First post, by kjliew
I whipped up a version of IPXEMU that enables QEMU to connect to DOSBox IPXNET. It enables playing legacy Windows IPX multiplayer games over Internet. At the moment, I had only tested the following games, but I expected games already supported by IPXEMU should work out-of-the-box. It is technically possible for QEMU to play against DOSBox if the game has compatible DOS and Windows IPX clients but not QEMU DOS to DOSBox, because IPXEMU is a Windows DLL for guest environment. While I have been testing with QEMU, it should also be possible for IPXEMU to work with real machines. However, getting online with Win98 retro-box could be insecure nowadays and most people would avoid the risks. So making QEMU VM connect makes sense, and for ANET/WIPX2 clients, they even work with QEMU slirp user-mode networking backend that (unlike tuntap) requires no root privilege with additional layer of NAT isolation between the host and guest network.
Tested Windows IPX games
- MW2 Netmech/3Dfx (DirectPlay 1.0) - All Win95 Netmech clients (Pentium edition, 3Dfx, ATI, S3, PowerVR etc.) are claimed to be compatible, but perhaps only Pentium edition and 3Dfx are more likely to work on modern system with QEMU.
- MW2 Mercenaries 1.1 D3D Mercsnet (ANET/WIPX2)
- Titanium MW2 Netmech D3D/Glide (ANET/WPIX2)
- Titanium Mercenaries D3D/Glide MercsNet (ANET/WIPX2)
- Heavy Gear 1.2 D3D (ANET/WIPX2)
- Heavy Gear 2 D3D (ANET/WIPX2)
- Heavy Gear 2 Demo (ANET/WIPX2)
- WarCraft 2 BNE (Blizzard)
- Diablo 1 (Blizzard)
- StarCraft 1 (Blizzard)
- Atomic Bomberman (Interplay/Hudson)
- Need for Speed 2/3/4 (EA)
VirtualBox/VMware
WIPXEMU is a pure guest-side only implementation and has no binding to QEMU whatsoever. If one prefers to run the games on VirtualBox/VMware, then WIPXEMU should work the same way as in QEMU. Both VirtualBox and VMware also possess enterprise-grade network backends equivalent to QEMU SLIRP user-mode networking and TUNTAP networking. However I did not test these 2 virtualization products. If there is any issue, please feel free to report.
PCem
The updated WIPXEMU was compiled using MINGW.org GCC without i686 code generation and contains no CMOV instructions. It can also be used with PCem. Results from googling PCem forum posts, PCem network backend is unstable. Someone had tested PCem NE2000 with SLIRP network backend and it crashed. PCem PCAP network backend requires patching and it is not available in official build.
Please understand that issues reported with VirtualBox/VMware/PCem (or even real machines) must be reproducible on QEMU, otherwise they will be regarded as immature networking implementation.
I have been testing with:
- IPXNET from mech2.org
- Local IPXRELAY hosted on Linux VM. It requires patch to be truly compatible with DOSBox IPXNET server behaviors.
- Local DOSBox as IPXNET server
Other implementation of DOSBox dedicated IPX servers would hopefully work, but untested.
A major milestone for "Very Old Games On Virtual Machine" 😉 for Win9x games.
And, rejoice Mechwarriors! All MW2 games series fully restored with QEMU, including multiplayers over the Internet without intermediary game server providers. There is nothing better than preserving the games with open-source and portable emulation software for modern Windows and Linux.
Use the following configure file to connect to mech2.org
Place WIPXEMU.CFG in the game installed location
1,1,0,49002,mech2.org
Disclaimer