LAN Party Screw-up

[Apotherix]

Okay, we have three computers, an eight-port switch, and we want to have a LAN party. So my friends bring up their machines, and we network them, and I can see them fine and share folders with them okay, but when I get into a game I can't see the games they created, and they can't see mine. We all have Windows XP Pro, and I installed every protocol, client, and service there is, and it still won't work!

 

[spiridion]

do you have simple file and sharing checked or did you create accounts for them on your machine? are they using pro or home?

 

[Apotherix]

Originally posted by: spiridion
do you have simple file and sharing checked or did you create accounts for them on your machine? are they using pro or home?

We all have Windows XP Pro...

And yes, I do have file sharing enabled. I can go into their computers, and I can see their shared documents. I made sure to have all of the game folders shared, but I just can't connect. I think it might have something to do with the IPX protocol.

Sorry if this is a dumb thread, but I haven't done this all that much, so...

 

[spiridion]

Not a dumb thread at all. Sorry about the Winxp pro. I read it but didn't see all of them. You won't need IPX it's normally used for Novell. What games are you trying to connect up? If you can browse each other's pc's then I would say you have the OS setup correctly. You might want to search the net for problems with the games and XP.

 

[Apotherix]

We were trying to play Battlefield: 1942, and Counter-strike, but it won't recognize the games in any game that we have tried to play.

 

[Confused]

Did you specify for them to be a LAN game as opposed to a net game?


Confused

 

[Audiofight]

We used to have similar problems with UT and Half-life multiplayer games.

We could see the computers on the LAN fine, but couldn't see the games when they were running. Try to manually type in the IP address of the computer hosting the game. That was how we got around the problem. It also worked on campus when we couldn't just browse around b/c of the routers, but IP searching worked wonderfully.

 

[eklass]

if you can successfully ping the IP's there's no reason you can't type them in manually and play, despite the fact that it should just work

 

[sep]

What games?

I don't think IPX/SPX is installed as default.

 

[Apotherix]

THe IPX protocol is installed. Do I need to type in the IP address of the host server for the game in to the "DNS Server Preffered"... Right now I fixed it off of something I found on the internet, and I typed all the IP addresses in in this form: 192.168.1.253, 192.168.2.253, etc.

Then I have the subnet masks set to 255.255.255.0. Should I set the Gateways to the same as the IP addresses on all the unique computers, or shoul I set it to the host computer?