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Small but annoying LAN problem with games

eBauer

eBauer

Senior member
I've seen this happen two times on guest's computers at small LAN parties I host.

On the client, you'd go in the game's built in local server browser, it woudln't see the server. Yet if you manually entered the IP, you'd be able to get in. The client is able to ping the server, browse shared network folders, etc. I believe it has something to do with TCP/IP, since games that used IPX/SPX (for example, NR2003) showed up in the local server browser just fine. I didn't have time to mess around with the client's computer, so I'm wondering if this is a common thing, and any suggestions to fix this. Thanks 🙂
 
We always had those kinds of problems at our LAN parties. Windows networking never worked perfectly for us. We ended up restarting and troubleshooting for hours just so we could play a few games of CS.
 
Feel for ya, know what that's like.

I'm thinking some stupid software is messing things up. Cuz one of the guys formatted his computer, next time we LAN'd, worked like a charm.
 
You need some sort of name resolution service to be able to browse, DNS server for win2k....
 
Yeah I would say it is name resolution. If you don't want to go through the trouble of installing and configuring a DNS or WINS server than try adding the IP and Name to the hosts or lmhosts file.
<Server Name> xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx <description if wanted of the server>
There are other things you can set in a hosts file but that is all you really need for naming problems.
 
Actually, no, you don't need name resolution at all. The games themselves are quite capable of using their built-in browsers to find lan games. It works with every game I have. It may be that whatever switch or hub you are using isn't forwarding packets to the broadcast address, which most games use to send out there adverisements to clients. I have a simple D-Link 8 port hub at home, and it works fine for everything. I would definitely check out your switches/hubs/router/whatever to see if broadcasting has been disabled.
 
Again...You need some form of name resolution. WIndows built in resolution can be problematic. Eventually it will find them all. Alternately you can pull up your Windows Explorer and do a search for the computer, and once found, windows will remember it and it should show up in the game as well.

This is probably because you have mixed windows 2K and windows XP and windows 98 computers. The most recent computer becomes the _MASTER BROWSER_ and the other computers will check with it to see which computers are available on the local network.

This is all assuming your games are using your windows computer name, as opposed to the name the game itself chooses to give.
 
A game host BROADCASTS itself. You do not need any kind of name resolution for any TCP based game I have ever played, you simply must have network hardware capable of relaying broadcast packets appropriately.

What part of that is so difficult to understand?
 
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