Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Router Hell

Eidorian

Eidorian

macrumors Penryn
Original poster
Mar 23, 2005
29,196
394
Indianapolis
I've tried two Netgear routers (WRG614) and a Linksys (WRT54G) one. My roommate and I can't play Joint Operations: Typhoon Risiing/Escalation together.

One of us will get an interrupted connection to a game server and won't be able to log back into NovaWorld.

Yet, it works just fine once I reset my current Linksys WRT54G. (Returned to Best Buy) A day later with factory default settings and I try to join the game he's in and bam kicked out.

We can't connect simultaneously on the Netgear ones at all and then sometimes we can if we power them down.

I even VPN'd into work to try to connect and I was unable to as well.

I'm using an AirPort Extreme Base Station right now. I'm liking it but $190, ouch. I don't see much of a reason to spend more then $80 on a router but the features on it can't be beat. I don't need to build/find a Linux box to run file or print services.

Once my roommate is back I'll test our games again.
 
I've never, ever had to forward ports for this game. I've even been behind more strict routers outside of my control and had outgoing server connections work perfectly.

I'll try the game today, among others, after 1 day of uptime.
 
Have you done it before over this connection? I think we would need some more details about the outside connection. Is it DSL, Cable? I have had issues where connections would dump say when doing torrents. But it was never my router, always my modem which turned out to be a problem with my cable company. Technically it was my router, but what happened was I wasn't cloning the original MAC address I had on the connection. We you plug a new device in, it works, but once something tries to grab some real bandwidth, it dumps. So make sure you are cloning the original MAC address you setup (I am assuming cable) otherwise you can call them and say you changed a device and need the MAC updated in their system.

The WRT54G has gone to sh*t. The older revisions are the best, v.3 being the best.

I have a 614, I have had it for a year and have never had issues with connections, other than what I noted above. Not that it helps you, but it is possible.

Also, in general forwarding is a good practice, it reduces latency. I always do it for apps that can take advantage. You don't HAVE to do it. But in general it helps. My 360 would always lagged, then I forwarded ports and it improved greatly.
 
The DLink gaming router is good, but hasn't been updated to 802.11n yet. They've migrated most of the internals of that router into their new Xtreme N series with QoS and gigabit. I believe the one mentioned above is one of those new models.

My gaming router (DGL-4300 IIRC) has been fast and rock solid, particularly with games. Even when doing multiple BitTorrent files, I get super low ping times.
 
suneohair said:
Have you done it before over this connection? I think we would need some more details about the outside connection. Is it DSL, Cable? I have had issues where connections would dump say when doing torrents. But it was never my router, always my modem which turned out to be a problem with my cable company.
Click to expand...
I never torrent during games and my connection never drops when doing so. The modem being the problem is entirely possible though.

CanadaRAM said:
You could look for a router that has Quality of Service (Q0S) features. Based on my brief research, the fastest consumer level router seems to be the D-Link DIR-655.
Click to expand...
Once again, $$$ = AEBS.

PhatBoyG said:
The DLink gaming router is good, but hasn't been updated to 802.11n yet. They've migrated most of the internals of that router into their new Xtreme N series with QoS and gigabit. I believe the one mentioned above is one of those new models.

My gaming router (DGL-4300 IIRC) has been fast and rock solid, particularly with games. Even when doing multiple BitTorrent files, I get super low ping times.
Click to expand...
I've been suggested this model as well for "gaming" and QoS. And again, $$$ = AEBS.
 
Eidorian said:
I never torrent during games and my connection never drops when doing so. The modem being the problem is entirely possible though.

Once again, $$$ = AEBS.

I've been suggested this model as well for "gaming" and QoS. And again, $$$ = AEBS.
Click to expand...

Well I wasn't saying torrenting during games. Just anything that sucks bandwidth, in your case games, the modem would dump you since it wasn't the right MAC address being cloned by the router.

I don't think you need a new router. You said you haven't gamed over the AEBS yet? If not, let us know the results. I think the modem/mac addres is the culprit.
 
suneohair said:
Well I wasn't saying torrenting during games. Just anything that sucks bandwidth, in your case games, the modem would dump you since it wasn't the right MAC address being cloned by the router.

I don't think you need a new router. You said you haven't gamed over the AEBS yet? If not, let us know the results. I think the modem/mac addres is the culprit.
Click to expand...
We gamed last night for a few minutes. We'll try again today. Surprisingly enough you don't need to reboot my modem if your router's MAC address changes.

I'll be trying a barrage of gaming tonight via game servers and Hamachi.
 
Port forwarding still might something to look into. If you've never gotten it working on this router setup then perhaps something is not right?

Other than that is it possible that you are both logging into the game server under the same IP? Although you said you VPN-ed to work to try (not sure if that logs in as a different IP). You know how to setup a SOCKS proxy? Might be worth a shot.
 
GimmeSlack12 said:
Port forwarding still might something to look into. If you've never gotten it working on this router setup then perhaps something is not right?
Click to expand...
I've never had to port forward any of my games before until I started using the routers before my current AEBS.


GimmeSlack12 said:
Other than that is it possible that you are both logging into the game server under the same IP? Although you said you VPN-ed to work to try (not sure if that logs in as a different IP). You know how to setup a SOCKS proxy? Might be worth a shot.
Click to expand...
I thought it would be the same IP problem as well but it has worked just fine every other place we used a router. The games work fine even behind several routers with no forwarding.

VPN would give me an IP at work and the game still wouldn't work.
 
Eidorian said:
I've tried two Netgear routers (WRG614) and a Linksys (WRT54G) one. My roommate and I can't play Joint Operations: Typhoon Risiing/Escalation together.

One of us will get an interrupted connection to a game server and won't be able to log back into NovaWorld.

Yet, it works just fine once I reset my current Linksys WRT54G. (Returned to Best Buy) A day later with factory default settings and I try to join the game he's in and bam kicked out.

We can't connect simultaneously on the Netgear ones at all and then sometimes we can if we power them down.

I even VPN'd into work to try to connect and I was unable to as well.

I'm using an AirPort Extreme Base Station right now. I'm liking it but $190, ouch. I don't see much of a reason to spend more then $80 on a router but the features on it can't be beat. I don't need to build/find a Linux box to run file or print services.

Once my roommate is back I'll test our games again.
Click to expand...

You're not using the same cd key for the game, are you? It could be anti-piracy protection that's booting you.
 
suneohair said:
Any update?
Click to expand...
Game for hours last night on the Airport Base Station!

I'm trying a Belkin F5D8233-4 as well tonight.

Probably should have just gotten a Belkin in the first place. My first router ever was one and it still works back at home!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back