How to Port Forward Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is a First-Person, Tactical, Action, and Shooter game published by Valve released in 2012.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has the following styles of play.

• In a first person style game the main viewpoint is from the player looking forward. This can be either a first person shooter or a first person driving game.
• Tactical games are a subgenre of strategy games that focus more on operational warfare, military style tactics, and troop placement. They focus more on logistics and production than on combat, and can at times feature complex battlefield tactics.
• Games that are considered action are all about centering the player in the middle of an evolving situation.
• In a shooter the player must have a very fast reaction time. Usually there is a weapon held out in front of the player that is used to target other players or enemies. They can be either single player or multiplayer. The single player versions usually have a short storyline with minor RPG elements. Call of Duty and Battlefield are some very popular examples.

When you are playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive you might need to forward some ports in your router. Forwarding ports is a useful trick in gaming because it can really help to make your network connection most stable and frequently even faster. Routers were not designed to allow incoming network requests and some games can play tremendously better if an incoming connection is forwarded through the router to the game.

Use a VPN Instead

Have you considered using a VPN instead of forwarding a port? For most users, a VPN is a much simpler and more secure choice than forwarding a port.

We use and recommend NordVPN because not only is it the fastest VPN, it includes a new feature called Meshnet that makes forwarding a port no longer necessary for most applications. With NordVPN Meshnet, you can connect to your devices from anywhere in the world, completely secure, over a highly encrypted VPN tunnel.

When shopping for a VPN, make sure that they meet the following criteria:

• Your VPN provider should have a no-logs policy. This means that they do not keep any logs of any kind.
• Make sure that your VPN provider has lots of exit nodes all around the world.
• Check that your VPN will not affect your speed.
• Verify that your VPN provider uses WireGuard as the underlying protocol.
• Many people prefer a VPN provider that is not based in the United States.

This is the list of requirements that we used when we were shopping around for a VPN provider. There are lots of free, shady VPN providers out there that we looked at and dismissed.

Based in Panama, using diskless servers, and with over 6,100 servers in 61 countries, we can safely say that NordVPN satisfies all of these requirements.

Once you've set up your NordVPN account on multiple computers and enabled Meshnet, you can seamlessly access all of your devices as if they were on the same network. You don't even have to log in to your router. It's very simple.

Every time you click on one of our affiliate links, such as NordVPN, we get a little kickback for introducing you to the service. Think of us as your VPN wingman.

Before you can forward a port you need to know the following things:

• Your router's IP address.
• The IP address of the device that the game will play on: either your computer or your console.
• The TCP and UDP ports to forward.

The easiest way to find your router's IP address is to run our free Router Detector utility. It's a part of the Network Utilities suite of tools and it's completely free to use.

Use our Network Utilities for a quick way to get your ports forwarded. Network utilities makes it easy to enable and disable your port forwards to keep your network security as tight as possible. You can also do it by hand by following these steps.

The usual process for forwarding a port is:

• Open a web browser and navigate to your router's IP address.
• Locate your routers port forwarding section.
• Put the IP address of your computer or gaming console in the appropriate box in your router.
• Put the TCP and UDP ports for your game in the matching boxes in your router.
• Sometimes you have to reboot your router for the changes to take effect.

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The required incoming ports for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive are as follows:

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive - Steam

• TCP: 27015, 27036
• UDP: 27015, 27020, 27031-27036

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive - Xbox 360

• TCP: 3074
• UDP: 88, 3074

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive - Playstation 3

• TCP: 3478-3480, 5223, 8080
• UDP: 3074, 3478-3479, 3658

We have guides that are custom tailored for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive that will show you the required ports that need to be forwarded.

• Counter-Strike: Global Offensive - Steam
• Counter-Strike: Global Offensive - Xbox 360
• Counter-Strike: Global Offensive - Playstation 3

That should do it; your ports are now forwarded. Need something else forwarded? Check out our list of games and programs.