What ports does FFXIV use, for port forwarding & QoS

[wicked-one]

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.

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.

[Aethrun]

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.

[LoveIess]

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

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.

[worldofneil]

I need specific port numbers.

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.

[Aethrun]

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.

[DMCain]

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.

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