How to Port Forward IL-2 Sturmovik Birds of Prey

IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey is 505 Games, 1C Company's Flight game released in 2009.

Flight games are similar to car driving games in that you are usually in the cockpit of a plane or helicopter. They can also be from the view of a chase camera. Some flight games are atmospheric and some are space based.

When you are playing IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey 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 sometimes 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:

• The IP address of your router.
• 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 locate 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.

The fastest way to do this is to use Network Utilities. Network Utilities can forward your ports in just a few clicks, and close them back down when you are done just as easily. You can also do it the manual way.

The usual process for forwarding a port is:

• Login to your router.
• Locate your routers port forwarding section.
• Put the IP address of your computer or gaming console in the proper box in your router.
• Put the TCP and UDP ports for your game in the corresponding boxes in your router.
• Intermittently you have to reboot your router for the changes to take effect.

Don't forget to sign up for NordVPN's promo deal before it's gone.

The necessary ports that need to be forwarded for IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey are as follows:

IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey - Xbox 360

• TCP: 3074
• UDP: 88, 3074

IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey - Playstation 3

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

If you want to follow guides that are custom tailored to your exact router and IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey simply follow one of these links:

• IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey - Xbox 360
• IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey - Playstation 3

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