Games that uses peer to peer?

[DeagleMaster]

I'm starting university in a few months. I will therefore live in student housing with university provided wifi. They use aduroam and I have been informed that this means that peer to peer networking won't work. What are som games that I won't be able to play because of this?

[WhitetailAni]

8 minutes ago, DeagleMaster said:

I'm starting university in a few months. I will therefore live in student housing with university provided wifi. They use aduroam and I have been informed that this means that peer to peer networking won't work. What are som games that I won't be able to play because of this?

Mario Maker 2
Any Nintendo Online part of a game

Or I could be misinterpreting this

[DeagleMaster]

1 minute ago, ragnarok0273 said:

Mario Maker 2
Any Nintendo Online part of a game

Or I could be misinterpreting this

OK. I have been told that the uni wifi uses NAT so this can cause issues with gaming

[DeagleMaster]

1 minute ago, Beltrix said:

Can you clarify what you mean? Do you mean games that require a p2p network to even run, or games that only have peer to peer multiplayer?

 

Honestly, I don't think there are many/any in the first category. I haven't seen a local lan only multiplayer game in over a decade, either. 
 

I don't mean to insult you, but are you sure you know what peer to peer means in this context? That's like lan party with no internet access required.

I mean games that use peer to peer for their multiplayer (sorry if I didn't clarify). 

[Mark Kaine]

6 minutes ago, DeagleMaster said:

have been told that the uni wifi uses NAT so this can cause issues with gaming

not really, unless it is *strict* nat...  I would politely ask why they use strict nat *if* thats the case... 

1 minute ago, DeagleMaster said:

mean games that use peer to peer for their multiplayer (sorry if I didn't clarify). 

if you have *strict* nat you'll have more issues than just that... otherwise I don't see how they could block p2p. 

 

 

you should really ask your uni to clarify. 

[Lurick]

Some console games use a hybrid approach (or did a few years ago) but beyond that there isn't anything coming to mind within the past several years especially on the PC side that's not client-server only.

[Mark Kaine]

Just now, Beltrix said:

Peer to peer means all players must be connected to the same private network

umm. it doesn't. 

[Lurick]

Just now, Mark Kaine said:

not really, unless it is *strict* nat...  I would politely ask why they use strict nat *if* thats the case... 

if you have *strict* nat you'll have more issues than just that... otherwise I don't see how they could block p2p. 

 

 

you should really ask your uni to clarify. 

You can easily block P2P connections locally on the network but outside the network is harder to control and filter.

[Mark Kaine]

2 minutes ago, Lurick said:

Some console games use a hybrid approach (or did a few years ago) but beyond that there isn't anything coming to mind within the past several years especially on the PC side that's not client-server only.

Pretty much *any* fighting game is p2p (to name *one* example) 

 

1 minute ago, Lurick said:

You can easily block P2P connections locally on the network but outside the network is harder to control and filter.

I don't doubt that it's possible, I just wonder how... u just need a connection to a host... Basically block anything?

[DeagleMaster]

1 minute ago, Mark Kaine said:

not really, unless it is *strict* nat...  I would politely ask why they use strict nat *if* thats the case... 

if you have *strict* nat you'll have more issues than just that... otherwise I don't see how they could block p2p. 

 

 

you should really ask your uni to clarify. 

What would the issues be if they use strict nat?

[Lurick]

2 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Pretty much *any* fighting game is p2p (to name *one* example)

Define fighting game, if you mean mortal kombat type games then I guess I could see that, I don't play those games so that's why they don't come to mind. If you mean like CoD then no.

[Mark Kaine]

Just now, Lurick said:

Define fighting game, if you mean mortal kombat type games then I guess I could see that, I don't play those games so that's why they don't come to mind. If you mean like CoD then no.

yes like Mk, cod isn't a fg, it's a fps 

[Lurick]

Just now, Mark Kaine said:

yes like Mk, cod isn't a fg, it's a fps 

ok, I assumed that but just wanted to be clear we were on the same page

[Biomecanoid]

27 minutes ago, DeagleMaster said:

I'm starting university in a few months. I will therefore live in student housing with university provided wifi. They use aduroam and I have been informed that this means that peer to peer networking won't work. What are som games that I won't be able to play because of this?

Peer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application

 

An example of such applications are torrents. Online games are mostly client server based, I don't remember of any P2P game. You should be fine.

 

The university is trying to block huge/fast downloads that would slow down the network and also be illegal

[Mark Kaine]

Just now, Lurick said:

ok, I assumed that but just wanted to be clear we were on the same page

they do this because typically the reaction / response time is faster since you don't need to go through a "server" 

 

 

1 player acts as the server, the other player connects directly to that 'server'. hence peer to peer. 

 

But! There will be a 'matchmaking server' which on pc would be usually be Steam... but once you're connected to the host or 'server' that matchmaking sever has nothing to do with it anymore as it would only add latency. 

 

 

And I *think* that's exactly where strict nat is an issue, these matchmaking servers can only connect you to other users with strict nat, so it severely limits the player pool, also with 'dedicated' servers like they're used in fps games for example. and some services will just outright not connect you at all with strict nat. 

 

^I'm really not sure about the details, but that's the gist of it.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Biomecanoid]

9 minutes ago, Beltrix said:

Yeah, also napster or whatever you kids are using these days. That's a different kind of peer to peer that they're definitely going to block. Nothing to do with gaming. 

They don't care about gaming. Gaming is client / server based. Torrents can run havoc on the network because they spawn lots of different connections and can achieve high speeds. Even if the torrent doesn't reach high speeds the amount of small connections it makes can bring a network to its knees.

