What ports does FFXIV use, for port forwarding & QoS

Hey, I'm looking to enable Quality of Service on my router, but I need to know the main port (or ports) this game uses.

Also useful to know for port forwarding purposes. Thank you!

Would be nice to have an admin/Gm provide the information.

I just logged in twice to three different servers. The game sent to a different port each time. They were all in the 56000-59999 range. Maybe it just chooses a random port from a certain range every time we log in. I got the ports by doing a Capture with MS Network Monitor 3.4.

I'm new to port forwarding. Would you mind explaining how you'd use it for this game?

go to start > type in: cmd > type ipconfig > locate your gateway address > type it in your browser > if your modem or router has port forwarding options you can figure it out there.

The rest is pretty self explanatory.

Thanks, my question wasn't clear. I was wondering what would be the purpose or benefit of port forwarding with a game?

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Originally Posted by Aethrun

Thanks, my question wasn't clear. I was wondering what would be the purpose or benefit of port forwarding with a game?

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The only advantage would be if you have two people on your connection connecting to the same server with the same port. Prevents the connections from dropping due to address conflicts. Like if you played TF2 or a game where the server only had one port. FF14 doesn't, so Port Forwarding really won't help ya here.

GENERALIZED EXPLANATION:
Imagine your router is an apartment building. In this building, there are different apartments. Now, imagine two apartments order the same item and only put the address of the building (not what apartment number they need to go to). The mailman gets to the building and gets all lost/confused. Port forwarding works like a mailroom in the apartment building, where it may use your last name to decide what apartment each box needs to go to, since the building's folks know who you are, despite the mailman not knowing.

I know for the tech crowd that's a "not quite how it works" thing, but it's good enough to get the point across.

doesn't just apply to multiple people connecting to the same "server" but yea, that's the general idea.

Oh, my most beloved Topic

Lets tie up some shoes...

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Originally Posted by Aethrun

The game sent to a different port each time. They were all in the 56000-59999 range.

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That´s how half the way works... TCP Connections like FF-XIV uses always use a set of two IP´s/Ports - like the Phone Company needs numbers of both Customers to connect.


While the IP´s are rather clear, ports arent.

You always have a source port, which is assigned by your side initially... every OS handles this on his way, but most start at a high numbered port and count incremental for every new TCP-Connection (thus, seem quite random and makes this usesless for applying QoS)

Then you have the destination port - like your Browser knows, that a website is on TCP Port 80, so is the Service Port for FF-XIV static programmed into the client. After the Maintenance i could look this up for you.*

* Windows 7/8 has implemented a mighty ressource monitor - easy to handle and in the network tab you can look up all exciting stuff about your connections - i love this, cause I don´t need 3rd Party Software anymore, or have to use netstat which is harder to read...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Aethrun

I'm new to port forwarding. Would you mind explaining how you'd use it for this game?

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Forget the minute you read about it, port forwarding is only needed for inbound connections, like if you host a Teamspeak service on your PC.

Every stateful firewall (and that´s how 99% of SOHO Routers work) looks up your outgoing connections, tracks them, and allows the coresponding packets inbound automatically.

So Port Forwarding is not an issue - but not self explanatory, if i believe those Internet-Technicians which always call me for help.

"Help, this customer has port forward, when I replace his router, can you do them for me, i havent done in years"...... a sentence I get 2-3 times a day.

So, after some gibberish, now the hot Topic "QoS"

Here it´s dependant on how your Network goes, and what your Router supports** - so there is no simple One-For-All Answer, QoS is always a concept.
** many Router have some kind of micky-mouse QoS so the features are in a wide range...

So you have to find out, what brings your Internet-Link to produce congestion.

Is it your brother, who watches Netflix or get´s some stuff by torrent:
Apply QoS to your host, thus getting your Computer´s stuff done before everyone else -> simple, but not all savior. You could ask him to stop downloading while you play, or - if no social approach - disconnect him while playing ^^

If it´s yourself torrenting while playing, just stop it, or just throtle down your torrent client (which all support) - especially stuffing the Upload significantly decreases performance.

I even had a customer trying to save his 60GB System Drive to his Google Drive which was limited to 5 GB -> so a large file got canceled and reuploaded all the time, ...
this state lasted for 6 Months, producing 400GB of upload/month -> totally blocking his connection and it took several technicians who couldn´t figure that out, until I got this case on the table... so sometimes, it´s even traffic you arent aware of...

That´s just some examples, so for applying QoS properly, you first have to figure not only what you want to speed up but also what kills your performance.

If you are the only Client in your network, and besides of FF-XIV nothing is using bandwidth, forget QoS... it won´t increase performance over physics.

Or in other words - there is no need to travel on the fast lane, when the whole highway is empty

Well, I couldn't really find anythign on the current ARR Lodestone, but I found this info (which seems to clarify what Aethrun said) on the old (now archived) 1.0 Lodestone:

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Originally Posted by FFXIV version 1.0 Lodestone

Port (55296-55551)
Designate the peer-to-peer port to be used during version updates.

