Gaming behind a router - a beginner's guide

Games have come on leaps and bounds in the last few years, which is very good for the consumer, with more and more features being added all the time. However, if you have a wireless network, and your computer sits behind a router, this can cause some rather large headaches with games that have a multi-player element.

Let me explain what these problems are, and how to get around them. The router uses something called NATs - Network Address Translation which works most of the time when you surf the net to establish where to send incoming data, based on its origin, which appears seamless to us users. This is the protocol that allows wireless routers to work using a single phone connection for multiple computers. This is all well and good, until you want to do multi-player gaming. This often requires unrequested data to be send to your PC. The clever security systems built into the router, don't know where to send this data as it was not requested by your PCs IP address, which often means the multi-player session ends. However, there is a way around this. Its called "Port forwarding" and it allows you to tell the router to allow any data through on this port to a specific computer. To find ports needed for specific multi-player servers, see either their website or contact their technical team, who will have no doubt heard the problem before and be ready right away with the data.
Port forwarding methods vary so wildly between machines that its simpler for me to tell you to check your own routers manual on how to do this. It can sometimes be referred to in router manuals as "Nats configuration" although this is becoming rarer, as manufacturers strive to be more consumer friendly. Obviously, port forwarding does leave specific parts of your network open to attack, although with most games this is incredibly rare. To counter this, I reiterate my point about ensuring you have a good sturdy firewall in place on your PC to guard against such attacks. I cannot recommend a specific one, however I'm sure a google search will provide some good reviews and advice. However, with a firewall, some may flag this forwarded port up as insecure and want you to close it down, in which case you will have to ignore them, and accept the incoming requests.

Checking for any unwanted holes in your system

After port forwarding for several games, you may find some holes in ports on your system that could leave you vulnerable to attack. I have found a neat little online tool @ https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2 that allows you to check what ports are open and can check what attacks you are more prone to as a result. select the "all service ports" option, and let it commence scanning. It may take some time, but it will be worth the result. Any that return red, click on them to see what that port deals with, most are probably essential, and should tell you as such. If you see open ports that don't really register, this is when you need to go back into the router config and close down these ports. Then scan again to make sure they are now closed.


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