VOGONS


First post, by Kolrad

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Hi, everyone. I've been having trouble getting an IPX connection to work, and I thought I'd ask here. Hopefully this will make enough sense to be useful.

My ultimate goal is to be able to play multiplayer Master of Orion II with my friends. I've got the game running very nicely in DOSbox, but before I do anything in the game, I have to establish an IPX connection with my opponent.

Here's the promised diagram:
networkdiagram.png

The computers in my house are all connected to the same router by a wireless network. No matter what computer you use, when you go to whatismyisp.com, it gives you the same IP address, which I assume must be the router's IP.

I've figured out that one reason an IPX connection won't work over the Internet is that our router is configured to assign each computer dynamic IPs. One moment it may be xxx.xxx.xxx.100. The next it will be xxx.xxx.xxx.104. And so on.

The solution I came up with was to use a physical cable to connect my laptop to the router. I used the Network and Sharing Center settings on my computer to make it so that any time I connect to the router with the cable, it will always have the same IP address. (xxx.xxx.xxx.99)

One last thing: According to these instructions, port 213 needs to be open in order to get an IPX connection through a router. So I changed the settings on my router to tell it to forward port 213 for the IP address xxx.xxx.xxx.99.

My problem is that the connection is still not working. I have been testing by trying to set up an IPX connection between my computer (connected to the router by cable) and my brother's computer (connected by wireless network). It doesn't seem to matter whether I make my computer or my brother's computer the server. It just says "Connection to xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx failed."

I'm actually not entirely clear what IP address I need to be using in the "ipx connect" command anyway. Do I use the IP address of the router I found on whatismyip.com, or do I use the local IP I gave my computer when I use the cable? Neither one seems to work, though.

Is the problem that our computers are both using the same router? It would be nice to be able to play multiplayer with people whether it's in the same building or with someone on the Internet. I was excited to read the thread about someone setting up a dedicated IPX server; I hope he is able to finish it, because that would be cool!

But until then, I'd appreciate any help you could offer on getting an IPX connection to work under the situation in the diagram. If I've left out any crucial information, just ask me.

Thanks!
-- Kolrad

Reply 1 of 4, by DosFreak

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You should worry about getting multiplayer working internally before you try to troubleshoot playing over the internet.

Before doing anything with DOSBox verify that "ping" and file sharing work between the computers you want to use.

It's possible you may need to open the port on the firewall on the Windows computer acting as the server which may be why the client is getting the "Connection failed" error.

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Reply 2 of 4, by Kolrad

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You were right! I had forgotten to make an exception in my computer's security program for that port. I just tried starting a game against my brother, and it worked just fine. The game moved a lot slower on his computer, but I think that's because his processor isn't as good and he left a bunch of other programs running.

Great program! I'll be interested to see if it works over the Internet as well. Thanks!

Reply 3 of 4, by Kolrad

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I have gotten the connection to work both with players on the same local network and over the Internet, and with combinations of the two.

I do have a new question, though. Right now, I'm still using a physical cable to connect my computer (the one running the IPX server) to the router. My computer is set to always use the same local IP address whenever I connect it with a cable.

The thing I'm wondering, though, is why this doesn't work with a wireless connection. I get that the router assigns a different local IP to each wireless connection that's made, so one time my computer might be xxx.xxx.xxx.101, but the next time it might be xxx.xxx.xxx.104. But once a connection is established, it shouldn't change, right?

Shouldn't others be able to connect to my IPX server by connecting to whatever the computer's local IP is at the time? But I've tried this, and it always results in a "Connection failed."

Thanks for the help-- just curious whether it's possible to run the server without the cable.

Reply 4 of 4, by Qbix

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have the ports been forwarded to right internal ip ?
(as the ip is different)

DOSBox doesn't care about your network card. all it knows are ips

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