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what ports does STO use?

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
i am tryign to find out which ports to open on my router..... anyone?
Post edited by Unknown User on

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  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    You do not need to open inbound ports.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    ports the game uses is 7000-7500 , These do not need to be forward but they do need to be open and not filtered or blocked by firewalls or your ISP.
    download nettest for a test of a sample of ports in the game range.
    Nettest:
    Go to http://files.champions-online.com/nettest.exe
    Download this file and run it
    A command prompt should appear running the test automatically

    For good connections, column 1 and 3 have values around 500 kb/sec (outgoing/incoming), column 2 has values around 20 kb/sec (transfer rate).
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    I'll say one thing, opening those ports makes one hell of a difference to Gameplay, to be more precise, you can actually play the game after opening those ports and previously before doing so, I would get stuck in busy locations, have extreme lag when teamed up with more than one player as well as get the reoccurring jumpy / stuck character on ground / space maps.

    So it's very important that you do forward those ports, especially if you are using a router and a firewall.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    wrote:
    I'll say one thing, opening those ports makes one hell of a difference to Gameplay, to be more precise, you can actually play the game after opening those ports and previously before doing so, I would get stuck in busy locations, have extreme lag when teamed up with more than one player as well as get the reoccurring jumpy / stuck character on ground / space maps.

    So it's very important that you do forward those ports, especially if you are using a router and a firewall.
    Forwarding ports has nothing to do with lag or connection quality. Any perceived difference is purely a placebo effect.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    coderanger wrote:
    Forwarding ports has nothing to do with lag or connection quality. Any perceived difference is purely a placebo effect.

    Really? I haven't had a single problem since forwarding the ports...

    You know your job and your tech, but I'm just saying it how it is.

    Cheers
    :)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    wrote:
    Really? I haven't had a single problem since forwarding the ports...

    You know your job and your tech, but I'm just saying it how it is.

    Cheers
    :)
    I'll just leave this right here ;-)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    coderanger wrote:

    coderanger, I am aware of what a Placebo is and the effects one has on a person, but the nettest program clearly indicates an extremely huge difference between transmission speeds.

    When ports are NOT forwarded to the Wireless Router or Local Firewall, the nettest shows that the transmission speeds are around 30kbs in bound, where as if you forward ports 7000-7500, the nettest program I got from these forums clearly shows a huge increase in transmission speed, averaging about 120kbs in bound.

    So how can you say that forwarding the ports has no effect upon lag / game performance or otherwise similar effects?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    wrote:
    coderanger, I am aware of what a Placebo is and the effects one has on a person, but the nettest program clearly indicates an extremely huge difference between transmission speeds.

    When ports are NOT forwarded to the Wireless Router or Local Firewall, the nettest shows that the transmission speeds are around 30kbs in bound, where as if you forward ports 7000-7500, the nettest program I got from these forums clearly shows a huge increase in transmission speed, averaging about 120kbs in bound.

    So how can you say that forwarding the ports has no effect upon lag / game performance or otherwise similar effects?
    nettest does no inbound testing, since the game doesn't do any inbound connections. It does measure downstream bandwidth, but on your side that has nothing to do with our port range (that would be measuring the speed of a connection on a random ephemeral port).
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    coderanger wrote:
    nettest does no inbound testing, since the game doesn't do any inbound connections.

    When I said in bound, I was referring to the "bytes in" from ports 7255, 7003, 7002 and 7499 and that sounds impossible, STO really uses no inbound connections at all?

    What about downloads for patches when using the launcher?


    coderanger wrote:
    It does measure downstream bandwidth, but on your side that has nothing to do with our port range (that would be measuring the speed of a connection on a random ephemeral port).

    I was under the impression that "downstream" bandwidth was the same as an in bound connection, allowing "bytes in" and as I said, forwarding the ports clearly shows that the "Downstream" bandwidth has increased.

    When my wireless router allocates my PC a different LAN Side IP Address I usually have to restart the router to get that number that I've forwarded back or just change the forwarded LAN Side IP to get the performance of downstream speed back to normal.

    Your right about the ephemeral port (which I Googled) for the connections on my side, but I would recommend doing some double checking to see if forwarding ports actually helps performance or not, as I am convinced it does and could explain the many, many posts about connection issues.

