(long but _maybe useful!)
i created this thread specifically for goldeneye but it'll help with any online wii game too. i came across something called port forwarding which a lot of gamers use to get a better online connection- it seems to help. you can find advice for how to set it and other internet fixes below, none of it is as complicated as it sounds once you begin.

here's what you do.
1. open your router settings by entering one of several standard series of numbers into your address bar, mine is http://192.168.0.1/ , but check your router for the address it uses... you'll also have to log in. once you're in look for a page that displays all of your router's connected devices, "wii" should be one of them. if not, turn your wii on and sign into your online goldeneye profile and check again. once you've found your wii, an IP address should be listed next to it; copy it.

2. find the settings for "port forwarding"; they may be under firewall or 'advanced' setting menus. you'll know you've found the right page when there are boxes asking you for 'starting port', 'ending port', 'IP address', and 'protocol'.

enter 3074 into both the starting and ending boxes, paste your wii IP into the IP address bar, and choose TCP for protocol. then click 'save', 'apply', or whatever button is there to finish. you've just opened the first major port the wii uses for wi-fi- there should be some confirmation that this port is now forwarded if you look at your router's status.

using the same procedure, forward ports 443, 28910, 29920, and 29900/29901 (enter 29900 in the starting port field, 29901 in the ending field to forward both at once), choosing TCP each time. for the final port, enter 3074 into the starting and ending boxes and paste your wii IP again, but this time choose UDP for protocol and save. nintendo recommends opening all of the UDP ports by entering 1 in the starting box and 65534 in the ending box; this made my internet freeze up, but i haven't heard of anyone else having that problem, so it's probably just my router.

according to nintendo these are the ports your wii typically uses online and by opening them you should see a little boost. while you're at it, you should also check your channel and broadcast strength; you usually want channel 1, 6, or 11, depending on which works best in your environment. broadcast strength should obviously be set as high as you can put it for the best results.

another important setting is the MTU value found in your wii internet settings, which dictates how much data can be sent over your connection at once. you want it high enough to send a lot of information but not so high that packets begin fragmenting; you can follow the guide here to find the correct setting for your internet or use the summary below: http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=700037

open your command prompt and paste the following: ping www.google.com -f -l 1500

you should see some sort of "100% packet loss" message. lower the number by 10 or 20 and try again until you do not see any packet loss or fragmenting messages appear, then raise the value by 1 until it fragments again (for instance, fragmenting stopped for me at 1464. if i raise it to 1465, it fragments again). once you've found your highest value without fragmentation, add 28 to accommodate headers (giving me a total of 1492) and that's your ideal MTU; enter it into the MTU box in your wii internet settings.

it's important to note that unless you set your wii to use a static IP its address could potentially change and render all the port information above useless unless you feel like re-entering all those ports for the new address again. nintendo outlines the static IP process here: http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/systems/wii/en_na/onlineWire...

try it out and let me know how it works!

I tried port forwarding with MW:R and it works... just not very well. And you HAVE to be host to really enjoy the benefits of port forwarding, which doesn't really happen for me.

So would this help me at all if I use a LAN adapter? Do you have to be a host to notice any difference, because i can;t host at home.

i don't think it helps if you use a wired connection, since it's basically removing the firewall your router creates over certain ports. even though i thought my connection ran much better at first i can't say for sure how well it's really working because the snow was screwing the internet up all yesterday night.

Oh, I've tried this before for Win2DS, and this does not work with my router, but if only you could find a fix for Goldeneye's terrible acceleration curve and overall poor controls.

So I tried this to the best of my somewhat limited ability last night. It seemed to reduce the lag just a touch, but I didn't really get an even test yet. My cable modem is currently suspect on another issue which may contribute and I didn't host, which I normally do. So, jury is still out.

Anyone know if this changes the hosting priorities? Since I did this, I have rarely hosted... in fact I don't remember one time that I have.

i don't know, but i'd assume you'd be more likely to host with port forwarding done. i feel like i can say confidently now that it does make a difference even when not hosting. i turned the forwarding off last night to see if it impacted the crazy lag kills people have been getting on me lately and the game was running like **** all night, under every host- lifesavedave, ultima, and at least 3 randoms all hosted and it didn't run well under any of them. i put the forwarding back on and the game is immediately running much smoother. it's one of those improvements where you don't notice the difference until it's gone.

