Problem with multiplayer

I have a rather odd problem with the multiplayer. Whenever I try to play with more then one other player, I always disconnect from the match after a few seconds. The weird thing is that I can join games just fine and never have any difficulty connecting to the lobby. 1vs1 matches work fine too, but as soon as I try to play 2vs2, I just lose my connection. This doesn't happen with any other game I have. Does anybody know what causes this and how to solve it?|||Poor router is my first thought.|||DeadMG|||I can only guess at what the problem is, but one possibility is a bandwidth restriction on either your equipment or your ISP.



Supreme Commander has pretty high bandwidth requirements, and they increase geometrically as the number of players increases. However, the lobby itself has very low traffic. Because of this you might be fine in the lobby, but once you get in game the traffic is too much for your setup.



The next patch (not today, but next week I believe) will introduce a button into the lobby called "Test Ping". When any player presses this, the lobby will simulate in game traffic for 5 seconds. If someone does not have enough bandwidth for the game, their ping will shoot up. Its a good idea to do this test before launching so that you can see problems before getting in game.



For now, you could press F2 as soon as you get in game. This will open the scoreboard which has your ping to each other player. See if those number get really high, or drop to 0, right before you disconnect.



Now, this might give you a diagnosis, but its not a solution. Some ISPs intentionally punish UDP traffic. They do this because they don't want you to play games, watch movies etc on their networks. The only solution to that is to get a different ISP and let them know why you left.



Unfortunately there are many other things that could be occurring. If bandwidth is not your problem, then it could be other weirdness on your router. But like you said, you can play other games.|||Wow that's an excellent new feature.|||I have a somewhat similar problem. I can usually join games just fine, but drop from the lobby within 10 seconds.



This happens when I am playing with my friend. I get in the lobby and have about a 90ms ping and then just drop.



We then both started Hamachi.



Now when I join the game I have like a 400 ping but I stay connected and never drop.



Any ideas?|||Archimagus, in your case I would guess you are failing nat traversal with some of the other players.



When you join the lobby without hamachi, do you have a 0 ping to any of the other people in the lobby? You are probably connected to the host, but are still establishing a connection to all the other folks. If you fail to connect to them within 10 seconds, you will get booted.



Hamachi has a big bag of tricks for getting people connected. In the worst case scenario it will route traffic through its own servers, which I think is happening in your case. Thats why your ping is so high.



So, here's a few things you can do. Nat traversal failures _usually_ are because of your router. Your could go to the config on your router and see if it has an option to turn on UPnP.



The weird thing is that one of the reasons we are using Steamworks is because it has the hamachi-like feature of routing traffic through its own servers if it cannot establish a direct connection. I don't know why that doesn't kick in in your case. There is a article somewhere on the Steam website to the effect of "What ports do I need to open to use Steam". I would see if you can open those ports and then you would route traffic through Steam instead of Hamachi. I think that will give you a much better ping.|||totonka|||Oh, so nil-ping makes a return? I was already wondering about glitchy connections.



We NEED to know which port ranges to open up on our routers. Please disclose this information!|||All the ports are listed here. AFAIK, this list is subject to change, so I'm only posting the link:



https://support.steampowered.com/kb_art ... -GLVN-8711|||EDIT: Nevermind, I am stupid and I shouldn't keep a highly optimizing browser open while using netstat. Like, of course viewing a forum page like this opens over 200 new connections >.>





Anyway, thanks totonka! The ports don't REALLY seem to be the ones we need, though. Instead, I am seeing activity on TCP port 2869 a lot.|||Totonka can you tell us what else will be in next weeks patch?|||Quote:|||thanks for the reply totonka.



When the drop happens, it is just my friend and I in the lobby, no one else. I have the 90 or so ping and get the drop.



I have UPnP enabled on my router, and all the steam ports forwarded. (except the 2869 one that Thygrrr suggests.



Thanks again.|||Ok, an update.



I opened port 2869 as Thygrrr suggested, and made a tweak to my routers UPnP setting. (I turned on the "Send Presentation URL" option.)



With these settings, (I am not sure which one did it) I am now able to connect and play with a good ping. (90 - 150) Thanks for all your help everyone.



Now if I could only get my performance problems figured out.|||totonka|||I've seen the join dump to lobby bug/error w/ a friend last Tuesday. For him, as soon as he got into game he changed team or clicked ready or something and it stopped dropping him. We both have RCN broadband and we both have the Dlink Gaming router (the wired one).



On the test button thing.. that's very cool. In SC, my group became aware of the upstream req. You MUST HAVE a solid 128k up to play 8 players, period. Verizon's 128k up 2 years ago was NOT ENOUGH. The wireless broadband in Utah was NOT ENOUGH. Each person who upgraded or had a 256k up or better that was metered at that speed had no issues. Also on a side note, it felt like high ping players increased the upstream req. That is, as packets went around slower, it felt like they got bigger.|||the mutiplayer system on steam is BUGGY you may get games where u are fine and games where your not so just have to put up with i8t :'(