6/21/2002 - Linksys router pausing issues.

People have been complaining about spikes of lag when playing online with the Linksys router. It appears that the router closes the UDP port after a period of time, and there's then a brief delay before it's re-opened. The workaround: Forward the Half Life client port to your computer. The default port is 27005. The downside? You can't have a friend over for an internet death-match. Thanks to Andy McFadden for a good piece on "of Games and NAT", and Randall for testing and providing feedback.

Port-Triggering would have been a good solution for this, however, it seems that the Linksys router only supports port-triggering for TCP ports, so that's out... On my current version of the firmware (1.42.6), there's no option to select TCP or UDP for port triggers, so it seems it might be TCP only... Unless someone can provide information that it works for UDP as well....

6/15/2002 - New patch available.

The full 1110 patch is now available. It's a whooping 82 MB. I don't have the smaller upgrade patch yet...

5/13/2002 - Detailed info on hosting server behind a Linksys router

Someone shared this URL with me: www.spladug.net/tutorials/linksys. I had a look at it, and it looks like they've got everything covered, and then some ...

9/22/2001 - Hosting server behind router

If you are planning on hosting a Half-Life server behind a Linksys router, make sure you are running the newest version of the firmware for the router, that you are forwarding port 27015/UDP to the server IP address, and that you have SPI disabled. SPI will disable all port forwarding.

7/15/2001 - Patch woes?

Before applying the patch, make sure to make copies of your config files (.cfg), and if you're using a proxy server and have made changes to the woncomm.lst file, make sure to make a copy of that as well. Once you've complete the update, copy your files back

If you are having any problems patching your version of Half Life, consider re-installing the game from the CD, and then applying the 1107 full patch.

7/14/2001 - Upgrade patch also available.

The update patch (1106 -> 1107) is now available.

7/13/2001 - New patch posted.

Sorry it took so long, but it's difficult getting a hold of. Anyways, the full patch (69MB) is now available for download in the Patches section. The upgrade (1106-1107) will be made available shortly.

3/18/2001 - New patch posted.

The new 1106 patches for Half Life and Opposing Force are now available for download.

1/7/2001 - Gunman Chronicles

Although not Half- Life nor a mod, it uses the Half- Life engine. It comes with its own woncomm.lst file which gives you any necessary port numbers. The big difference is that the Auth port have been changed from 7002 to 15200 and the master port have been changed from 27010 to 27009. Server port is still 27015, clientport is still 27005, and it can be changed by adding "+clientport 270xx" where xx is a number not already in use. Online games at present are Death Match only. How's the game? Well, it was fun. Seemed short, but fun. As for online gaming, I'm rather bored with Death Match type games... [updated 3/14/01]

1/7/2001 - This is what leaches do to you...

Looking over statistics, I came across this pretty picture. It shows how suddenly bandwidth usage skyrocketed when a couple of the download sites decided to link to my server rather than hosting their own files. Wish I could bill them for bandwidth usage, but something tells me they wouldn't pay up...

10/28/00 - FYI

You can NOT download Half-Life (the game) from this site! Nor will you find any cd keys, cracks or anything else that will help you get or play with a stolen copy of Half-Life.

10/26/00 - New patch available here...

Sorry for being a day or two late, but the new 1104 patch is now available for download right here.

10/6/00 - Leeches ...

Someone has been leeching of my server; I'm not going to mention names. I had to move some files around to see if I could stop that ... I was getting over 900 downloads of the 1101 full update which is almost 40MBs. And for the leeches: Host your own files!

8/30/00 - Website stats

Wow, seems like people are downloading patches from here as well. Some stats:

1101 Full update:   278 downloads
10161101:              148 downloads
10051013:                94 downloads

That adds up to about 15GB of data for those three files alone...

The Half-Life proxy page is also the most popular page on my site, with about 1000 hits per months. That's twice the number of hits as the Drinks database...

Also, I haven't played Half-Life, TFC or Opposing Force in months, so I haven't kept up with the news (or the site). Been busy with work, getting the graphics for the new site done, and family life. Can't promise more frequent updates, but I'll try.

8/30/00 - Update on the Linksys page.

People are having problems putting a server behind the Linksys box. I don't have the answer, but at least the page is update to include this information.

07/05/00 - More Half-Life patches

The 1101 patch is now available. The "full" patch will upgrade any client to the newest version.

07/04/00 - Put up the new patches

A little late, but here they are.

04/02/00 - Linksys Router & Half-Life

Added page with information on LinkSys Etherfast Cable/DSL router and Half-Life.

I haven't been keeping up on patches and stuff, for that I am sorry. After playing Half-Life (and TFC & OpFor) for a very long time now, I am getting a little tired of it. I will try to keep on top of things when it comes to networking issues, but there hasn't been a lot going on on that front either. The newest stuff are these hardware firewall/router solutions which are getting very popular with Cable and DSL users. I added info on the SonicWall in late November, and now the LinkSys router. For those with the WebRamp 700s, it's the same as the SonicWall/xx, so you should be able to play. Haven't put up info on how to set up servers through SonicWall yet. I do have one that I can look at, so I'll get back to you on that.

11/22/99 - SyGate questions.

I keep getting questions regarding SyGate. I have never tested SyGate, so I don't know what the deal is. Word is that PLAYING Half-Life behind a SyGate server should work by default. The configuration which I have on the SyGate page is for having a Half-Life server behind a SyGate machine.

11/22/99 - SonicWall & Half-Life

Small piece on the SonicWall added. Check the Proxy Tips page for details.

11/21/99 - Weird bug found

Minor issue, really, but if you're wondering why it takes forever to get to the console when you first start, it could be because Half-life are trying to do a DNS lookup on some weird address... Checking in Gatekeeper (comes with WinGate), I found that Half-Life will make a DNS request for "N5.TMP", which does not resolve. Adding an entry in your hosts file (c:\windows\hosts) for it will take care of it. Add the following line:

N5.TMP    127.0.0.1