You should not worry about port forwarding without good reason. Usually it only has to be done if for some reason the right ports did not open themselves and you can no longer host in matchmaking multiplayer games. Opening up ports is a security vulnerability, so I would not recommend this as long as you can actually play.

@ravage... hmm. interesting information. I know it's a security vulnerability issue, but with the wii, I'm not all that worried about it. I appreciate the concern though. I'll have to do some more research on opening up the right ports and hosting relationship.

@rom, the forwarding really made a difference for me also. I really don't want to go back for any reason. I still have lag and lag kills, but it's noticeably less pronounced now. Oh well for hosting, it never really slowed me down or bothered me, I guess it worked better for many others though as bandwidth is not an issue for my cable modem.

when it comes to the security issue i don't see it as being a big deal to open just 3 ports specifically for the wii. if you were doing the full dmz thing then maybe i'd be concerned but i still don't know what someone could do just having open access to the wii itself. i'm in no way knowledgeable about this but the way i see it is that if the game is struggling just to transfer the information needed to play then a hacker probably isn't going to get anything serious through.

Warning! This is different with a BT Home Hub. Instead of everything you mentioned, the Home Hub has:

Protocol: TCP/UDP
Port Range:
Translate to:
Trigger Protocol: TCP/UDP
Trigger Port:

BT never make anything easy...

adding some information- changing the MTU value in the wii internet settings made a huge improvement for me, bigger than the forwarding did. just change the box that says '0' under MTU to '1500'. from wikipedia:

_{A larger MTU brings greater efficiency because each packet carries more user data while protocol overheads, such as headers or underlying per-packet delays, remain fixed; the resulting higher efficiency means a slight improvement in bulk protocol throughput. A larger MTU also means processing of fewer packets for the same amount of data. In some systems, per-packet-processing can be a critical performance limitation.}

neat.

i also forwarded these additional ports recommended by nintendo, all TCP:
28910
29900/29901 (enter 29900 in the starting port field, 29901 in the ending field)
29920

nintendo also recommends opening ALL of the ports on the UDP protocol (1- 65534) but whenever i tried that my internet froze up, not just on the wii but my computer as well. most people don't have that problem so it's probably just my router.

I have a homehub and the process to forward ports on it is far more complicated than on a normal router. Grr Bloody Telecom.

I did the MTU thing to 1500 and it really made my controls more sensitive! Even as the host, it ran smoother. I still feel like hip-fire is almost worthless as host, but it was better. I'm going to forward the additional ports above and see how it goes too.

@Rom, did you read anything about having problems sustaining a connection after the port forwarding? It seems like a few weeks after the first forwards I started having my router just kick off all the devices attached (cell phone, 2 computers, wii) at the same time. I though perhaps it was the cable modem, but I've had that replaced and it's still occurring. Current s/w is on the router. If you post up your reading resources on the topic I'll do some research also. It's really weird though b/c there is no consistency in when it happens.

@rom I'm going to try this out on my router. I don't host too often so let's see what happens. Thanks for the info.

I have had a few problems. i mentioned that when i open all the UDP ports my internet flat out seizes up entirely, and not just on the wii. these new ports in the 28000 range do sort of slow my internet intermittently, it's hard to tell.

i found out about the forwarding from some posts on gamefaqs and no users there ever had the problems with the UDP ports i did, so it seems to be a rare problem. my router's an older obsolete model, that could be it. i also read a little on forwarding from nintendo's support page, i wish i could give you a link but that thing's a library unto itself.

as long as i've stuck to just the 3074 and 443 ports open i've had no problems at all. i think those are the only ones goldeneye uses anyway, so try just leaving them up and forget the ones in the 28000-29000 range.

Yea, that's all I have forwarded right now and I will get at least one complete disconnect per night. On top of that I'll get Skype disconnecting from my call and in coordination with that, I'll lose most, and sometimes all, the players in my GE match, but I'll stay in the game. If I'm not hosting, I just lose connection and end up at the lobby. It's really frustrating, but I guess in relation to having the whole game run with more lag, I'll take a few disconnects.

just updating to say my original advice about setting the mtu to 1500 was incorrect, setting it that way could actually add some lag. for those of you who still have yours set to 1500, a guide for how to find the correct value is linked in now.