    It wouldn't hurt to double check this, even if your 100% sure that forwarding ports makes no difference.

    As I said, as long as I use nettest to check that my ports are open and the downstream is transmitting at maximum before I play STO, I don't have any problems.

    Previously though I did have a lot of problems as mentioned in my first post, and it surely can not be a coincidence.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    Alecto wrote: »
    It wouldn't hurt to double check this, even if your 100% sure that forwarding ports makes no difference.

    Have you checked to make sure having chickens in your yard doesn't enhance performance? It wouldn't hurt to double check this, even if you're 100% sure that chickens make no difference.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    Don't be a disrespectful troll syberghost, even Cryptics employees make mistakes as there human just like the rest of us, and I have explained clearly enough, it's up to them to check, nothing stoping them.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    It sounds like there is a resource issue on your home network equipment. This could be caused by coding (firmware), design flaw, or age of your router/LAN hardware. The port forwarding may be helping to prevent the packet loss which you see as connection interruptions (lag, drops, etc) as a side effect. It very well could be tied into small packet performance, or there lack of, on your hardware.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    wrote:
    Don't be a disrespectful troll syberghost, even Cryptics employees make mistakes as there human just like the rest of us, and I have explained clearly enough, it's up to them to check, nothing stoping them.
    This really isn't the place to explain exactly how TCP/IP works. Forwarding ports should have no effect on latency. Anything is possible, but I know of no networking hardware in which that is the case. I know of exactly one router where putting a host in the DMZ did dramatically improve performance (a Microsoft-branded unit made about 5 years ago), but that isn't what we are talking about (port forwarding had no effect on that device's performance). This is a practice we used to call "technical voodoo" when I worked tech support :-)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    Fair enough coderanger, and thanks for the advice milehighscott, I'm guessing my previous connection issues could have possibly been due to the internet connection arriving at wireless router A downstairs and from A to wireless router B upstairs.

    Router A is quite old, but does not belong to me, router B is new and belongs to me, although I have forwarded ports 7000-7500 which solved all of my STO connection issues.

    This is what coderanger is refering to as "technical voodoo" and / or a placebo affect, whatever you want to call it, it worked.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    Alecto wrote: »
    I'm guessing my previous connection issues could have possibly been due to the internet connection arriving at wireless router A downstairs and from A to wireless router B upstairs.

    Router A is quite old, but does not belong to me, router B is new and belongs to me, although I have forwarded ports 7000-7500 which solved all of my STO connection issues.

    Any chance you have NAT on both routers (double NAT)? Does your router, B, have a private IP address on the WAN side (from router A)?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    Yes I think so...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    coderanger wrote:
    This really isn't the place to explain exactly how TCP/IP works. Forwarding ports should have no effect on latency. Anything is possible, but I know of no networking hardware in which that is the case. I know of exactly one router where putting a host in the DMZ did dramatically improve performance (a Microsoft-branded unit made about 5 years ago), but that isn't what we are talking about (port forwarding had no effect on that device's performance). This is a practice we used to call "technical voodoo" when I worked tech support :-)

    I'm sure you have some cool stories as well. ;)

    J.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    Theoretically, if your router is busy enough (say from always being spammed from the outside) and not good quality hardware/firmware, NAT translations back to the originating IP can slow things down considerablly. Having the router just auto-forward them may have sped it up. There could be several other PC issues as well. Just saying, it doesn't hurt to forward the ports, but as the developer has stated, it is not required.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    sedory wrote:
    Theoretically, if your router is busy enough (say from always being spammed from the outside) and not good quality hardware/firmware, NAT translations back to the originating IP can slow things down considerablly. Having the router just auto-forward them may have sped it up. There could be several other PC issues as well. Just saying, it doesn't hurt to forward the ports, but as the developer has stated, it is not required.

    That's not how NAT works. You're basically attempting to exchange lookup in one table for lookup in another table, which wouldn't be any kind of a speedup even if it did work, which it doesn't; your forwarded ports simply don't enter into this connection at all in any way, because it's not an inbound connection, it's inbound traffic on an OUTBOUND socket. There's nothing in the inbound rules that affects this in any way.
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