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Bare in mind that was for 1.0 so it's likely that info is now obsolete, and also given the fact that just said that was the port range for downloading patches, but still, it does seem to confirm Aethrun's post.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Bare in mind that was for 1.0 so it's likely that info is now obsolete, and also given the fact that just said that was the port range for downloading patches, but still, it does seem to confirm Aethrun's post.

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Also, it states this are the P2P** (or as many know it, torrent) ports which the Launcher uses (or used) to download the patch files...

i would bet, gaming traffic goes on other ports...

** Designate the peer-to-peer port to be used during version updates.

Thanks for your explanations, everybody. It's pretty interesting to see a little bit how this works.

I logged in again today a couple of times to three different servers to see what ports would turn up. Their IP addresses were slightly different (Zalera, Coeurl and Mateus were 199.91.189.24, 199.91.189.26 and 199.91.189.28, respectively). The source/destination ports were 55027 on both Zalera and Coeurl on all four logins and 55022 on Mateus. The ports on my machine changed on every login, though. They ranged from 54388 to 59898. On the last login on Mateus both 56198 and 56199 were being used.

So it looks like SE's ports are static and my client determines which one to use, as wicked-one said. And my ports are assigned randomly by Windows. I wonder if everyone who logs in to the same server uses the same port or if SE tries to balance traffic by using different ports.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wicked-one

So, after some gibberish, now the hot Topic "QoS"

Here it´s dependant on how your Network goes, and what your Router supports** - so there is no simple One-For-All Answer, QoS is always a concept.
** many Router have some kind of micky-mouse QoS so the features are in a wide range...

So you have to find out, what brings your Internet-Link to produce congestion.

Is it your brother, who watches Netflix or get´s some stuff by torrent:
Apply QoS to your host, thus getting your Computer´s stuff done before everyone else -> simple, but not all savior. You could ask him to stop downloading while you play, or - if no social approach - disconnect him while playing ^^

If it´s yourself torrenting while playing, just stop it, or just throtle down your torrent client (which all support) - especially stuffing the Upload significantly decreases performance.

I even had a customer trying to save his 60GB System Drive to his Google Drive which was limited to 5 GB -> so a large file got canceled and reuploaded all the time, ...
this state lasted for 6 Months, producing 400GB of upload/month -> totally blocking his connection and it took several technicians who couldn´t figure that out, until I got this case on the table... so sometimes, it´s even traffic you arent aware of...

That´s just some examples, so for applying QoS properly, you first have to figure not only what you want to speed up but also what kills your performance.

If you are the only Client in your network, and besides of FF-XIV nothing is using bandwidth, forget QoS... it won´t increase performance over physics.

Or in other words - there is no need to travel on the fast lane, when the whole highway is empty

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While I do appreciate the explanations, I think everyone is off topic.
I made the thread to find out what main ports FFXIV uses, not how QoS or port forwarding works. That's somebody else's question, which he can make his own thread for.

For QoS on my router I need to know a singular main port, although I have many different slots to put them in, 55296-55551 covers too many. Doesn't give me the option for port range. I need specific port numbers.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LoveIess

I need specific port numbers.

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Assuming you're running Windows, you can load up a command prompt (cmd) and then run:

netstat -n

It'll show all connections on your computer and you want to look for one with a foreign address (second column) matching the IP of the server you play with (You world, Behemoth, is apparently 199.91.189.40 or something very close to that).

Right now I'm on Sargatanas connected to 199.91.189.31 port 55026, but that port may change.

Try the netstat command yourself and see if you also get 55026 as the port too and if so you can add that to your outbound QoS, although unless you have the most congested Internet connection ever, I really doubt it'll make any different to you.

I'm currently stood in Mor Dhona, surrounded by people running around doing their thing, but hovering over the wireless icon in the top right of FFXIV shows that my total traffic is only about 3kb/s, less than a dial up modem's top speed.

Loveless, didn't mean to hijack your thread. I thought I answered your question in my first comment yesterday so the thread was free to go anywhere.

There isn't one, single port on our computers that an SE server uses every time we log in. The port changes with every gaming session.

There's a free tool from from Microsoft, Network Monitor 3.4, that can be used to find out what that port is for the current login or session. Network Monitor has a panel on the left side that shows in a tree all of the processes that are currently sending or receiving data. Click on ffxiv.exe in the tree to see the ports that the game is currently using.

Next log in, though, the port will change so the QoS will have to be reset.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LoveIess

While I do appreciate the explanations, I think everyone is off topic.
I made the thread to find out what main ports FFXIV uses, not how QoS or port forwarding works. That's somebody else's question, which he can make his own thread for.

For QoS on my router I need to know a singular main port, although I have many different slots to put them in, 55296-55551 covers too many. Doesn't give me the option for port range. I need specific port numbers.

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Ports used are 443 and 54992-55551. those are the ones i have forwarded with custom rules for my firewall.