Configuring a router for multiple clients

Article ID: 6370-QPHJ-3567

To configure multiple clients to play from behind the same router, you must change one of the clients to use a different clientport number.

• Each machine must have a unique Steam account with different game licenses registered to the account
• Each machine must have a different clientport setting
• Each machine must have a unique Mac address
• The router must be up-to-date
• Your Firewall and router must have the required ports for Steam open (see the Troubleshooting Network Connectivity topic for a list of required ports for Steam)

The default clientport is 27005 and you can only have one game with that port active on the same lan. Specifying a Clientport as a Launch Option

To specify a client port, please perform the following steps for each computer on the LAN

1. Go to Steam's My games menu
2. Right-click on the game you wish to play and select Properties
3. From the General tab, click the Set launch options button
4. Add a different client port number on each machine between 27005 and 27032 in the following format: +clientport 270XX (Do not use 27020)
5. Click OK

If you have already set other launch options, leave a space between the last character of your previous launch option and the + of your clientport setting.

Specifying a clientport in the userconfig.cfg

The benefit of this method is that the clientport will remain set whether you are launching the game from the My games menu or from a shortcut to the game.

1. Navigate to the folder that holds the config.cfg file for your game
   Example: The config.cfg for Counter-strike: Source can be found here:
   ..\Steam\steamapps\<user name>\counter-strike source\cstrike\cfg
2. If you have a userconfig.cfg in that directory, open it. If you do not already have a userconfig.cfg:
   1. Right-click in the folder and select New then Text Document
   2. Name the file userconfig.cfg
   3. Open the file with Notepad
3. Enter clientport 270XX (where XX are the last two digits of the clientport number)
   Acceptable values include 05 - 19 and 21 - 32
4. Save the file and launch the game