January 18th, 2010 jbeyer
One of the most popular gaming consoles today is the XBOX 360. There’s nothing more enjoyable than getting together with friends and playing a few games. But with XBOX Live, those friends may be hundreds, if not thousands of miles away. It is truly a whole new gaming experience. Unfortunately, this experience can be nice and smooth, or otherwise unbearable with lag time and intermittent connection. With today’s high paced games, milliseconds truly are a measurement of time.
While milliseconds seem so small, you may think that there is no way a few of those can cause any real harm. The truth is, with today’s electronics, a millisecond can mean the difference between a frag in Halo 3, and a missed catch in Madden. When a system measures these fractions of a second, they often report it as their “ping time” or the time in milliseconds it takes for information to be sent from one system to another The faster the pings, the better the experience.
With the advantages of the high speed Internet we have today, the average ping times continue to get smaller and smaller. The issue is that there tends to me more and more devices in the home that are using the Internet. There may be more than one computer or home gaming system, along with attached wireless routers to provide full home coverage. Most Internet connections can range from 512K to 3Mb in most locations and some up to 10Mb. All of these however are reporting your download speed. While download speed is important for browsing the Internet or downloading music, it is your upload speed that your gaming heavily depends on. For most Internet connections, your upload speed is only a fraction of your download speed. It also often costs more money to get more upload than download due to bandwidth supply and equipment costs.
XBOX Live games will vary on how much upload you truly need. One of the most demanding is Halo 3. The more people in the game, the more upload speed you need. This means that if one were to play with 4 total people or 2 on 2, the experience might be quite enjoyable. However, playing something like Big Team Battle, where there is a total of 16 players, this requires quadruple the bandwidth. A good rule of thumb is to have at least 512K upload. Remember that if a computer is downloading music or if you’re sharing your music, this will take up some of that bandwidth as well. Either purchase more bandwidth or make sure these devices are shut off while gaming.
Today’s article is about the typical settings you see in homes today. This is where you have an incoming Internet connection that goes to a router or a wireless router to provide Internet service for all the pc’s and devices in the home. The problem with a router is that it must translate all the connections from all the devices inside the home to one external device going out to the Internet. While typically most routers today do this quite well, when it comes to gaming you can never be sure. So, in order to guarantee that people won’t have issues connecting to your XBOX 360, we need to make sure that the lines of communication are open.
First we will start at the router. The example here will be on a Linksys router (WRT54G or GL). To begin, make sure that you have a working Internet connection, and then proceed to log into the router following the steps below:
Setting up the router:
1. First we want to log in, so bring up Internet Explorer or whatever browser you use. In the address bar, clear it out and put in your routers IP address, which in most cases is 192.168.1.1 and hit enter on your keyboard or click go.
2. It will prompt you to log in, which if the password has not been changed by default on a Linksys router, there is no username and the password is “admin.” If you have changed the credentials, please use your own.
3. Once logged in, click on the applications and gaming tab at the top of the screen. Here you will see a list of ports being forwarded. Click in the next available box under “Application” and type in “xbox.” Under “Start” we want to enter in “3074” and enter “3074” under “End” as well. For protocol, leave it set to “Both.” Under the IP address, the first three sections will be filled out already (192.168.1.), we want to put 250 in the blank box. 250 is often available and not used by DHCP to give addresses to the devices on your network. We want to repeat this process for the other two ports which need to be forwarded; they are TCP port 80 and TCP/UDP port 53. Make sure to check “enable” and click “save settings” at the bottom.
4. Repeat the same steps in step 3 by going to the next available box under “Start” and type in “xbox2.” “Start” and “End” will both be “88.” Protocol is “Both.” The end of “IP address” will be “250.” Check to make sure “Enable” is checked and click “save settings.”
Click for larger graphic
Next we need to setup your XBOX 360. It is recommended for gaming that you try to avoid wireless connections and use a wired one. With wireless, there is always a chance of interference or dropped connection. By using a wired connection, the odds of this happening are slim to none.
Setting up XBOX 360
1. In the dashboard of the XBOX 360, we want to move to the system tab on the far right. Under this tab we want to choose “Network Settings.”
2. Next, choose “Edit Settings.” Here we want to select IP settings by pressing “A.” Make sure to choose “Manual.” From here we need to setup the following:
a. IP address 192.168.1.250
b. Subnet mask 255.255.255.0
c. Gateway 192.168.1.1 (router’s IP address)
3. Next we want to change the DNS servers to “Manual” as well. Depending on your ISP, these numbers will vary. Please contact your Internet Helpdesk or type “find them” if you know them. Nex-Tech’s are 24.225.5.2 and 24.225.0.1.
4. It will run a test to see if it can connect to XBOX Live. The main thing you are looking for is your “NAT Type” listed at the bottom. We hope to see this at “Open.” If not, you may experience some online issues in games such as Halo 3. If this is an older router you are using, you might want to check the firmware version of your router. If you don’t know how to do this, you can contact the Brainy Bunch (888-565-2724), as they can assist you in upgrading it if needed. If that doesn’t work, you may want to invest in a new router that says it’s “XBOX Live compatible.” For more assistance on “NAT type” visit http://www.xbox.com/.
Below shows the possible connections you can have to other players.
By having a NAT type open, you are now ready to experience less lag and ping times, ultimately creating the best user experience. Remember, the better the upload, the better the experience as well. Make sure to stop by your Internet Service Provider and see what package plans will best suite your needs. Often you can get an increase in upload for a fee.
Terms used in this article:
Lag – Lag is a symptom of latency often seen as a delay in information reaching the end system (in this case the XBOX.) Latency is the time taken for a packet of data to be sent from a start system to the end system (XBOX to XBOX live server and vice versa.)
Milliseconds – 1 millisecond is .001 seconds. On average, human reaction time is 180 to 200 milliseconds.
Frag – Frag, in a gaming sense, means to kill someone temporarily in computer games.
Ping – Ping is a computer tool used to find the distance in milliseconds that information travels from one device to another. The lower the ping time, the better. (This is explained in this article as well.)
NAT – Network Address Translation (NAT) is a technology used on home networks to maintain your privacy when connected to the Internet. Unlike the other tests, this last one does not pass or fail. Instead, it reports your network’s level of NAT restrictions in the categories of Open, Moderate, or Strict. These restrictions do not prevent you from connecting to Xbox Live but can limit your ability to locate friends and other players once on the service.
By Jason Zeller
Internet Help Desk Tech
jzeller@nex-tech.com
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