Hi everybody !

Today I wanted to start to mess with the network under MS-DOS and more specifically, IPX, which is mostly used for multiplayer games.

Here are the 3 computers I used :

1 - HP Vectra (486 DX33)
SB pro 2
3Com Etherlink III (3c509)
MS-DOS 6.22

2 - Pentium 3 450MHz computer
- Voodoo 2 SLI
- Riva TNT2 m64
- Abit BH6
- 3Com etherlink XL PCI (3c905B)
- Yamaha YMF744
- MS-DOS 7.1/Windows 98

3 - Pentium 3 1GHz
- Radeon 9550
- Yamaha YMF724
- 3Com etherlink XL PCI (3c905B or C, I don't remember which)

on the 1st computer, I first started LSL then 3c5x9.com and finally ipxodi. All seemed to work fine

The CFG file is the base one that came on the floppy disk :

; ************************************************************************* ; This sample NET.CFG file is meant to supply some […]
Show full quote

; *************************************************************************
; This sample NET.CFG file is meant to supply some rudimentary understanding
; of parameters in NET.CFG and how they affect network operations.
; For a full description and explanation of the parameters, see the
; manual for the ODI shell for DOS, which ships with the NetWare package
; or is available from Novell part # 100-000871-001.
;
; Please pay attention to column spacing for the lines. The section header
; line MUST start in column 0 with subsequent lines in that section being
; indented. Comments are designated by semi-colons (;). The NET.CFG is not
; caps-sensitive.
;
; *************************************************************************
;

LINK DRIVER 3C5X9
;
; The following two parameters are required when using two or more EtherLink
; III adapters in a single machine. This parameter specifies which specific
; EtherLink III adapter the driver is to attach itself to.
; PORT NNN, where NNN is the hex base address of the 3C509 ISA adapter
; SLOT NN, where NN is the slot number containing the 3C529, 3C579, or
; 3C509 configured as an EISA adatper.
;
; PORT 200
; SLOT 3
;
; The next few lines specify the frame type. 3C5X9.COM is a 4.0 DOS ODI
; driver. The default frame type is 802.2. To connect to a 3.11 server
; the frame type needs to be changed to 802.3. The following two lines
; perform that change.
;
FRAME ETHERNET_802.3
PROTOCOL IPX 0 ETHERNET_802.3 (binds IPX protocol to frame)
;
;
; This is the driver default
;
; FRAME ETHERNET_802.2
; PROTOCOL IPX E0 ETHERNET_802.2
;
;
;
; %VER NET.CFG - sample Netware DOS ODI configuration file V4.1a

on the 2nd one, I was under pure dos (so dos 7.1) and I started LSL, 3c90x.com. This did display an error message which told me to write "ENABLE_SLOT" or something. I added a "SLOT 9055" in the net.cfg file which fixed that problem. Then ipxodi sarted up fine.
Here's the net.cfg I'm using for that computer.

; ************************************************************************* ; This sample NET.CFG file is meant to supply some […]
Show full quote

; *************************************************************************
; This sample NET.CFG file is meant to supply some rudimentary understanding
; of parameters in NET.CFG and how they affect network operations.
; For a full description and explanation of the parameters, see the
; manual for the ODI shell for DOS, which ships with the NetWare package
; or is available from Novell part # 100-000871-001.
;
; Please pay attention to column spacing for the lines. The section header
; line MUST start in column 0 with subsequent lines in that section being
; indented. Comments are designated by semi-colons (;). The NET.CFG is not
; caps-sensitive.
;
; *************************************************************************
;

LINK DRIVER 3C90X
SLOT 9055
;
; When using two or more adapters in a single machine, it is necessary to
; specifiy which adapter should be used. The following two parameters are
; used for this purpose:
;
; SLOT NN, where NN is the specific PCI BIOS identification number of the
; 3C90X PCI adapter.
;
; BUS NN, Where NN is the Bus number.
;
; The next few lines specify the frame type. 3C90X.COM is a 4.10 DOS ODI
; driver. The default frame type is 802.2. To connect to a 3.11 server
; the frame type needs to be changed to 802.3. The following two lines
; perform that change.
;
FRAME ETHERNET_802.3
PROTOCOL IPX 0 ETHERNET_802.3 (binds IPX protocol to frame)
;
;
; This is the driver default
;
; FRAME ETHERNET_802.2
; PROTOCOL IPX E0 ETHERNET_802.2
;
;
;
;(%VER NET.CFG - sample Netware DOS ODI configuration file V1.0)

Here's where the problems are starting to appear.

I started doom on both computers that I freshly copied from my raspberry pi so there is no version difference, no configuration difference, etc ... using ipx. Both computers were waiting for the 2nd player but they couldn't see each other. However each time a computer did a "beep", the leds on my switch blinked so they were sending packets through the network.

Then I rebooted the 2nd computer under windows 98SE, installed the IPX stack for windows and retried to connect the 1st and the 2nd computer. Again, none of them saw the other computer.

I came back to DOS on the 2nd computer and I started the 3rd one which runs only windows 98 (I didn't configure it to have an MS-DOS mode) and has the IPX network stack. The 1st computer was turned off. I started doom on both computers and there they both saw each other ! ... but the 2nd one crashed completely (diplaying stuff about a stack overflow and registers) while the other one was sending game data.

Then I stopped the 2nd computer and I powered the 1st one again. I started doom on both machines and here again, none of them saw the other computer.

What's wrong here ?

I didn't test doom between two computers running Windows 98SE, but I'm pretty confident it will work (I remember doing this some time ago and that it worked flawlessly)

Edit :

Okay, now on the 1st computer and on the 2nd, I commented the "Frame ethernet 802.3" and "protocol ipx ..." lines on both machines and I uncommented other ones underneath. This time, each computer saw one another, but the 2nd crashed again with a "transfert stack overflow" though this time it came back to the command prompt ... but it's still stuck, I can't type anything.

So I made some progress, but it still doesn't work 🙁

Edit 2 : I came back to win 98 on the 2nd computer and doom works perfectly between the 1st computer and the 2nd ! So there is no hardware issue, this is just some config problem ... Somewhere. The 1st computer is "fixed" now, that's great ^^. Now I need to find out why the 2nd one is crashing ...

Edit 3 :
I saw a troubleshooting help file on the internet for doom that has an interresting note :

An incorrectly installed packet driver often crashes when it *receives* a packet, rather than when it transmits one. Your packet driver might look like it's installed ok, and you might be sitting there "Looking for a node......" for a while. When another node replies to this (incorrectly installed) packet driver, it causes it to crash. Be careful and mindful of what traffic there is or could be on the network at all times! This can be put to your advantage, though. If you have a node that is *guaranteed* to be working fine and one that locks up when you install IPXPD, you can debug it thus: Set the good node "Looking for a node.....", and then install the packet driver on the suspect node. If the suspect node then crashes/hangs at the same time that that good node prints another ".", then the packet driver you just installed wasn't installed correctly. Reboot the faulty node and try different settings on the packet driver and/or card until the node no longer crashes in this manner.

So the packet driver itself might have a problem. Maybe I've taken the wrong version of "3c90x.com" ? Anyways, I'll see tomorrow

Edit : nope ... I don't have any clue on what to do now 🙁