xeL. How to Port Forward and Configure Your Router [i.e. CSS and CS 1.6]

Hey Sythe, it's xeL. once again. I know a lot of you guys play games that access the internet, and many of you may experience poor or no connection when attempting to play online. This can be due to many things, but one of the primary issues new gamers experience is how to properly configure their router and port forward. (In this guide, the router used is a DLink - 665 wireless router).

Section 1: What is a router?

A router is essentially a device that is used to split and re-route a connection or other information from a single source. In most residential situations, routers are used to split and forward internet connection from a single modem.

Section 2: How do I access my router?

Many new routers come with software that allows you to access the router control panel via an installed program. However, all routers can be accessed via your browser with either 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.0.0. Depending on your settings and brand, this IP may change. Once you type that into your browser's address bar, you should see a screen like this:



Type in your username and password to login.
In most cases, the default username is "Admin" and the default password is either blank or "password."

Section 3: How do I port forward my router?

For this guide, we will be port forwarding Steam and two of it's most renowned games: Counterstrike 1.6 and Counterstrike: Source. Both of these games operate off of the Steam Server system and heavily rely on good latency to achieve decent gameplay. As a result, port forwarding will open up your ports and allow a connection to game servers, which often solves connectivity and latency issues.

We will be port forwarding the following ports in this example:

• 27020-27050 UDP/TCP (Steam Client)
• 27000-27015 UDP/TCP (Steam Servers/HLTV Servers)
• 1200-1200 UDP (Counterstrike 1.6)

We will begin by logging into our router and navigating to the Port Forwarding page. On most router this can be found under Internet Setup, Advanced Settings, or Gaming Settings/Options.



Here's how we will fill in our boxes

Name: Name of our forwarded port(s) - You can type whatever you want here.
Ports: The port range we are forwarding. In this case, I had to add the "-". Sometimes this is done for you.
IP Address: The IP your router assigns you. In my case, it's provided if I select my Computer Name from the list.

If not you can find it by:
Going to Start > Run > CMD



In the CMD window that pops up, type "ipconfig." Your IP is the entry by IP Address.



This is how your port forward page should resemble after you're done. Don't forget to tick the boxes next to each entry and hit save settings.



Your router should reboot and you're done! Congratulations, you have successfully port forwarded your router.

Note: In some cases your router will assign you a different IP. If this is the case, you may need to alter your entries in the port forward page to match your new router assigned IP address.

 

There hasn't been many guides like this in the User Education section, so I thank you for posting. This guide is one of great quality, and I hope to see more like this. This should help people who are trying to play an online game, or start a private server. However, not everyone can have this router and there are various different setups.

8/10.

 

Thank you.
Unfortunately there are too many router variations for me to cover them all, and the pictures are for general reference.

 

Really nice and well written. I even used this

 

Thank you

 

Due to the nature of this guide, I'm taking requests for people who are experiencing difficulties with their router because the pictures don't match or the models are too dissimilar to compare.

Feel free to post a model number/router type and I'll walk you through it!