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Right now i have a Linksys WRT54G set up to handle my routing, but i run into issues trying to play games on occation. I know about port forwarding and DMZ hosting and all that fun stuff, but i was wondering if there were any routers out there that would allow me to manually set NAT specifications (from strict to moderate to open). Right now toggleing my UPnP on and off has this effect but without much reliable success in that i'll set it to on and my NAT will read open for awhile and then switch back to a strict level givin alittle time. (it's this window in which i am able to play without restriction.) It's become tiresome and i was wondering if there are some models out there with firmware support that would allow me more direct access to my NAT settings.

Ctrl wrote:Right now i have a Linksys WRT54G set up to handle my routing, but i run into issues trying to play games on occation. I know about port forwarding and DMZ hosting and all that fun stuff, but i was wondering if there were any routers out there that would allow me to manually set NAT specifications (from strict to moderate to open). Right now toggleing my UPnP on and off has this effect but without much reliable success in that i'll set it to on and my NAT will read open for awhile and then switch back to a strict level givin alittle time. (it's this window in which i am able to play without restriction.) It's become tiresome and i was wondering if there are some models out there with firmware support that would allow me more direct access to my NAT settings.

With Linksys all you need to do is goto "port forwarding" and define a static route through NAT. Chose a fixed IP address for your gaming rig and setup the router to forward the various ports to that IP.
Linksys will do everything you need except load balancing.........ie. give priority to UDP / TCP packets on certain ports.........you need a "gaming router" for that....like some of the Netgear routers

I understand the work around (or rather the intended use of port forwarding.). Problem is that i'm getting unreliable results from the router that may be the result of this function not working properly. Because of this i'm in the market for a new router and am wondering if there is a model that would give me direct access to my NAT settings because, needless to say, port forwarding and i have a bad relationship and are no longer on speaking terms.

Just run the router in bridged mode and forget NAT all together ;)

How would one do such a thing?

Ctrl wrote:How would one do such a thing?

Ok......your Linksys router sends your username & password for you automatically. This means the router has it's own PPPoE client (PPPoE is a protocol used for DSL). The router also uses NAT to keep you LAN separate from the web.
Switching the router into bridged mode disables all of these options. The router now becomes a "dumb device" and just creates a "bridge connection" between the DSL signal and your ethernet/wifi signal.
This will also mean that your IP address will be public, just like dialup.

You'll also need to create a "PPPoE connection" via network connections in XP. To do this, (in network connections) click "create a new connection" then "connect to the internet" then "a broadband connection with a user/pass" - Enter your user/pass and click next then finish.
Then goto 192.168.1.1 (Default IP for Linksys)
Take note of you DSL connection settings (VPI/VCI) on the first page.
Then select "Bridged mode".

Your router will reboot and then you'll be disconnected, don't worry!
Open your browser, you should be asked to connect. click connect and your online with no NAT
You can also connect via "start" then "connect to"

This setup is more awkward than using NAT, esp. if you have more than one PC....it also reduces security. Have you tried disabling the inbuilt firewall when gaming and updated to the latest firmware?

If your modem is like mine, you can have the modem take care of the PPPoe authentication for you, use the router in bridged mode and you shouldn't have problems with multiple computers.

Have you tried third party firmwares for your router? There are a couple different options that give quite a bit of customization options over the factory firmware.