These instructions show how to setup your Linksys Router to open certain ports in the firewall when C&C Generals tries to create or connect to an Online game.
NOTE: This configuration is only for those experiencing connection problems setting up a game on-line in C&C Generals behind a Linksys Router/Firewall.
1. Goto the configuration program for your router. To do that open MS Internet Explorer and in the address box type http://192.168.1.1 (This is the default IP address for a Linksys router. If you did change this address at any time you should type in the address that you entered the first time that you configured your router). You’ll be prompted for your login and password. If you have never changed your password use the default one. This can be found it in your Linksys instruction manual.
2. Now you should be at the Main Menu of the Linksys setup program. Click in the tab named Advanced settings. Then click in the tab named Forwarding. At the bottom of that screen will be a button named Port Triggering. Click in this button.
3. Here you have to setup one rule per computer connected to the router that will be used to play C&C Generals.
a) In Application Name enter the name of the first connection. It can be anything; this is just so you can differentiate them. We suggest you to use Generals1, Generals2, etc, or the Computer name for that connection.
b) Trigger Port Range specifies which ports are used to initiate the connection. In our case we only need one per computer; therefore we will enter the same port number in both boxes. It is important not to use a standard port. In the picture below you can see we used ports 27901 to 27904.
c) In Incoming Port Range you have to specify the ports that the router will enable whenever the computer establishes a connection through the Trigger Port. Here you will setup a range of ports. Linksys routers seem to work correctly if you provide a range with 10 ports, however other firewalls might need wider ranges.
Once again, do not use any standard ports or a range that might include a standard port. As you can see in the example below we define a range of 10 ports per connection between 29901 and 29940.
d) Repeat this process for each computer connected to your router that will be used to play C&C Generals online. As you can see in the example bellow we had setup forwarding rules for 4 computers.
e) Once you are done click in the Apply button.
4. Now you have setup each of the computers so each one uses a specific port in your firewall to initiate the connections.
f) Go to the first computer that you are going to use to play C&C Generals and open the My Documents folder. Then go to the folder named Command and Conquer Generals Data and double click in the file named Options.ini
g) Look in the file for the lines:
FirewallBehavior = XX FirewallPortAllocationDelta = X
h) You have to add a new line FirewallPortOverride that specifies the first of the trigger ports that you already defined when setting up your firewall. In our example the first Trigger port was 27901 so the line will be:
FirewallPortOverride = 27901
i) The file should look now something similar to this:
FirewallBehavior = 1 FirewallPortAllocationDelta = 0 FirewallPortOverride = 27901 GameSpyIPAddress = XXX.XXX.XX.XX Gamma = 48 IPAddress = XXX.XXX.XX.XX IdealStaticGameLOD = High LanguageFilter = false MaxParticleCount = 3000 MoveScrollAnchor =
j) Save the file and repeat this process in the other computers, changing the FirewallPortOverride value to the correspondent Triggering Port that you defined while setting up the router (Point 3 of this document).
5. Now start the game in each computer and go to the Options menu, then click in the Refresh NAT option.
6. You are ready to play C&C Generals Online.