Ooh. That's a toughie. I'm not sure how easy it would be to "fake" an Ethernet adapter in NTVDM and then have it direct to the Windows hardware. I'm pretty sure it would require said router program to be running on both computers, even if one isn't an NT box, but I'm not sure. Best to wait 'till Vlad and Harekiet say something. 😀

Ummm.. VDMSound Launchpad has something about networking in it, but I don't remember what it does, how it works, what it can be used for, etc.

You'd think that someone would have made a work-around for some of these DOS games that networked already...

I could play dos ipx-spx games with kali in win2k, so should probably work with C&C too. Although there should be win32 versions of the old C&C too in some new C&C pack.

Thanks for the replies! I've tried Launch Pad.. but it becomes an error all the time.. something that it cannot use 2 drivers for the dos session.. something like that.. What is kali, and where can I get it?

The sick one is that I cannot use LAN in Red Alert 95 neither.. And I dunno why.. If I take a guess, these games uses the IPX Protocol.. because I can play every game that uses TCP/IP.. Argh!!

Arn wrote:

What is kali, and where can I get it?

http://www.kali.net/

I ♡ Kali 😀
I even paid for it in '98. Mwah. Now they're giving away free licenses. It's sooo much better than GameSpy. I hope their server doesn't go away permanently.

I thank you for that! 😁 Will check it out soon..

Stiletto wrote:

Ummm.. VDMSound Launchpad has something about networking in it, but I don't remember what it does, how it works, what it can be used for, etc.

You'd think that someone would have made a work-around for some of these DOS games that networked already...

Yep, its under "Enable low-level network support"

I know it works for COMMIT based games (Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior in particular, those being the only two I tested but stuff like Terminal Velocity should work as well) but I'm not sure about anything else since I haven't tested. You'll still need IPX/SPX installed though (something I install out of habit solely for this purpose). Now that I have my build game hangups sorted I plan to use it a bit more.

Alright.. I didn't get it to work at all with Kali.. So I'll try getting Launchpad to work.. Thx 😀

When dealing with IPX networking make absolutely sure that the IPX frame type (buried somewhere in the IPX property sheet, I can't remember where) is both the same on all the machines you're trying to connect and set to something other than "Auto" (although Ethernet 802.2 or 802.3 are probably preferable 😉). The "Auto" setting is known to be dodgy and this'll eliminate any potential problems before they can occur.

Roger that.. the problem is that I cannot even select the LAN option in the multiplayer menu.. it's gone.. both in Red Alert and C&C.. I understand that I have to emulate the ipx lan support in dos to run it.. Now.. I've tried to get Launch Pad to work.. but it only says:

"
C:\Docume~1\Andrél~1\Lokala~1\Temp\~VLP1A66.PIF
C:\Docume~1\Andrél~1\Lokala~1\Temp\~VLP2705.NT. Systemfilen är inte lämplig att köra DOS- och Microsoft Windows-program. Välj stäng för att avsluta programmet.
"

As I belive, there's not many swedes here so I'll translate it to english:

C:\Docume~1\Andrél~1\Lokala~1\Temp\~VLP1A66.PIF
C:\Docume~1\Andrél~1\Lokala~1\Temp\~VLP2705.NT. The system file isn't suitable to run DOS- and Microsoft Windows- programs. Choose Close to terminate the program.

When it comes to that, I have to options, Close or Ignore.. Both do the same 🙁 Anyone know how to fix this? Appreciate any help! Thx!

Put the games in a shorter location, preferably one without filenames longer than 8.3. eg. C:\games\redalert
Then try it.

I have it like that.. I can run normal VDMS but not Launch Pad.. It's like it puts a .pif file in my user temp folder:

c:\documents and settings\andré lundkvist\local something\temp\

I have no clue to fix this.. if I could change the temp dir to something else, like f:\temp that would be great! Is there such a way to do it for VDMSLP? So it puts the "starters" in another dir?

Thanks!

Actually, that sounds like pretty normal behaviour for the LaunchPad (suggestion: split these posts off and move them to VDMSound general). It's creating temporary startup and ini files based on the options selected in the launcher and then passing them on to the VDMS engine when you execute them. It puts them in your local temp directory since thats where the %TEMP% environment variable points to. You might be able to change it by changing this variable but I don't know how easy that'd be for a non-Admin user.

Just some instructions to change said location (%TEMP% and %TMP%):

Start > Control Panel > System > Advanced > Environment Variables...

As a note, you don't need to be the Administrator to do this if you have access to the entire filesystem, since each user has his/her own set of environment variables. (The top box.) Just double-click on %TEMP% and %TMP% to change them to where you want them to be.

Thanks for your replies!! I've discovered that the temporarly startup files created by LP had a path over 64 chars.. (windows limitation).. I created a new User first and it worked almost perfect.. Guess you have to install VDMSound on every new user?

But then I got the the variables for temp (knew I saw it somewhere a time ago..) and now it works flawless!! *whiiiee*

Thank you guys! Couldn't have done it without you! 😁

I haven't tried playing LAN yet.. but it's brighter now as I can select the LAN option 😁 Wellwell..

Thanks again!! 😁

Arn wrote:

Guess you have to install VDMSound on every new user?

Yep, currently you do, or you could import the export/import the registry entries from yours. Hopefully this will be fixed in the next ver....

Glad to hear it worked! 😀
Closing thread: RESOLVED.