" systems like the DW4020 and DW6000. Please do not use these tweaks if you own one of these systems. The tweaks are intended only for use with computer hosted systems that run the DAK direcway software and use the DW4000 or DW3000 modems.

You can run the LAN Client Configuration Utility (LCCU) software offered by Hughes to increase the maximum number of connections per server for your browser. Make sure you have downloaded the latest version of the LCCU from Hughes before using it as earlier versions did not work correctly for self hosted systems.

Tweaking information for "Self-Hosted" systems can be found here: /faq/8500

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by PetDude
last modified: 2003-12-05 14:54:58

DrTCP is a small utility that provides a window to the area of your registry that stores adjustable TCP settings. Using this program is a very easy way to adjust settings that can make a huge difference in your download speed.

You can download DrTCP now by clicking here.

When you load up DrTCP, go to the field marked "Adapter Settings". If you are tweaking the computer that is directly connected to the satellite modem, in that field, use the small arrow to the right to select "Satellite USB Device". If you are tweaking a network client computer, choose the Network Interface Card (NIC) for that computer.

Don't forget to save your changes and re-boot to have them take effect.

In the actual tweak instructions, we assume you are using DrTCP.

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by PetDude edited by seagreen
last modified: 2004-01-03 10:12:52

When you installed the DirecPC, DirecWay, Earthlink or Pegasus software on your computer, it installs a registry key called GlobalMaxTcpWindowSize. If you are using WIN2K you should upgrade to Service Pack 2 to fix a bug in this key that causes DrTcp changes to have no effect on RWIN. If you don't want to upgrade to SP2, then you must delete the key. Note: You do not need to delete this key if you are using Win2K SP2 or above or XP.

Using Regedit you can find the key at: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters
Open the Parameters folder and locate the key GlobalMaxTCPWindowSize, right click on it and choose delete.

After the key is deleted you can set your RWIN with DrTCP, reboot, and the RWIN you selected will be used.

Remember, that if you upgrade or re-install your satellite software, you will need to use regedit to delete this key again.

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by PetDude

Tcp Receive Window (RWIN): 134900
Window Scaling: YES
Time Stamping: NO
Selective Acks: YES
Path MTU Discovery: YES
Black Hole Detection: NO
Max Duplicate Acks: 3
TTL: 64
MTU: 1460

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by PetDude
last modified: 2002-03-23 22:05:24

NOTE: Do not use these settings with the DW6000!
If you have a self-hosted DirecWay connection (DW4020 or DW6000), your tweaks are here: /faq/8500

Tcp Receive Window (RWIN): 224360
Window Scaling: YES
Time Stamping: NO
Selective Acks: YES
Path MTU Discovery: YES
Black Hole Detection: NO
Max Duplicate Acks: 3
TTL: 64
MTU: 1500

Try these settings first. If you find that your download speeds are at or over 1,500kbs with these settings, then increase the RWIN to 474280, so that you can get the full download speed potential available to you. If your speeds are ALWAYS below 1,500kbs, raising your RWIN any higher than 224360 won't help, and may actually hurt your connection speed. See image below.




Do not use these settings with the DW6000

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by PetDude edited by seagreen
last modified: 2004-01-04 12:03:36

Tcp Receive Window (RWIN): 64000
Window Scaling: NO
Time Stamping: NO
Selective Acks: YES
Path MTU Discovery: YES
Black Hole Detection: NO
Max Duplicate Acks: 3
TTL: 64
MTU: 1479

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by PetDude

1. One tweak for upload speed is to turn Path MTU Discovery to YES in DrTCP. Without this switch turned on, Windows treats the Satellite Upstream path as a dial-up path, and changes the MTU for the path to 576, regardless of what you have the MTU set for on the adapter. By turning Path MTU Discovery on, Windows will see that the upstream path minimum MTU is 1460-1500 bytes, and will adjust accordingly.

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by snowman edited by PetDude
last modified: 2006-01-05 00:22:44

Try changing your proxy port from 83 to 85. To do this open up control panel and go to internet options.Then click on connection tab. Then click on LAN settings. Then click on advanced. Then change port from 83 to 85. If you have Internet Explorer open you can get to the same place by clicking on tools at top. Then internet options and go from there.

