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Will CMBO play on two PCs connected by cable?


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Forgive the lack of tech speak, not sure if this is called TCP or LAN (or both). I did try it once a year or so ago and could not get it to work. IIRC the one PC kept coming back with unable to find multi-player game or something like that. Is anyone aware of whether that has been fixed or whether there is a work-around?

PS: I searched on LAN, TCP, Parallel and cable in 'subject' and 'entire message' and the last post I got up was from May 2001 saying cable was a no go, only way was by ethernet cards etc. Has this been fixed since and are there any cheaper options than creating a full LAN at home. Why doesn't serial/parallel work (it seems to for most other games I have).

[ April 14, 2002, 05:08 AM: Message edited by: Apache ]

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I dont know much about computers either but last year on vacation I played with 2 computers side by side hooked to a cable modem. One computer hosts and then once you are set up you put the cd in the other computer and you play the game by tci-ip. Had a few problems and couldnt play certain scenarios but overall was able to play quite a few.

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There have been no upgrades after may 2001, so if it didn't work then, it wont work now.

As far as I know, IP play is the only way.

Instead of full network, two ether cards and a crossover cable should suffice, but I havent tested it. Should come to about $50 or less. A cheap hub would double the cost, but would also be neat in other ways (full networking).

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As others have pointed out this isn't really an issue that has to be 'fixed'. The 'Direct Connection' functionality in Windows that allows you to hook up two computers via a serial or parallel cable doesn't really support much in the way of network protocols. It is these protocols such as TCP/IP that CM needs to communicate with another game. The Direct Cable functionality is really geared towards sharing the resources (files and printers typically) of each computer with the other. I believe, but I'm not sure, that it is limited to a version of NetBEUI as the protocol (which isn't cross platform compatible in this particular case) which CM can't work with.

You may be familiar with other wargames that offered a 'head-to-head' mode over a parallel or serial cable. This option was most common in games that would run under DOS (though there were games that could do this under Windows 9x). This sort of code is quite different from connecting via TCP/IP. One of the reasons that the serial/parallel connection isn't offered in CM is that such connections don't exist on the Mac (well,... there is the LocalTalk and Printer Serial ports on the Mac, but not all of them have these anymore). Since this option wouldn't be cross-platform compatible it wasn't considered for inclusion (at least that's my guess).

As Jarmo pointed out, you can setup an inexpensive network for head-to-head games and it will play much faster than a serial or parallel port connection ever could.

[ April 14, 2002, 02:28 PM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]

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Originally posted by Apache:

PS: I searched on LAN, TCP, Parallel and cable in 'subject' and 'entire message' and the last post I got up was from May 2001 saying cable was a no go, only way was by ethernet cards etc. Has this been fixed since and are there any cheaper options than creating a full LAN at home. Why doesn't serial/parallel work (it seems to for most other games I have).

There's no break to fix. Most games that you have played I would guess are kind of old if they support serial connects. With the ubiquitousness of NICs in newer computers and those with broadband connections, that kind of technology has fallen by the wayside (even for combo laptop/desktop users... with home networking being as common as it is with that set, there's less need for old style Laplink connections).

There is a way to connect 2 computers with analog modems connected via an RJ11 connection. I can't remember how to pull this of and a cursory glance at the usual websites doesn't give a clue. But if you check carefully you might find the info.

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Thanks for replies. I will probably look at ethernet cards and crossover cable then. I tend to try to avoid doing things like that if I can, not too hot on mixing screwdrivers with PCs that are currently working fine though. It will be a laptop to desktop connection so I suppose the desktop will need one installed in the tower/MB? I presume that for laptops the cards must be in PCMCIA 'format' so they justy plug in?

The other option I suppose is one of those mini servers?

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A server, mini or otherwise is not needed in any case and wouldn't help any.

If the other 'puter is a laptop, you're probably looking at a bit heftier price tag. Those cards usually cost a bit more than plain PCI versions.

Easier (non-screwdriver) solution for the PC is an adapter that plugs into USB slot (assuming the machine has one). Might be a bit more costly and certainly slower than a full 10/100Mbit card, but still more than enough for this and most other uses.

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I'm glad someone else is having problems with this. I have two PCs hooked up via fast ethernet cards and a crossover cable. The computers are configured as a peer to peer TCP/IP LAN i.e. both PC's have their own unique, and static, IP address. This works fine for swapping files, playing Age of Empires and sending my five year old son's plane down in flames in Airfix Dogfighter. However, it refuses to work with CMBO even though both PCs are running version 1.12 quite happily on their own. Every time I try to connect, the server (the one with the CD ROM in it), tries to connect to the Internet instead of looking for the local network. I suspect that the TCP/IP patch was designed to play only over the Internet and not via a LAN as it does not give you the choice, as many games do, of Internet or local connection.

Has anyone out there managed to get CMBO to run over a LAN?

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