 

 

[Lurick]

8 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

I don't doubt that it's possible, I just wonder how... u just need a connection to a host... Basically block anything?

Yah for WAN traffic it's either you block the higher end port ranges such as the ones UPNP typically uses or start doing deep packet inspection but at that point you're looking for more than game traffic and you have an idea of what you're trying to block (ie torrents).

 

 

For OP:

Regarding the whole strict/moderate/open NAT bull (as a network engineer it took me forever to figure out what people meant by this because it's not a real thing outside of the consumer gaming space) it's basically if UPNP is enabled or not (which it won't be in a school setting and isn't a thing in high end network gear to start with) and if any remote host is allowed to send anything to x port and it ends up at a host on the network which is HIGHLY insecure. Most firewalls will block traffic that the host didn't request, UPNP gets around this somewhat by letting traffic in dynamically on higher port ranges, or that doesn't have an explicit inbound rule. UPNP came along so consumers wouldn't have to mess around with router settings to port forward for hosting game servers on consoles and for PC games. If your "firewall" is permitting any outside traffic destined for a port to hit a host on the inside without checking if it was first initiated by the client and there isn't a port forwarding rule permitting it then you've got bigger problems

 

TL;DR you're almost certainly going to be behind "strict" nat in console speak but unless you're a console gamer you can ignore it pretty much.

This post sums up the nat "types" used by consoles pretty well:

https://serverfault.com/questions/208522/what-is-strict-moderate-and-open-nat

[DeagleMaster]

1 minute ago, Biomecanoid said:

They don't care about gaming. Gaming is client / server based. Torrents can run havoc on the network because they spawn lots of different connection and can achieve high speeds. Even if the torrent doesn't reach high speeds the amount of small connections it makes can bring a network to its knees.

 

 

The uni wifi apparently blocks the use of the teredo protocol and might use a strict NAT type. Does this mean that online gaming wont be possible?

[Lurick]

6 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

And I *think* that's exactly where strict nat is an issue, these matchmaking servers can only connect you to other users with strict nat, so it severely limits the player pool, also with 'dedicated' servers like they're used in fps games for example. and some services will just outright not connect you at all with strict nat. 

 

^I'm really not sure about the details, but that's the gist of it.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yah, that's about what I understand too. It's basically "open" if UPnP is enabled and strict if it's not but based on other weirdness can be "moderate" or something. The link above explained it pretty well

[Biomecanoid]

6 minutes ago, DeagleMaster said:

The uni wifi apparently blocks the use of the teredo protocol and might use a strict NAT type. Does this mean that online gaming wont be possible?

If they are only blocking p2p gaming will be fine

[DeagleMaster]

5 minutes ago, Lurick said:

Yah for WAN traffic it's either you block the higher end port ranges such as the ones UPNP typically uses or start doing deep packet inspection but at that point you're looking for more than game traffic and you have an idea of what you're trying to block (ie torrents).

 

 

For OP:

Regarding the whole strict/moderate/open NAT bull (as a network engineer it took me forever to figure out what people meant by this because it's not a real thing outside of the consumer gaming space) it's basically if UPNP is enabled or not (which it won't be in a school setting and isn't a thing in high end network gear to start with) and if any remote host is allowed to send anything to x port and it ends up at a host on the network which is HIGHLY insecure. Most firewalls will block traffic that the host didn't request, UPNP gets around this somewhat by letting traffic in dynamically on higher port ranges, or that doesn't have an explicit inbound rule. UPNP came along so consumers wouldn't have to mess around with router settings to port forward for hosting game servers on consoles and for PC games. If your "firewall" is permitting any outside traffic destined for a port to hit a host on the inside without checking if it was first initiated by the client and there isn't a port forwarding rule permitting it then you've got bigger problems

 

TL;DR you're almost certainly going to be behind "strict" nat in console speak but unless you're a console gamer you can ignore it pretty much.

This post sums up the nat "types" used by consoles pretty well:

https://serverfault.com/questions/208522/what-is-strict-moderate-and-open-nat

So it will be fine for PC gaming? And if so could I not just create a hotspot with my PC and connect a console trough that?  

[Biomecanoid]

15 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

 

And I *think* that's exactly where strict nat is an issue, these matchmaking servers can only connect you to other users with strict nat, so it severely limits the player pool, also with 'dedicated' servers like they're used in fps games for example. and some services will just outright not connect you at all with strict nat. 

 

^I'm really not sure about the details, but that's the gist of it.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The above is wrong.  You have 1 server + multiple client.  You connect to the server ONLY. The server does not connect you to other players. Player pool, is NOT affected

 

So you need ONLY outgoing traffic to be allowed. Which is most cases is allowed in most networks. What network administrators don't want is hosting services on the network just as torrents do. In p2p you are a client and a server at the same time and that is a big NO for security administrators.

 

In business and university networks mostly incoming traffic is regulated and some sites are filters like porn etc etc.

[Biomecanoid]

8 minutes ago, DeagleMaster said:

So it will be fine for PC gaming? And if so could I not just create a hotspot with my PC and connect a console trough that?  

I am not a console games but I would assume you could connect the console directly to the Lan socket of the room or get a switch or access point

[DeagleMaster]

Just now, Biomecanoid said:

I am not a console games but I would assume you could connect the console directly to the Lan socket of the room or get a switch or access point

Bur PC will be fine?

 

[Biomecanoid]

6 minutes ago, DeagleMaster said:

Bur PC will be fine?

 

why not ? what do you mean ?