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seiferalmasy
09-11-2006, 08:09 PM
well, I am using as a test the chat program that comes with delphix

Problems immediately arose with people behind routers

I looked at traffic in my firewall and discovered 2 UDP ports and 2 TCP ports in use, seemingly randomely chose

Now I have no experience with routers but I am told that to make sure, ports must be opened if the computer is hosting. How can they open UDP/TCP ports that seem to be random? (this might sound completely dumb)

More to the point can I tell DXplay which port(s) to use?

1 person couldn't join me or host, 1 person could join me but couldnt host properly.

Anyone got any experience in this?>

WILL
09-11-2006, 11:07 PM
Oh... I've played extensively with DirectPlay way back in the days of yor... well, ok maybe not that far back. ;) But it was quite some time ago.

I was creating a multiplayer game called 'Snakes' (tron clone) where I'd use DirectPlay having one player as a host 'lobby' and the others would connect to it.

One of the first issues I came across was just what you mentioned. You need a visible IP address for others connecting/hosting to see you. If both client and server are under the LAN then it should work fine between them, but if you want to access externally the server (at least) needs to be able to capture and use the WAN IP address.

My recommendation is that if you are 'dead set' on using DirectPlay, you'll have to find a way via networking not program code, to give the server access to an external (visible) IP address. DirectPlay just isn't built to be that sophisticated an API.

Also note that DirectPlay only uses TPC not UDP iirc. So it would be slow if you are sending intense amounts of data back and forth. If not, it should be ok.

seiferalmasy
09-11-2006, 11:40 PM
So then, who is up for making a new improved DXplay :shock:

I will search around hopefully theer is another component somewhere , sadly as a novice writing it from scratch using API's and the like is beyond me:)

WILL
09-11-2006, 11:56 PM
I'm not one to pull the 'just use something else card', but... is DirectPlay even supported by the current versions of DirectX? Will it be in DX10?

seiferalmasy
09-11-2006, 11:58 PM
hmmmm have you or anyone else here successfully made an online game using delphi? Say something simple like pong? If so, how did you go about it?

Before I start I want to be sure I can finish 8)

Clootie
10-11-2006, 12:46 AM
Currently recommended way by MS is to implement networking using just plain sockets.

But DirectPlay is still supported and available on Vista. It's just doesn't make a much cense to use it as now all networking is done using std ethernet. While IIRC DirectPlay has some workarounds for punching NAT firewalls between players (but probably one of them should have real IP anyway, or both have common game server).