Re: Gaming Consoles and IPv4

[Matt Hoppes <mattlists () rivervalleyinternet net>]

Correct - but with a server based model you can look at the lag to the 
worst clients and add lag to the other clients so everyone has a level 
playing field.

On 9/28/20 3:30 PM, Carlos M. Martinez wrote:
> Delay, or “lag” in gamer parlance is everything. Have too much lag and 
> you are dead without realizing you are dead. Lag frustrates gamers 
> enormously and is probably one of the main drivers of NOC calls.
>
> It seems to me that a purely client/server model will inherently have 
> more lag issues than a peer-to-peer game.
>
> Not to mention cost… if you are the game publisher suddenly you’re faced 
> with maintaining a global footprint of servers with all that implies.
>
> /Carlos
>
> On 28 Sep 2020, at 11:21, Tom Beecher wrote:
>
>         Why stray away from how PC games were 20 years ago where there
>         was a dedicated server and clients just spoke to servers?
>
>     Much cheaper to just let all the game clients talk peer to peer than
>     it is to maintain regional dedicated server infrastructure.
>
>     On Mon, Sep 28, 2020 at 8:35 AM Mike Hammett <nanog () ics-il net
>     <mailto:nanog () ics-il net>> wrote:
>
>         Why stray away from how PC games were 20 years ago where there
>         was a dedicated server and clients just spoke to servers?
>
>
>
>         -----
>         Mike Hammett
>         Intelligent Computing Solutions <http://www.ics-il.com/>
>         
> <https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL><https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb><https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions><https://twitter.com/ICSIL>
>         Midwest Internet Exchange <http://www.midwest-ix.com/>
>         
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>         <https://www.facebook.com/thebrotherswisp><https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXSdfxQv7SpoRQYNyLwntZg>
>         ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>         *From: *"Justin Wilson (Lists)" <lists () mtin net
>         <mailto:lists () mtin net>>
>         *To: *"North American Network Operators' Group" <nanog () nanog org
>         <mailto:nanog () nanog org>>
>         *Sent: *Monday, September 28, 2020 7:22:28 AM
>         *Subject: *Re: Gaming Consoles and IPv4
>
>         There are many things going on with gaming that makes natted
>         IPv4 an issue when it comes to consoles and gaming in general.  
>         When you break it down it makes sense.
>
>         -You have voice chat
>         -You are receiving data from servers about other people in the game
>         -You are sending data to servers about yourself
>         -If you are using certain features where you are “the host” then
>         you are serving content from your gaming console.  This is not
>         much different than a customer running a web server.  You can’t
>         have more than one customer running a port 80 web-server behind nat.
>         -Streaming to services like Twitch or YouTube
>
>         All of these take up standard, agreed upon ports. It’s really
>         only prevalent on gaming consoles because they are doing many
>         functions.  Look at it another way.  You have a customer doing
>         the following.
>
>         -Making a VOIP call
>         -Streaming a movie
>         -Running a web server
>         -Running bittorrent on a single port
>         -Having a camera folks need to access from the outside world
>
>         This is why platforms like Xbox developed things like Teredo.
>
>         Justin Wilson
>         j2sw () mtin net <mailto:j2sw () mtin net>
>
>         —
>         https://j2sw.com - All things jsw (AS209109)
>         https://blog.j2sw.com - Podcast and Blog
>
>             On Sep 27, 2020, at 9:33 PM, Daniel Sterling
>             <sterling.daniel () gmail com
>             <mailto:sterling.daniel () gmail com>> wrote:
>
>             Matt Hoppes raises an interesting question,
>
>             At the risk of this being off-topic, in the latest call of
>             duty games I've played, their UDP-NAT-breaking algorithm
>             seems to work rather well and should function fine even
>             behind CGNAT. Ironically turning on upnp makes this *worse*,
>             because when their algorithm probes to see what ports to
>             use, upnp sends all traffic from the "magical xbox port" to
>             one box instead of letting NAT control the ports. This does
>             cause problems when multiple xboxes are behind one NAT doing
>             upnp. If upnp is on and both xboxes are fully powered off
>             and then turned on one at a time, things do work. But when
>             upnp is off everything works w/o having to do that.
>
>             There are many other games and many CPE NAT boxes that may
>             do horrible things, but CGNAT by itself shouldn't cause
>             problems for any recent device / gaming system.
>
>             It is true that I've yet to see any FPS game use ipv6. I
>             assume that's cuz they can't count on users having v6, so
>             they have to support v4, and it wouldn't be worth their
>             while to have their gaming host support dual-stack. just a
>             guess there
>
>             -- Dan
>
>
>
>             On Sun, Sep 27, 2020 at 7:29 PM Mike Hammett
>             <nanog () ics-il net <mailto:nanog () ics-il net>> wrote:
>
>                 Actually, uPNP is the only way to get two devices to
>                 work behind one public IP, at least with XBox 360s. I
>                 haven't kept up in that realm.
>
>
>
>                 -----
>                 Mike Hammett
>                 Intelligent Computing Solutions <http://www.ics-il.com/>
>                 
> <https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL><https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb><https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions><https://twitter.com/ICSIL>
>                 Midwest Internet Exchange <http://www.midwest-ix.com/>
>                 
> <https://www.facebook.com/mdwestix><https://www.linkedin.com/company/midwest-internet-exchange><https://twitter.com/mdwestix>
>                 The Brothers WISP <http://www.thebrotherswisp.com/>
>                 <https://www.facebook.com/thebrotherswisp><https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXSdfxQv7SpoRQYNyLwntZg>
>                 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>                 *From: *"Matt Hoppes" <mattlists () rivervalleyinternet net
>                 <mailto:mattlists () rivervalleyinternet net>>
>                 *To: *"Darin Steffl" <darin.steffl () mnwifi com
>                 <mailto:darin.steffl () mnwifi com>>
>                 *Cc: *"North American Network Operators' Group"
>                 <nanog () nanog org <mailto:nanog () nanog org>>
>                 *Sent: *Sunday, September 27, 2020 1:22:51 PM
>                 *Subject: *Re: Gaming Consoles and IPv4
>
>                 I understand that. But there’s a host of reasons why
>                 that night not work - two devices trying to use UPNP
>                 behind the same PAT device, an apartment complex or
>                 hotel WiFi system, etc.
>
>                     On Sep 27, 2020, at 2:17 PM, Darin Steffl
>                     <darin.steffl () mnwifi com
>                     <mailto:darin.steffl () mnwifi com>> wrote:
>
>                     
>                     This isn't rocket science.
>
>                     Give each customer their own ipv4 IP address and
>                     turn on upnp, then they will have open NAT to play
>                     their game and host.
>
>                     On Sun, Sep 27, 2020, 12:50 PM Matt Hoppes
>                     <mattlists () rivervalleyinternet net
>                     <mailto:mattlists () rivervalleyinternet net>> wrote:
>
>                         I know the solution is always “IPv6”, but I’m
>                         curious if anyone here knows why gaming consoles
>                         are so stupid when it comes to IPv4?
>
>                         We have VoIP and video systems that work fine
>                         through multiple layers of PAT and NAT. Why do
>                         we still have gaming consoles, in 2020, that
>                         can’t find their way through a PAT system with
>                         STUN or other methods?
>
>                         It seems like this should be a simple solution,
>                         why are we still opening ports or having systems
>                         that don’t work?