Router Issues - R0 (Port Forwarding Solution?)

[Talisien]

Hello all,

Last night my old Netgear router finally gave up the ghost and I had to buy a new Linksys Router (wired). Everything works fine but FFXI connection looks like this:

S ~300
R ~250

2 seconds later

S ~300
R 0

2 seconds later

S ~300
R ~250

and so on. I can't seem to maintain a stable connection and then after a few minutes it slowly R0s, the % going down and then climbing up slightly, and then finally hitting R0 but not kicking me off for a timeout.

I went into the router setup and set DMZ status to my IP. That worked for about 30 minutes and then resulted in the same behavior. I found some very sketchy website that listed some of the ports associated with FFXI and forwarded 50,000 - 65,535 (UDP only) and that immediately cleared up my R0. I stayed on another 20-30 minutes and didn't experience anymore problems. However I'm still concerned.

I have 2 other computers connected to this router (3 computers total). Are there other ports I can forward that will not impact the other computers on the network negatively? Are there are other important ports for FFXI at all (I saw mention of 23,80, and 50,000-65,535 on the TCP side)? And is DMZ status a really bad idea for this computer (I use the computer as a gaming/E-mail machine only)?

Thanks for any and all help you can provide, even if it's only to contact FFXI support (would that help)?

Relevant specs on the machine:

Windows XP(updated with software patches, etc)
AMD AthlonXP2000+
2 gig RAM
bla bla

Thanks.

-talisien

[Kimiko]

FFXI Ports are as follows: TCP 25,80,110,443,50000-65535 ; UDP 50000-65535

[Talisien]

Thank you very much.

Information (also specific router setups with screenshots) located at:

http://portforward.com

[Talisien]

Great, so now all my friends are convinced that:

A) portforward.com is an elaborate hack site that steals your IP address and hacks your computer.

B) That there is no way in hell a game would require ports 25, 80 or 110 as those are reserved for system specific tasks and would, again, leave your computer wide open to attack.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

[Devek]

Looks like someone bought one of those "Speedboster" linksys routers.

(they don't work for gaming)

[Talisien]

I've been hearing bad things about Linksys routers all day. Is there a router you would recommend?

[altwight]

ive had alinksys router for about 3 years now and all this time ive experienced the same problem. I can play ffxi for a good while but i randomly git R0 as he mentioned, it doesn't kick me it just R0s and i have to spam check on myself to see what's going on. This R0 only last about 5-10 minutes before fading away and my gameplay returns to normal. Happens about 3-4 times a day. Quite annoying although the port forwarding crap did not help in the past and i dont expect it to this time. Anyone have any say so on that?

[Snowknight26]

BEFSR41?
Crappy router. Don't use the latest firmware as it does that often.

[Devek]

The only good linksys routers are the ones with the L in it, like WRT54GL

Though any router you can put openwrt on can be fixed if it doesn't play ffxi very well.

http://www.openwrt.org

[altwight]

im not wireless on my router

[evilbau]

i use buffalo flashed w/wrt, its good. i used to use free after rebate linksys netgear and dlink routers but i've given up on em.

[Devek]

im not wireless on my router

The wireless isn't the issue, its the routing. UDP is a connectionless protocol and the way FFXI uses it is.. weird and confuses lots of routers or fills up their state table and when that happens things go to shit.

The wrt54gl line of linksys routers run Linux which has a far better UDP/NAT implementation than commodity routers (or even high end Ciscos). Putting openwrt on any router is an improvement because you're running Linux on it.

[Tekki]

ive had alinksys router for about 3 years now and all this time ive experienced the same problem. I can play ffxi for a good while but i randomly git R0 as he mentioned, it doesn't kick me it just R0s and i have to spam check on myself to see what's going on. This R0 only last about 5-10 minutes before fading away and my gameplay returns to normal. Happens about 3-4 times a day. Quite annoying although the port forwarding crap did not help in the past and i dont expect it to this time. Anyone have any say so on that?

Same. The only solution that alleviates the problem is not using the most recent firmware. Other then that, you need another router. If I wasn't tight on cash and in the middle of trying to find a place of my own I would simply get a new router.

[altwight]

dunno what firmwareis

[Talisien]

BEFSR41?
Crappy router. Don't use the latest firmware as it does that often.

Sonofa!! It is BEFSR41, and I'm using the latest firmware.

That's it, I'm buying a new Router. Can anyone recommend a router that they know is reliable? I was using Netgear before and experienced no problems, maybe I'll just run that.

[Snowknight26]

Linksys WRT54GL if you want to have the best performance, best reliability. Yes its wireless but that doesn't matter.
I've heard good things about the D-Link DGL-4100, but I've never used it so I can't say how good it is.

[Talisien]

Picked up the D-Link 4100 after reading a very solid review at Tom's Hardware about it, and reading a second anecdotal report about it fixing Linksys' issues with FFXI via Google. (Had cold feet getting another Linksys )

I'll report back and let you guys know how it goes.

Thanks very much for everyone's help =)

[Devek]

Tom's hardware doesn't mean shit.

FFXI is a very very very very very specific case so unless the review site has tested it under ffxi it doesn't mean ANYTHING.

Brands don't mean anything either. Find someone who dual/triple boxes and never gets disconnected, and use the specific model that they use.

[Cjskater]

I just started dual/triple boxing, if that counts any, have not ever lost connection due to the router. *Extremely* cheap Network Everywhere NR041. lol Basically, its junk, it gets really hot...and I think it will explode one day. But it doesn't d/c!

[Haruk]

my dlink is good