LAN via Direct Cable

[Christo]

Still a newbie here so can't post to the Apothecary....

Two computers hooked up via direct cable. One running Win 2000 Pro SP5 and one running Win XP Pro SP1. Both pretty new, fast, plenty of RAM blah blah blah.

MTW both v1.1 - The computers are talking to each other as I transferred the patch from one to the other using the connection.

All Virus / Firewall software disabled. Direct Cable connections don't even give the option of Internet firewall since you're not connecting to the Internet.

Fire up MTW, Multiplayer, LAN and setup a game - but the game does not appear on the other computer no matter which computer is the host for the game.

WHAT AM I DOING WRONG????

Any thoughts would be most appreciated, since right now I'm in http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif , very http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif and more than a little http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif .

Help

[_Martyr_]

Make sure you have all the right networking protocols enabled tcp/ip and ipx are usually needed for gaming. Then again Im probably completely wrong...

[Puzz3D]

The game uses the tcp/ip networking protocol. You have to set that up on both machines so that the ip addresses are in the same subnets. That means make the first 3 parts of the ip address the same, and make the 4th part different. The machine on the internet will already have an ip address, so you could just change the other machine's address to be in the same subnet. You can use 255.255.255.0 as the mask. The gateway addresss isn't needed.
Specifying local ip address in Win2000 (http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/en/server/help/default.asp?url=/WINDOWS2000/en/server/help/specify_a_static_local_ip_address.htm)

[Christo]

Still a little confused......I made sure that the IP addressed were identical - or at least server 223.223.223.1 and client 223.223.223.0.........still not talking to / seeing each other - at least not in the game - so........I dunno. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif

[Puzz3D]

Open a dos window and ping the other machine (i.e. ping 223.223.223.0) If you don't get a response, then tcp/ip is not talking over that direct connect cable. I've always used network interface cards rather than the direct connect cable, so there maybe something about using direct connect that I don't understand. It seems to me there should be an adapter listed in the network control panel for the direct connect cable. I have an entry in my network control panel for my 3com NIC. I went through the add list of network adapters, and I don't see direct connect listed as an option. I'm running Win98, not XP or 2000.