First post, by ghosthammer
Hey everyone,
So a friend and I have been trying for a long time (last week) to get Fragile Allegiance's multiplayer to work using Dosbox's IPX emulation. We are using the CD version of the game, but every time the multiplayer crashes about 5-15 minutes into the game. It reports a "Random seed error", I presume indicating that the host and client have gone out of sync. Here's what we've already tried:
> 16 mb ram (made the game more unstable, so we're using 16 mb now)
Core: Normal, Auto, and Dynamic. All tried.
Cycles: 13000, 20000, 40000, auto. With all core combinations. Well,
EMS: On/off
We've been trying this both over a home wireless network and over the internet; doesn't seem to make a difference. I don't know if it's worth noting, but when I start two instances of dosbox on my computer and play a network game that way the problem doesn't occur. But that's not too surprising, giving that only the server or the client is doing something at any given time.
So do you guys happen to have any ideas? I'm a little frustrated, but I'd appreciate any help. If I've omitted any important details, let me know.
Thanks again!
-Walt
PS Dosbox 0.72, Core 2 Duo 1.8ghz, 2gb ram, geforce 7400go, vista 64 bit, using soundblaster emulation
PPS Would this game use the FPU? Could it be FPU rounding differences between my machine and my friend's? Is there any way to test this theory with dosbox?
PPPS Dumb question, perhaps. I was looking at the ipxnet code a bit, and I was wondering if the communications protocol allowed assured deliverance or not? Could dropped packets have something to do with this? I'd imagine that the original dos ipx was pretty reliable in terms of packets loss.