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by cindyredhead edited by seagreen
last modified: 2004-05-03 11:46:38

This technique has been reported by many users to enhance the "snappiness" of browsing with these high latency connections.

It seems that Satellite Return Systems (SRS) get more of a benefit than Dial Return Systems (DRS) from this tweak, because of the greater latency with SRS.

Try reducing your browser's cache to 1mb size.

In IE, go to Tools -> Internet Options. Under "Temporary Internet Files" press the "settings" button. Under "Temporary Internet Files Folder" change the number in the box to 1. Press OK, then OK again.

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by bilbo4fun edited by PetDude
last modified: 2002-06-02 14:44:25

Unfortunately, no. Currently the Starband TCP settings are controlled by the Starband Network and are coded in your modem. You cannot change them manually.

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by PetDude

Using "one size fits all" speed tweak patches is an incredibly bad idea. Here are just a few reason why:

1. These patches were never developed with the high latency and high speed combination of satellite in mind.

2. Because the developers don't know how many TCP adapters are on your system, they play tricks to make sure all adapters get "tweaked". One of the most common tricks is to assume there will be no more than 10 adapters, and therefore to create registry entries for 10 adapters. Since almost no one has 10 TCP adapters on their computer, this creates many excess registry entries causing extra overhead and great confusion if you ever need to figure out what is what in your registry.

3. Many of the patches give you no way to undo the changes you made after they have completely destroyed your connection, or only to undo themselves incompletely. Many people have had to re-format their drives and re-install a clean copy of their o/s to fix the problems created by speed patches.

The bottom line is that by using DrTCP, you control the changes and you can always change things back to if you like.

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by PetDude

With DirecPC/Direcway systems, including Earthlink and Pegasus express since you have no public IP, the tweak tester gets confused as to what machine to test. The result is you are seeing results from an intermediate machine at the DPC NOC.

Ignore any results you get from the DSLR tweak tester if you are on a DirecPC/Direcway based system. The results you are getting from the tweak tester are not for your computer.

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by PetDude

For Users with DW4000 Systems:

Yes. In order to get the client computers on a network to have the same performance as the host computer, there is a bit more work to be done. A three-step process. You can skip step one if you are not using Windows 98SE with ICS on the host computer.

1. First if you are using Windows 98SE and ICS, a registry key is created that is killing your speed, even on the host. This key was originally put in to support dial-up internet connections and has been removed from subsequent versions of Windows. You need to delete the key or at least give it a null value. Since you have DrTCP it's easy. Open DrTCP on the host computer. Find the section entitled "ICS Settings". In that section, there is a window marked "Internet MTU". Delete any value in that window. Make it blank. Push "Save", exit, and re-boot.

Now you need to get the client computer(s) up to speed.

2. Load DrTCP on each client. In the "adapter settings" window, choose the Network Interface Card (NIC) for that machine. Make the settings exactly the same as the settings you put on the host machine for "Satellite USB Device". Push Save, exit and re-boot.

3. Your host machine was set up by the DPC software install to use several simultaneous TCP connections. This is done to reduce the effects of latency on browsing, and the result can be quite dramatic. You will want your client(s) to have the same advantage, but for them you will have to make the registry keys manually using regedit. (Start->Run->Regedit)

Basically you need to add two registry keys. Below you will find where in the registry to put the keys and what to name the keys. Navigate to the locations specified in the left pane, then in the right pane, right click and choose to create a "New" Dword value. Name them exactly as shown. Once they are there, double click on each and insert the value 15 (HEX). Once you've done that, exit regedit, re-boot. Your work is done.

WinXP and Win2k: All DWORD Values

HKEY_USERS\DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings

MaxConnectionsPerServer
MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings

MaxConnectionsPerServer
MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server

WINME / 98: All DWORD Values

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings
MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server
MaxConnectionsPerServer

Section 4. (Submitted by Seagreen) There are a few more settings that need to be added to the client machine's NIC Network properties.

