I have been reading all the posts in this section of the forum and have started to get interested in trying and moving my game into multi-player (after some experimentation with the network map I may get it to work.)
I am wondering about will this equipment and various other thing contribute to helping/hurting an attempt?
Where I live there is currently one main wireless router used for internet and file sharing. I do have authoritative access to this network but I would not like to put it into jeopardy just for a game. I am, however, in the possession of a slightly older wireless router that I can use, and a decent XP computer. I assume that it is possible to get the server to work with that but I am concerned if will pose a problem that the 'game' network will have no internet connectivity and if the dim3 server can handle another network so close and similar to the 'game' one.
Comments?
term29 Wrote:I have been reading all the posts in this section of the forum and have started to get interested in trying and moving my game into multi-player (after some experimentation with the network map I may get it to work.)
I am wondering about will this equipment and various other thing contribute to helping/hurting an attempt?
Where I live there is currently one main wireless router used for internet and file sharing. I do have authoritative access to this network but I would not like to put it into jeopardy just for a game. I am, however, in the possession of a slightly older wireless router that I can use, and a decent XP computer. I assume that it is possible to get the server to work with that but I am concerned if will pose a problem that the 'game' network will have no internet connectivity and if the dim3 server can handle another network so close and similar to the 'game' one.
Comments?
Yes, lots of them
Then is the *big* problem with dim3 networking, something I'm working on. To properly setup a external game (i.e., a game that functions outside your network) you need to "punch" a hole in the router for a certain port.
Even if you had two routers, one router would still function as the bridge between the external/internal network, and both routers would have to forward traffic.
There's really no ifs-ands-or-buts here, for somebody to connect to a machine on your network from an external network, there has to be a path. That path is port forwarding.
That said, dim3 usually runs on 11800. This port isn't usually associated with other services so the only thing that will be gathering data from it is dim3, and running dim3 the worse thing you can do is just crash it. dim3, unlike a webserver or other access point, doesn't have any API or functions to do direct access to other resources.
Right now, in 2.3, I'm working pretty exclusively on getting networking up to snuff, so the more test I have the better off it'll be.
[>] Brian
I think when he said 2 routers, he was wondering if he could attach both directly to the internet, making two different access points. I'm not sure if his ISP will let that work. Does it need internet access, or does it just need to get to the network of the internet? If the latter is true, it sounds like any old router might be able to work.
What I was thinking of doing was just trying to use the older router to create a seperate network with no internet connection at all.
Then to see if I could use it to get the game to work on just the computers in range of the non-internet network.
term29 Wrote:What I was thinking of doing was just trying to use the older router to create a seperate network with no internet connection at all.
Then to see if I could use it to get the game to work on just the computers in range of the non-internet network.
That's a good idea, but you really don't need a router for that unless you want this new network to be a sub network of your original network. Most routers are router/switches, though, so if you are using it that way, that'll work.
"Switches" connect multiple machines, "Routers" are points that bridge between networks.
2.3 will -- hopefully when I get it working -- automatic local network server detection.
[>] Brian
No, the worst thing you could do is delete saved games :P.
Brian, you know the engine crashes ALOT when networking :|. And I think theres lag.
ccccc Wrote:No, the worst thing you could do is delete saved games :P.
Brian, you know the engine crashes ALOT when networking :|. And I think theres lag.
Working on it, but I don't have the kind of multiple networks to test this stuff that the big guys have. If it crashes, you guys need to get me crash logs, plus the setup of the machines, etc.
[>] Brian
Okay, I'll just test it out and give you the logs then, but also, Brian, worse than the fact that it crashes:
when it DOES crash, it thinks your still there so you can't rejoin until the server is restarted.
Im in a similar situation, but my spare winxp computer is a pentium 3 would it work?
ccccc Wrote:Okay, I'll just test it out and give you the logs then, but also, Brian, worse than the fact that it crashes:
when it DOES crash, it thinks your still there so you can't rejoin until the server is restarted.
2.3, which I'm working on right now, has more changes (some pretty big ones) for networking. You guys having problems will really need to test every new piece of code I get out until I can work out all the things I need to, but I'm hoping it'll all get cleared up in 2.3.
[>] Brian