Is port forwarding still necessary in 2013?

[futurefields]

Hey guys, I was wondering. Most of the time all my online games work fine, but randomly every few hours or few days (just depends) ill randomly get disconnected. Pretty much happens in all games.

Is this a port forwarding problem? I have comcast cable, and a upnp router and I use an ethernet cable for my gaming pc, since I figure avoiding wireless is good for gaming.

But like just now I got dropped from Left 4 Dead 2 after about an hour of gaming, and it sucked. And sometimes Diablo 3 drops me, and Path of Exile. The only game I think I've never been randomly disconnected is GTA4 online.

 

[jumpncrash]

I can't say if not having port forwarding setup is the cause of your disconnects, but it is still quite relevant today.

 

[BrightCandle]

By any chance do you have a speedtouch router? If you do replace it. Some of their models have quite extreme problems dealing with games and even forwarding the ports doesn't fix it.

 

[Gryz]

Port-forwarding is necessary when a machine somewhere on the Internet wants to initiate contact with a machine on your home network (behind your NAT-router).

Normally, when playing games, it is your home-PC that initiates contact with a game-server. Therefor port-forwarding is not necessary in such a scenario.

As you are playing for an hour, it is unlikely that suddenly a game-server wants to contact your machine, with a new/extra connection. I think it is unlikely your problem is linked to port-forwarding.

 

[John Connor]

UPnP = Universal Plug And Prey. Turn it off!

I have to use port forwarding in order for people to connect to my TS server.

 

[tomt4535]

UPnP just does the port forwarding for you (or at least it's supposed to). Port forwarding is still necessary in some situations. If you are connecting from your PC to someone else's game server, then you don't need to forward the ports. If someone else is connecting to a game server that you are running on one of your computers, then you need to forward the port.

 

[jaqie]

Yes.

uPnP works for the most part to automate it for you, however.