Why doesn't Xbox Live require Port Forwarding?

Networking and Multiplayer Programming

Started by Dylan_BGE July 06, 2004 05:17 PM

2 comments, last by hplus0603 19 years, 9 months ago

122

Author

July 06, 2004 05:17 PM

I'm wondering how Xbox Live game hosting works. I'm unable to host PC games without setting up Port Forwarding. Why can I host Xbox games without any hassle? The goal behind my question is bringing this convenience to PC multiplayer games.

doynax

850

July 06, 2004 05:27 PM

They're probably using an external 'introducer' server and some NAT cracking technology. At least this is how most large p2p systems work (our game ;), dc, battlenet)

Mastaba

761

July 06, 2004 05:54 PM

XBox Live uses essentially a DirectPlay Lobby hosted by Microsoft to connect players.

hplus0603

11,916

July 06, 2004 10:06 PM

Nat punch-through using an introducer. The "introducer" in this case is the Live! matchmaker itself.

Also, X-box seems to only use UDP, emulating TCP on top of it. And it seems to always send traffic on a single port. Take a sniffer to your network when it's running sometime.

enum Bool { True, False, FileNotFound };