Best Router for Online Gaming

chiggy99 · 02-03-2009, 13:50

Hi everyone,

I am currently using a Belkin Router with my Virgin Media Internet connection. Everything works fine, and i can access the internet from anywhere.

I have connected my PS3 by wire to the router. When playing certain games though, like Call Of Duty 4, i am able to play games online, but i can't invite my friends to a game or be invited to their game.

I think i know what the problem is. When looking at the connection settings, i can see that UPNP is enabled and my NAT Type is 3....i think the NAT type is where the problem is....

I was wondering if anyone knows how to get the NAT Type to change, or if someone could recommend a router (both wired and wireless) that will work straight out of the box.

Alternatively, if there is something that i have to do to change the NAT Type then please let me know.

Am i supposed to have UPNP enabled or disabled? i have it enabled at the moment...

Kymmy · 02-03-2009, 14:19

Welcome to the forum.

I've moved the post into the forum which will best get you answers.

southwell · 02-03-2009, 14:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by chiggy99

Hi everyone,

I am currently using a Belkin Router with my Virgin Media Internet connection. Everything works fine, and i can access the internet from anywhere.

I have connected my PS3 by wire to the router. When playing certain games though, like Call Of Duty 4, i am able to play games online, but i can't invite my friends to a game or be invited to their game.

I think i know what the problem is. When looking at the connection settings, i can see that UPNP is enabled and my NAT Type is 3....i think the NAT type is where the problem is....

I was wondering if anyone knows how to get the NAT Type to change, or if someone could recommend a router (both wired and wireless) that will work straight out of the box.

Alternatively, if there is something that i have to do to change the NAT Type then please let me know.

Am i supposed to have UPNP enabled or disabled? i have it enabled at the moment...

You can either put the PS3 into the DMZ on the router (open internet access) or open ports on the router. www.portforward.com has guides.

You will get NAT 2 by doing one of the above.

chiggy99 · 02-03-2009, 14:54

I have put the PS3 into the DMZ.....but still no luck....

i will try the portforward....

thanks for the reply....i will let you know how i get on....

southwell · 02-03-2009, 14:56

DMZ will do exactly what port forwarding will. Ive never had a problem doing either? Have you double checked your PS3 ip and what you put into the router? Restarting the ps3 and router might help too.

CHiLL · 02-03-2009, 21:05

A DMZ is port forwarding...for every port on the device. Whereas port forwarding only forwards specific ports or ranges of ports.

I don't have a PS3, but a 360 instead, but the issues are still basically the same. I have my 360 set as a DMZ and

Try running a traceroute to your router to see if it's responding well. If you don't know how, here's some instructions.

If your computer/laptop is connected via a wire, try going in Start > Run > cmd on Windows XP, or Start > cmd (in the searchbar) on Vista. (If on Vista you may have to run cmd as an administrator)
Then type 'tractert 192.168.1.1' (without the '' and make sure your routers address is right...it may be 192.168.0.1 or something similar)

That will run a traceroute to your router, and display it's address and response time. Good routers nowadays display <1ms as the response time.

Also, if you can, disable UPnP on your router, this can cause NAT problems.

I also have my router scheduled to reboot every day during the night.

Strzelecki · 02-03-2009, 22:39

A trace route won't give you an idea of how good the router is. By default some routers (Speedtouch and Zyxel to name 2) block ICMP packets (used by the Windows tracert utility. Linux Traceroute uses UDP packets) or give them low priority. These are used by the trace route utility and it is the reason why you sometimes see the first hop in traces that people provide being up to 10ms. It doesn't have to mean they have a bad connection, slow router or a bad network.

Zyxel routers are pretty good, they feature an AnyIp feature which allows you to connect any network device without having to reconfigure it's IP address (if it's static). They also have a pretty comprehensive Firewall which is easy to configure with incoming and outgoing ports.

Genreally the PS3 needs these prts open to work correctly:

TCP Ports: 80, 443, 5223, and 10070 - 10080
UDP Ports: 3478, 3479, 3658, 5000, 6000 - 7000 and 10070

uPnP us required for voice communication but some routers don't work very well with this. You can set TCP port 9293 open to make it work (you may like to try that with your Belkin.