ISP Blocking Ports questions

[Tlorr]

Hello, I tried running MameHub but even with all ports open (and in DMZ mode) I am being firewalled and thus can't host or join a game.

What I think is the problem is my ISP using "Cisco SCE (Service Control Engine)" and keeping all my ports blocked (and throttling my bandwidth).
(Even with protocol obfuscation Bittorent says I'm unconnectable. And with eMule I'm forever a LowID)

My questions are the following :

1-What can I do ? Will I forever be banned from using MameHub or similar software ?

2-Why does MameHub require ports to be open to work? I have never had any problems playing online games.

[zambr123]

Putting the problems your having to one side for a moment..........i'll answer question 2.

Any application working over the Internet uses a port number. Everytime you browse a web page for example, you use port 80 for that.

As port 80 is a known and recognised port, all NAT routers and software firewalls will allow it access if a browser application is using that port. Therefore no configuration is required by you to browse the Internet.

Third party applications, such as torrent clients, p2p sharing and MAMEhub, are not recognised by your operating system, NAT router or software firewall application, therefore may require some configuration to make them work properly.

Remember, firewalls and NAT routers are designed to stop unwanted connections to your computer, and they do this by examining port numbers in use as well as port numbers attempting to be used by unknown third party applications.

The main difference between a games console and a computer is that games consoles all use the same hardware and software all the time, hence, no manual port settings are necessary (as they can all use the same recognised/known settings through the games consoles operating system).

On the first years of the Internet, people would have only one computer and one internet modem at home, there was no router. No port forwarding was required as there was only one computer used for all Internet traffic.

Then came along Internet modems with built-in routers. This mean't users at home could access the Internet from more than one computer. This also gave birth to port forwarding at home, which allows a port number to be assigned to a particular computer on your home network, thus allowing a third party application running on that computer to use it for its Internet traffic.

[spoot]

I know this is a long shot since your ISP appears to be a-holes. Call them and ask if they are indeed blocking 5805 and if so ask to unblock since the internet isn't just port 80. And you're paying for internet access.....

[Tlorr]

Thanks zambr123 for the Wall of Text but you didn't really answer my second question, you explained port forwarding but not why Mamehub doesn't work on closed ports while other games like MMOs do work like that.

Anyway for information I live in France and my ISP is Alice (which was recently bought by Free) and both block ports.

[digitalghost]

Oct 16, 2011 12:08:21 GMT -5 @Tlorr said:

Thanks zambr123 for the Wall of Text but you didn't really answer my second question, you explained port forwarding but not why Mamehub doesn't work on closed ports while other games like MMOs do work like that.

Anyway for information I live in France and my ISP is Alice (which was recently bought by Free) and both block ports.

Alright, here's the deal:

Most games like MMOs work by having a server that everyone connects to. They don't need port forwarding because you connect to the server, and the server talks to you through the connection you made. This is also called a star network. This only works if the server has a lot of bandwidth and a really fast connection.

In the case of MAMEHub, no one has a lot of bandwidth or a really fast connection because we are all serving the games from our house. The only way to get the ping down reliably is to make a fully-connected network, where everyone is both a server and a client at the same time. This way you send data to everyone and it doesn't have to go through anyone else to get there. This only works if everyone can be a server, just like P2P.

There's a special case where if you are playing a 2-player game, only one person has to be a server and the other can just connect. One of the things on my TODO is to let people without forwarded ports join a 2-player game, but the problem is making sure people without forwarded ports don't join 3,4,5,6-player games and block everyone else from joining.