How to stabilize streaming: traffic prioritization on MikroTik

Every streamer has encountered “dropped frames”. Often the problem isn’t a weak PC, but that the home network doesn’t know which traffic is more important. If someone in the next room starts YouTube in 4K or begins a download, your stream can “drop”.

Today we’ll look at how to use RouterOS (MikroTik) to allocate a “dedicated lane” for the stream that nobody can take.

Step 1: Marking traffic (Mangle)

First we need to tell the router which packets belong to our stream. Suppose your computer has a static IP 192.168.0.100, and the internet comes through interface pppoe1.

In the terminal enter:

/ip firewall mangle
add chain=forward src-address=192.168.0.60 out-interface=pppoe1 \
    action=mark-packet new-packet-mark=video_upload passthrough=yes

What did we do? We marked every packet leaving your IP toward the internet with the mark video_upload.

Step 2: Creating a queue tree (Queue Tree)

Now let’s create rules for distributing bandwidth. We’ll use Queue Tree as it’s the most flexible tool for managing priorities.

/queue tree
# Create a common "branch" for outgoing traffic
add name=TOTAL-UP parent=pppoe1 max-limit=40M

# Allocate a priority channel for the stream
add name=VIDEO-UP parent=TOTAL-UP packet-mark=video_upload \
    limit-at=3M max-limit=50M priority=1

# Limit everything else
add name=OTHER-UP parent=TOTAL-UP \
    packet-mark=no-mark max-limit=40M priority=8

Why does this work?

• priority=1 — this is the highest priority. The router will process stream packets first, and only then everything else. Regular traffic (OTHER-UP) has priority 8 (the lowest).

• limit-at=3M — this is the guaranteed speed. Even if the channel is saturated at 100%, the router will forcefully allocate 3 Mbps to your stream.

• max-limit — we limit the total throughput slightly below the real speed of your plan (for example, 40M on a 50M plan). This is necessary so the queue is created by your router, not the provider’s equipment — only then will QoS work effectively.

Conclusion

After these settings your stream will get a “VIP pass”. Even if other devices start active downloads, the MikroTik will slow them down to ensure the smoothness of your broadcast.

Practical tip

Before configuring, be sure that the IP of your gaming PC is reserved:

IP → DHCP Server → Leases

This is necessary so the address doesn’t change after a reboot — otherwise the entire prioritization logic will break.