Weirdness in port forwarding

from Demigod Forums

I recently set up port forwarding on my router in the hopes of getting better Demigod connections.  Unfortunately, even if it helped a bit, it doesn't seem to have solved my problems.  It seems like up to three people can connect to me, but now Pantheon is making 3v3, and players 4 and 5 get stuck in "waiting to connect".  :'(

 

On a whim, I decided to double-check my port forwards.  I forwarded ports 6002 through 6022, inclusive, plus 6073, and I checked each of these ports using the PFPortChecker tool.  It claims that port 6008 is closed.  I don't know what's different between this and the other ports; I've double-checked the configuration and it looks like what I would expect.  Also, I'm a bit too sleepy to be sure, but I could have sworn that two other ports (6016 and 6005) were showing up as closed.  Now PFPortForward claims that they're open, but 6008 still shows up as closed.  I even tried rebooting the router and the port persists in being closed.

 

Does this make any sense to anyone?  My router is a DLink DI-624 and I get my Internet via the Qwest side of our local duopoly.

demigod
4,176 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Demigod Forums Top

I discovered some kind of a bug in my router where it would not let me forward a range because it kept telling me a port in the range was already involved in another forwarding rule. That port was nowhere to be found in any range or in any screen anywhere I looked on the router.

I had to use the factory defaults reset button to wipe out the router settings completely before I could get it to take a rule for that port. Not sure if it'd help you any, but if you're comfortable losing your other router settings it may be worth a shot. If you don't know the factory defauly admin password (would be in the manual) you will want to look it up while you still have internet.

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

If you don't know the factory defauly admin password (would be in the manual) you will want to look it up while you still have internet.
End of quote

LMAO.  Maybe that oughta be in bold, all-caps, etc, etc.

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Reply #3 from Demigod Forums Top

The problem with this whole system in my opinion is the stability of everyones internet.  The System used a UDP transfer protocol instead of using a server.  UDP is a connectionless protocol meaning that there is no guarantee that all the data that is being processes in your game is being processed in someone elses game.  That being said the way they guarantee data is by being connected to everyone at the same time.  And the reason the game lags is that whenever one persons internet gets disrupted the whole friggin system takes a break and gets  the data to catch it up.  The more people you have in the game the higher the probability that someones internet hiccups. 

Reply #4 from Demigod Forums Top

Di-624 is  know to cause problem on certain firmware. I suggest you update to latest version, and set the gamer mode option to enabled.

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

System used a UDP transfer protocol instead of using a server.
End of quote

It's more UDP vs TCP than UDP vs server. Plenty of games use UDP.

UDP assumes that error checking and correction is either not necessary or performed in the application, avoiding the overhead of such processing at the network interface level. Time-sensitive applications often use UDP because dropping packets is preferable to using delayed packets. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Datagram_Protocol 
End of quote

Reply #6 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting Wagnard, reply 4
Di-624 is  know to cause problem on certain firmware. I suggest you update to latest version, and set the gamer mode option to enabled.
End of Wagnard's quote

 

Thanks for the advice.  Sadly, I am updated to the latest version I know of (version 2.76, released back in 2006, I guess this is not a supported product any more) and gaming mode is turned on.  I tried fiddling with the uPNP setting, as I've heard that causes trouble, but no luck there either.

 

Quoting jochance, reply 1
I discovered some kind of a bug in my router where it would not let me forward a range because it kept telling me a port in the range was already involved in another forwarding rule. That port was nowhere to be found in any range or in any screen anywhere I looked on the router.
End of jochance's quote

 

Hm, this seems a bit different in that the router is 100% convinced that the port is being forwarded.

 

So, being a bit more fresh this morning, I had an idea: I deleted the "forward port 6008" rule and created it again.  Now the port is open according to the forwarding checker.  I even managed to get past the connecting screen and into a Pantheon game for the first time in ages, but "a player has left the game" at the loading screen and the other team was down one person and had an AI, so I dropped to even the teams.

Reply #7 from Demigod Forums Top

OK, I was maybe excessively optimistic in my last post.  I tried a few more times and there are still always one or two people who can't connect to me.  All my ports really seem to be open, so I can't imagine what the problem is ... maybe I'll see if the proxies help at all when they're activated today.

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

so I dropped to even the teams.
End of quote

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