Hello, Does anybody knows for what reason each computer playing Quake III must use a different port number, starting at 27660 and incrementing by 1?

Are you talking about the server or the client?

If you run many servers on the same IP address (on the same machine or the same small network that uses some internet connection sharing system) you need a different port. This is because the Quake 3 severs do all their communication on a single port... And you need to have a port to connect to when you join a game. If you had two servers on the same IP address and using the same port, how would you specify which server you wish to connect to, and how would the internet connection sharing device know what server to send the data to. Each game usually has a standard port number that all servers that run this game will use by default (27910 for Quake II, 27015 for Half-Life)... If the admins want to add another server on the same machine or network sharing an IP, they usually create another server on the next port (ie: 27015 for the first half life server and 27016 for the second).

For the clients... All clients that are on the same network sharing an IP address must have a different port... Otherwise it's not possible to differenciate them... The internet connection sharing device wont know which computer to send the data to, and the server wont be able to differenciate the clients (same IP and same port). Usually the client port is randomly chosen by the operating system when the client tries to establish a connection, but you can also bind it to a specific number. If two clients have different IP addresses, there should be no problem if they use the same port number.

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[edited by - Max_Payne on October 29, 2003 10:29:40 AM]

I ment for the clients and it is very clear now.

Thank you.