My computer can reach the internet through my WiFi, but I cannot watch or play any video games.
My computer can reach the internet through my WiFi, but I cannot watch or play any video games.
I can look at websites, watch movies and download software. But when trying to play online games, the connection stops working. Even though I can log in sometimes, it still fails. Last night, my friend's phone showed a slow internet speed (90% or more), while mine was fine. After a few minutes, everything worked again and we played some Apex games. Now this is happening to me too. My phone also cannot connect to the game servers on my wifi. I'm pretty sure it's the router, but since I don't own one (I live in an apartment) I want to check with everyone else first before telling them about it. I heard something called NAT could be the problem, but I have no idea what that means.
Port forwarding is mostly used for games that don't have a central server. This happens when the server runs on someone's computer, like with Minecraft. There are also some console games where no central server exists and one device acts as the server. The games you mentioned run off servers in big data centers. The second thing which is very rare would be if there was a firewall blocking the way. In that situation, you need to let those other ports pass through. There isn't really any reason to block game ports with a firewall because games use almost no bandwidth; you probably wouldn't stop Netflix before playing anyway. Still, you won't get anywhere unless you can see what's set up in your router. I would...
UniFiOS. I can't dig deeper than that because I don't own the router and my landlord gets scared if I touch it too much. I also checked for port forwarding on all the games I play, but they all came back blocked on this site. Port Checker - Check Open Ports Online Port Checker is a simple tool to check for open ports and test your port forwarding setup on the router. It helps verify connection errors on your computer. portchecker.co Now I'm wondering if the router blocks everything except 80.
You need to stop listening to people who think they know everything just because they can click buttons in a game. Most games like Apex Legends use central servers and don't actually need any special port forwarding. The tool you are using is doing something strange; it's saying your router is accepting port 80 as a server, but your machines aren't really running on ports 80 as incoming connections from the internet. It is very unlikely that you are even using port 80 at all because almost all web traffic now uses HTTPS which uses port 443. Even if they could set up firewall rules in their router to only let web browsers through, it's not likely. It could be just as easy with your PC instead. Microsoft often thinks you are on a public network and blocks most traffic except for web browsing. If you still think it is the apartment router, try using a VPN; many of them can run on port 443 even if they don't work on the usual default ports.
Port forwarding usually only happens for games that don't have a central server. Think about Minecraft or other servers where the player is just playing from someone's house. Some old console games also work this way, but most modern games run on big data center servers. The second thing you might be thinking of? A firewall blocking ports in between. You'd need to set up that path so everything can go through. There really isn't a good reason to block game ports with a firewall. Games use almost no internet speed, so why would Netflix stop them? Still, if the router doesn't show what you have on it, you'll get nowhere unless you fix the settings first. I'd probably try using a VPN service. Most big ones let you connect on port 443 and that works through any firewall.
It's hard to tell just how much extra latency there will be. Sometimes you use more CPU just to encrypt your data, and then your info has to travel all the way to a VPN server before it even reaches the game company. This depends on where your house is and where the servers are. It isn't always a straight line; in many cases, it's much further than expected.
This can be impossible to guess, but it probably won't take too long as long as you don't do silly mistakes like connecting from New York if the game server is in California. There are some VPN services that say they make things faster, and ExitLag is one of them. It's very unlikely for most people to have their own private network that reaches popular game servers directly. I can't see how this would help much because your traffic still has to go through the first layer before reaching the second.
Sometimes your internet provider has a weak connection to the game company but a strong one to ExitLag's closest server, which is often in Asia when ISPs don't have direct lines undersea cables. I am not recommending ExitLag here just for the explanation part. In your situation, it will work fine. I haven't checked what ports they use yet. If there are things blocking only web traffic but letting other traffic through, then the VPN must act like a website to bypass that block—so you would need port 443. Many free trial services just don't perform well and sometimes make bad stuff happen in your browser, like forced ads. Have you tried getting your own internet connection? A VPN is probably not that expensive around $10 to $15 per month but it's still a messy way to try to solve the problem. Some game companies actually block VPNs entirely; this is rare, though some free-to-play games want to stop hackers from playing them.
I am getting along with my landlord pretty well, so I'm sure we'll figure this out eventually and don't think I need a new internet plan right now. But she knows less about tech than me, which made me nervous. Before she passes the problem on to her friend in the house, I want to be sure what's wrong by checking it myself. While figuring that out, I'm going to use a VPN for good luck if things go south later. Thanks again for the idea of a paid service that can route my traffic through port 443. My best guess is Nord, since their ads on YouTube look pretty convincing.
Nord is really popular and Netflix keeps letting it pass even though they block other VPNs. I think Nord offers a money-back guarantee if the connection fails. I use PIA because it worked better on my old internet provider, so I kept using it. In my case, PIA adds just 5ms to the speed, but since I live close to one of their servers, it feels fast enough for me.