If you play Call Of Duty 4 on PlayStation 3 (like me), chances are you’ve spent some time waiting to be connected to an online game. Infinity Ward who created the game blame your internet router for not having the correct ports opened. While this post says that you will need to open ports 3074 and 3075 on you router, maybe you don’t even know what a port is, not to mention how to open them?
To be honest I don’t know too much about this stuff either, but this I do know: the term “opening a port” is somewhat misleading. It took me some time to discover that it’s actually the same as “forwarding a port” or “port forwarding” as it is called in the AirPort Admin Utility for Mac. You cannot just open a port, you have to tell the router which computer on your network should receive network traffic directed to that port. That computer is identified by an IP-address, but that means entering that IP address manually, and most home networks are configured handle this automatically (by means of DHCP) and that’s likely to be the most practical solution anyway.
How do we solve this? Enter DHCP Client ID… ok, an introduction should probably end with a far sexier name than “DCHP Client ID”, but here it goes, watch:
These screenshots are in Norwegian, but the layout is the same, and I will attempt to translate.
Step 1: Open AirPort Amin Utility and select “Internet” and “DHCP”
NOTE: This requires that your AriPort is set to share a public IP address. That setting is located in the first tab under “Internet”.
At the bottom you will se something called DHCP reservations, and the list is likely to be empty, unlike mine. Below the list a +-button. Click that and this sheet appears:
Step 2: Enter a name and method for the new reserved IP address.
I chose to name it PS3, bu that’s not important. What is is that you specify DHCP Client ID as the method and click continue.
Step 3: Enter a client ID and the IP address you wish
The Client ID is important because you have to enter the same on your PlayStation. May I suggest “PS3″ for that. Next you enter an IP address. The three first numbers have been entered for you, and you have to select a number between 2 and 256. I chose 94, and if that’s not manually assigned to any other computer on your network it will work for you as well. Click “Done”.
Step 4: opening/forwarding the ports
Select “Advanced” and “Port Forwarding” and you will see something like this. Again, click the +-button below the list and this sheet appears:
Fill out the fields exactly like the screenshot, or if you chose a different IP address to be reserved for your PS3 in step 3, enter that address instead. Click “Continue”.
Here you select a name for the configuration. Again, this has no technical meaning, it’s just a description so I entered “COD4″ as an abbreviation for “Call Of Duty 4″. Pretend like the rest of the sheet isn’t there and click “Done”.
Step 5: Restart the AirPort
Restart your AirPort by clicking the “Apply”/”Update”/”Restart” (don’t know it’s actual name in English) in AirPort Admin Utility.
Step 6: Configure your PlayStation network settings
You can configure the network settings for your PS3 almost like you already have. You need to choose manual setup, but you can still use automatic detection for all settings except you DHCP Client ID, which, obviously, has to be whatever you chose in step 3. Remember my suggestion was “PS3″. After that Bob’s your father’s brother!
Hei!
Any idea how to do this with an Airport Express rather than Extreme?
Tusen takk!
Gareth
As far as I can tell from just looking at the AirPort Admin Utility while connected to an Airport Express, the process should be the same. However, you need to make sure your AirPort is actually distributing IP addresses. If it is set to function in bridge mode, the DHCP and Port Forwarding tabs will not be visible.
what about PS3 in general… do you need any ports for it..
hey, i did follow the exact steps as above; however i still got disconnected from the game.. it always lags and then boom “server timed out” any suggestions… i read that you need to set up a static IP, is that true??? please help thank you
The DHCP Client ID is a sort of middle way between static IP and full dynamic DHCP, so that should be all you need. If you still get disconnected it sounds like your internet connection is either slow or suffering from overload. Note that having torrents running will strangle your connection with thousands of data packets. Playing online games with torrents in progress on another machine on the same connection is asking too much on even a fast broadband line.
Hi.
I’ve got an airport extreme, and tried what you said, however the displays did not look exact to me. I gave it a shot anyway and followed the process through as closely to your example as possible.
Got right to the end of it, until I was asked to ‘CORRECT THE PROBLEM BELOW BEFORE UPDATING THIS WIRELESS DEVICE’.
Its now asking me for the DHCP beginning address, and also for the ending address?
Any ideas?
Thanks.
Hello Lee.
What you’ve encountered here is normal and expected if your AirPort Extreme base station has not been used for passing out IP’s to your network.
The short answer: Choose 192.168. from the pull down menu, enter “1″ in the field next to it. Then enter 10 in start address field (so that it says 192.168.1.10) and 128 in the end address field (resulting in 192.168.1.128).
If you’re not satisfied without further options:
Choose a base series (either 192.168.1.x or 10.0.1.x) and enter in the to- and from numbers. The lowest number you can set in the from box is 1 and the highest in the to box is 255. I recommend you choose something like 10 for the starting point and 128 for the end unless you plan on having more than 118 machines on the same network at the same time.
I am actually not certain if you need to make sure that the addresses you reserve for DCHP client ID has to be within this range but it worked for me with the reserved addresses inside the range so give that a go.
Thanks for the help, but I’m afraid I’m getting the same problem using those exact figures.
It mentions: “The DHCP range you have entered conflicts with the WAN IP address of your Apple wireless device.”
sorry to be so problematic. Have you any idea what I could try next?
If your WAN IP is in the 192.168.1.X range then you most likely have another router passing out IP addresses on your network. Note that the router might be in a combined product such as an ADSL modem/router. Your public IP (the one given to you by your ISP) would not be in that range. If this is the case you should either:
1. Disable DHCP on the other device if you are able.
or
2. set up your AirPort to relay network connections and set the other device to handle the port mapping.
Two devices passing out IP’s to the same subnet causes conflicts and changing that setup might rid you of the need to set up port forwarding in the first place.
Thanks again.
I think I just about understand where you’re coming from.
Its a shame my technical knowledge is limited. All I want to do is play the damn game!
I’ll see if I can give what you’ve mentioned, a go.
Thanks again.
Call of Duty Rocks.
Lovely post man, appreciate it.
Good article, but this doesn’t seem to make use of my router ip, any advice?
PlayStation 3…
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