Problem sharing a connection between 2 computers.. need help.

Shreeek

Member
Oct 9, 1999
106
0
0
I've been having a lot of trouble setting up 2 systems I have to share one connection over the internet.

Here is my current setup:

- 1 DSL modem
- 2 PCs running on Win98
- 1 8 port switch with uplink
- 1 NIC in each computer

My ISP only lets me have one static non-routable IP address (anyone can tell me what the difference between a routable and non routable IP address is?), so I use All Aboard to share my internet connection between my 2 systems.

The uplink on my switch is connected to the modem, and the two computers are connected to ports in the switch.

I can check email, browse the net with seemingly no problems whatsoever from both systems. Once I try to play games online however, all goes to hell. Everything works well on the main system, but the secondary system encounters huge amounts of packet loss. This happens even when I'm not playing on the main computer.

Anyone have any clue as to what I am doing wrong. Is it the software? Any advice for a good internet sharing program? Would setting up a proxy server help?

I've also read people setting up their networks by putting two NICs into the base computer. I didn't think I needed to that because I had a switch with an uplink, but can that cause problems too?

Getting an extra IP would be the obvious choice for fixing this problem, but my ISP uses Verizon lines and as everyone knows, they are one of the few companies that does not allow multiple IPs to be given out at seemingly any cost.

Another option would be to buy a router. Does a router really make a huge difference when compared to a software solution? I picked All Aboard because it was recommended by Tucows... so maybe getting some better software will eliminate the high pings?

Me and my roomate got a fast DSL connection mainly so that we could get good speeds when playing online together... but right now playing Counterstrike, Starcraft etc is totally out of the question... which really sucks.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. You can post here or email me, I'll be checking here often as I really want to get rid of the problems asap.
 

Shreeek

Member
Oct 9, 1999
106
0
0
Both machines work great for everything except online games. Actually after further testing, every game works except Starcraft and games that use a similar peer to peer gaming mechanism. Games that require you to connect to a specific server work fine.

Machine 1 (the one with the ADSL connection) has no problems whatsoever.

Machine 2 (the client) is extremely laggy when playing Starcraft. I'm not sure exactly how Battle.net works but I know it does not host games... it just acts as a chat server to get people together. Once a group starts a game then I think someone is assigned as the server... or maybe everyone broadcasts data to everyone else? I've been testing it with friends for countless hrs now and it has us all baffled. One on One games seem to work fine so I'm assuming the client has problems broadcasting data to multiple computers or maybe acting as a server?

I am using WinProxy now and it seems to work a bit better than All Aboard. Still... nothing I have read really solves this problem.

Stupid Verizon and its 1 IP limit! :(