Router Issues with Games (TFC on Steam)

[RaXoR]

I'm sure this is a common problem/question.

My friend has a cable connection, complete with router, and when he goes to create an Internet Game on Steam (namely TFC) he shows up in the friends list with the ip 192.168.x.x his inside network ip address. I tried /dns'ing him on IRC to get another ip, got it, and tried connecting to his game using it, but again to no avail.

How should he go about modifying his router/ports to allow outsiders to join his games?

[NegotiatorSmith]

He should simply forward whatever port(s) that the game listens for connections/data on to his internal IP address in the router's settings.

What kind of router (make and model) does your friend have? If you really need me to I can look up exactly how to configure the port forwarding.

[RaXoR]

Make: Netgear
Model: RP614v2

Port forwarding explanation would be much appreciated.

My other friend has a different router I believe so I'll reply with his info when I receive it from him.

[NegotiatorSmith]

It just so happens that www.portforward.com (which I discovered recently, VERY useful for this kind of problem) has specific instructions for that router:

http://www.portforward.com/netgear/rp614.htm

I have no idea what TFC or Steam is, but if you need me to find the ports in question I could do that.

The site has a listing of some of the more popular application/game ports here:

http://www.portforward.com/cports.htm

EDIT:

One way to find out for sure what port(s) the game is listening on, if your friend is using Windows 2000 or XP, is to have him follow these steps:

a. Hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete, click Task Manager and click the Processes tab. Click View > Select Columns at the top and make sure PID (Process Identifier) is selected.
b. Click Start, click Run, type cmd in the box and click OK. At the command prompt, type netstat -ano and hit Enter. Look at the right-most column (the PID) and look for any instances of the game's PID. For TCP connections, it will say LISTENING under the State column (if the game is listening on a UDP port, you'll just see *.* because UDP is connectionless).