Peer-to-Peer games and networking

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2006-09-01 08:22pm

To my chagrin, I am pretty clueless when it comes to networking. I've been having very specific issues with peer-to-peer games like Dawn of War, Company of Heroes, etc. For the most part, I can play them all fine and dandy, so logic would suggest it's not as if the required ports aren't open. But when trying to play with a friend of mine, neither of the above games will be able to connect to each other in the same game; i.e., we can both play fine online, so long as we don't try to play directly with each other. We can chat with each other on the chat servers, we don't have problems with client<->server games like Battlefield 2, and so on.

We are on the same college campus, so I don't know if there's even anything that can be done, but at this point I don't even know what the problem is. Does anyone have any clues? Any help is appreciated.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-01 08:28pm

If you join an internet game, your system is making and outgoing connection to the server, and most routers/firewalls don't restrict outgoing connections. However, if you host a game yourself, people are making incoming connections to you, which are restricted by firewall rules, security etc.

Basically, all but the most restrictive networks can join *other* servers, but you need to configure your security if you want other people to be able to join *your* servers.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2006-09-01 08:31pm

People can join my games fine. It's just when my friend and I try to play in a game together, regardless of who hosts, one of us will be unable to connect (the person who joined first or hosted will be fine).

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-01 08:33pm

Isn't that because the person who 'joined first' is running the server? It would be very strange if they COULDN'T connect to themselves!

Are you using an internet matching service, or directly connecting to ips?

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2006-09-01 08:38pm

Yes, but other random nublets can join my game just fine (including Nub himself, in Oklahoma). The only person unable to join it is my friend, who is on the same network even. So I am wondering why this is.

We have tried both direct connection and through GameSpy/whatever. Neither works. We are unable to connect with each other.

Sharpshooter · Post by **Sharpshooter** » 2006-09-01 09:08pm

Have you tried using Hamachi? Back in the beginning of summer, I got into System Shock 2 multiplayer and found a dude who wanted to go through, but we couldn't make the proper connection - he then showed me Hamachi, and once I got it installed and all set up, we were able to get things working pretty well.

Basically, it sets up a proxy IP micro-server of sorts which people connect to as opposed to connecting directly to YOUR IP and whatnot.. You can create specialized rooms and whatnot for different games and such and have people connect to them and it enables you to pop back directly to favorite rooms and the like very easily.

Check this out

Kojiro · Post by **Kojiro** » 2006-09-01 09:29pm

Tobor and I had this problem last night playing DoW. We had two people we were supposed to play against but one of the four couldn't join, no matter who hosted and it was rather obvious that when one person left another would get right in. Then of course they couldn't get back in. Most frustrating and I spent a while trying to sort it out but in the end it simply started working (about 20 mins later and a lot of attempts).

We have encountered the same network thing but now we've 'conflicted' with others I've got no idea why the system does it, let alone why it stops.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2006-09-02 12:56am

Thanks, Sharpshooter. I'll give this Hamachi a whirl.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2006-09-02 02:11pm

Tried Hamachi, same problem: We cannot connect to each other.

Sharp-kun · Post by **Sharp-kun** » 2006-09-02 03:52pm

The problem we've had here is that if two people are behind the same router then they can't connect to the same DoW game.

If one of them hosts then the other can connect to that game using the hosts internal IP, but that person has to be the last to join.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2006-09-02 07:35pm

Help out the clueless - by internal IP, you refer to the machine's as opposed to the router's?

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-02 08:46pm

Isn't Hamachi a VPN? If you've tunnelled into each other you'll avoid all the security, so maybe it isn't set up correctly?

I couldn't find anything on the net about DoW multi - in what way is it 'peer-to-peer'? Do they mean how you find games, or how the network code works? I've played some multi DoW, and it seemed like traditional server-client architecture to me.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2006-09-02 09:04pm

Stark wrote:Isn't Hamachi a VPN? If you've tunnelled into each other you'll avoid all the security, so maybe it isn't set up correctly?

I couldn't find anything on the net about DoW multi - in what way is it 'peer-to-peer'? Do they mean how you find games, or how the network code works? I've played some multi DoW, and it seemed like traditional server-client architecture to me.

Everyone in a specific game is connected to everyone else in that game, rather than being indirectly connected through a mutual server as in most FPSs.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-02 09:15pm

Is there a reason for that nonstandard architecture? I don't think it'd help prevent cheating or improve network speed or robustness... maybe it's so noone has to have a better machine/connection to manage everything?

When you 'create a game', are you just creating a pointer on a matching service that points to your machine, which is ready to accept incoming peer connections? This is very interesting.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2006-09-02 11:01pm

Well, this way if the host is killed or disconnected, the game continues rather than everyone having to read that damned 'Connection to server lost...' message...

Sharp-kun · Post by **Sharp-kun** » 2006-09-03 09:37am

Brother-Captain Gaius wrote:Help out the clueless - by internal IP, you refer to the machine's as opposed to the router's?

Yep.