Since im good at networking and technology i thought id share a few hosting tips:
First of all to be a good host you need to know your bandwidth
go to this website and find the closest location to you to do a bandwidth speed test
www.speakeasy.net/speedtest
when your done you will get results like this at the bottom
Last Result:
Download Speed: 11278 kbps (1409.8 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 1026 kbps (128.3 KB/sec transfer rate)
this happens to be mine and NJPunekrs bandwidth...
now what these two numbers mean
the 11278 kbps number is what your ISP (comcast, cablevision, verizon) will show you when you get a download package, it should be around the number they advertise like 11000/1000 for my service, but this is the download speed for when I want to download a file off the marketplace or anything else, this is the max speed at which ill download. the number next to it... 1408.8KB is just 11278 divided by 8 which is the difference between bits and bytes and thats the number you will see when you download. Service from a company is represented in kbps and download speed is represented in KB/sec and again same thing just the bigger number is divided by 8.
IMPORANTANTANT part
The next number you will see is my upload speed at 1026 kbps.. You will notice its no where near as fast as my download speed which is very usual because ISP's dont want people running servers off there network. Cable modems generally have slow upload speeds compared to there high download speeds, DSL or ADSL modems are usually sold sometimes with the same upload and download speed.
What i was trying to say is if you go to that website listed above
www.speakeasy.net/speedtest
and run and bandwidth test you should get some numbers back at the bottom
The only important one to your hosting experience is your upload and to host 14 players on xbox live,
768kbps is recommended.
The rule of thumb is about 56kbps (yes dialup modem speeds) of UPLOAD bandwidth per each player in your room.
If you do a speed test and you are trying to find out how many people you can host comfortably just take your kbps result number and divide it by 56 and you should get the number of people you can host comfortabally.
COMMON BROADBAND UPLOAD SPEEDS all represented in kbps
128 2-4 people max
256 4-6 people max
384 6-8 people max
512 8-10 people max
640 10-12 people max
768 12-14 people max
1000 14-20 people max
(Warning: attempting to host 20 people on your xbox 360 in vegas can lead to a core meltdown and very serious burns.)
Now that we have that down, the next important step is to find out your NAT settings. NAT settings to the xbox 360 are 3 different grades
Open
Moderate
Strict
If your NAT (network address translation) is set to anything other then Open, then hosting on R6V might be difficult. If it is set to strict just give up.
To find out what your NAT settings are go to the System blade on your xbox 360 console and find the
Network Settings option and then select
Xbox Live Connection
When this is completed running you should see the very last option being NAT and it will say one of the 3 grades listed above. (idk what a grade is)
To fix this problem sometimes you might need to do a firmware upgrade on your router as it will automatically detect your xbox 360 entertainment device and foward ports. To do this identify your model number of the router and go to the companys website and try looking through the options of Support or Downloads and find your router and download the latest compatible firmware...
To update your firmware you need to go into the routers main page which is located usually at
192.168.1.1 for linksys routers
192.168.0.1 for dlink routers
but if you cant find out go into your run menu which is windows key +R since theres no option in the start menu for windows vista and type in "cmd" to get the command prompt. Then type in
ipconfig and look for your default gateway and it should be somewhere along the lines of 192.168.xxx.xxx... that will be your routers default address.
Enter the routers page by typing in usually something like admin for the user and no password or just admin for the password and once your in search for something about firmware upgrade, browse for the firmware file you download from the website and then select upgrade and wa-la boom shakalaka test your xbox live settings NAT settings and god help you if they didnt change.
i think i typed alot
thank you for your time
-W00D
p.s. any questions concerns and complains are welcome