Add the Host's IP address (192.168.0.1) as the Default Gateway and as the preferred DNS server. Add a Hughes DNS server (usually 198.77.116.8) to the DNS servers list as an alternate after the Host machine's IP address. Adding these helps speed up the client machine's Domain Name Resolution and consequently, browsing. It also helps the client machine get email from POP accounts.

Follow the instructions below for your particular OS:

Windows 98:

Start => Settings => Control Panel => click on the Network icon or right-click on the Network Neighborhood icon and choose 'Properties'. Either way gets you into the Network configuration screens.
From the list of installed clients, protocols and services, locate TCP/IP bound to the NIC It will look something like this: TCP/IP -> your network card. The arrow indicates the protocol is bound to that adapter. Highlight that and then click the Properties button. This gets you into the TCP/IP configuration screens. Click the DNS Configuration tab. Put as dot in the 'Enable DNS' radio button.
Then add the DNS servers, starting with the Host machine's IP address (192.168.0.1). Add the Hughes' DNS servers' IP addresses (198.77.116.8) in after that. For domain, enter "direcway.com."
Next click the Gateway tab and enter 192.168.0.1 as an installed gateway. 'OK' your way out, you'll be asked for the Windows 98 CD if the CAB files are not on your HD and you'll be asked to reboot.

Windows ME:

Start => Settings => Control Panel => click on Network icon, or right-click on My Network Places icon on desktop, and choose 'Properties'. Either way gets you into Network Configuration screens. From the list of installed clients, protocols and services, locate TCP/IP bound to the NIC It will look something like this: TCP/IP -> your network card. The arrow indicates the protocol is bound to that adapter. Highlight that and then click the Properties button. This gets you into the TCP/IP configuration screens. Click the DNS Configuration tab. Put a dot in the 'Enable DNS' radio button.
Then add the DNS servers, starting with the Host machine's IP address (192.168.0.1). Add the Hughes' DNS servers' IP addresses (198.77.116.8) in after that. For domain, enter "direcway.com."
Next click the Gateway tab and enter 192.168.0.1 as an installed gateway. 'OK' your way out, you'll be asked for the Windows ME CD if the CAB files are not on your HD and you'll be asked to reboot.

Windows 2000:

Start => Settings => Network and Dialup Connections. Highlight and right-click on your LAN listing (usually called Local Area Connection) and choose 'Properties.' Highlight TCP/IP and click 'Properties.'
On the following screen, enter the host's IP (192.168.0.1) address as the default gateway and as the Preferred DNS server. Add a Hughes DNS server (198.77.116.8) as an alternate.

Windows XP:

Right click on My Network Places icon on the desktop or Start => Settings => Network Connections. Select “properties”. Right click on the Local Area Connection icon and chose Properties. Highlight TCP/IP and click the 'Properties' button. If you are not configuring the IP address manually, but obtaining it from the Host machine, you will not be able to enter a default gateway on the initial screen. Add the DNS servers, starting with the Host's IP address (192.168.0.1) followed by a Hughes DNS server (198.77.116.8). Click the 'Advanced' button. On the IP Settings tab, add the host machine's IP address (192.168.0.1) as the default gateway. Click the DNS tab and add direcway.com as the DNS suffix for this connection. 'OK' your way out and close the network properties interface.

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by PetDude edited by seagreen
last modified: 2004-08-25 12:41:38

Yes!

In the URL line, type "about:config" without the quotes. Scroll down to network.http.proxy.version. Change the value from 1.1 to 1.0.

While you are in the neighborhood, make these changes as well:

network.http.max-connections = 64
network.http.max-connections-per-server=21
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server=12

You can play with the network-http.max-connections-per-server number if you want to see if you can do better. I've had it up to 64 with network.http.max-connections as high as 256. The only problem is you might run into trouble with sites that limit your maximum connections. Example are the extension and theme download sites for mozilla. The numbers above should provide good performance without side effects.

I would not push persistent connections above 12. That can cause problems on lots of sites, particularly above 15. And I would leave the connections-per-proxy settings alone.

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by PetDude
last modified: 2004-12-10 19:07:57