Ok need a hand with......

[Blacksheep]

Ok firstly im on Bto which atm is running ok for once but i would'nt mind a bit of help about sharing my connection.

Well at the momment ive been using a net connection sharing program called solidshare which works fine for Browsing using icq email etc etc.
The trouble starts when i want to play games like cs , tfc or other online based games.
The games work fine on my machine as im the one wit the ADSL modem in my room but when my bro decides to join using the network it works fine both of us achiveing a ping from anyware between 80 - 200 then sundenly we both stop reciving and sendin info and bot stop responinding (basicly Netgraph goes red).
We will then both type retry in the console both connect and it runns fine again for a while but then does exactly the same.
I've in had in CS where ive had a gun my bro had another and we basicly swapped maybe hinting our info being swapped over (wierd).
So bascily im asking if anyone know of any software i can d/l or buy or if i have to do any anyhting to my comp like reconifgure certain things to get it to work ?
Here are my pc spec + the other one:
Win me
AMD 900Mhz
512Mb
IBM 60GB HD
GF3 (Asus 2800)
D-link 10/100 Lan card
on a 3com 8port TCP hub at 10mbs

other same as obove except
GF2 MX
40GB HD
D-link 10mbs Lan card
Thx for any help at all.

[SquireMuldoon]

To be honest, I cant see anything wrong with your setup at first glance.

When you both suddenly stop, It sounds like you hit a spike of packet loss, which happens every now and then to various degrees on ADSL. I know... I have it too.

What I would suggest is looking at each games transfer settings (not sure if there are any in CS). Make sure you're packet sizes/frequency etc are set to an appropriate level for your connection. If you encounter problems with sharing, what I'd then do is reduce the paket rates/sizes a little. Other than that, I dunno what else might be up.

[Blacksheep]

Yeah ok im gonna try tickering with the consoe setting on cs and stuff but that still dont explain stuff like cossacks RA2 etc hmmm oh well back to the drawing board as they say cheers for the help.
And yes the good old packet loss monster seems to hit me freqently :( .
oh yeah and how is Dark Age of Camelot any good ? (worth getting imported)

[zhardoum]

There is one more thing here that hasn't been mentioned.

Internal and external Ip address.

I am going to go off classes and just hit the basics.

Lets say your machine has IP address 01, your brother has IP 02.

Then your router, if its an external model, will have an internal IP address of 10 for example, so you both set gateway to 10, edit your dns and your both on the web, until you start to play games

For example, using the above numbers, lets say your internal routers IP address is 192.168.1.10, well that all fine and dandy, until you play a game, when the external Ip address comes into play, the game server sees you not as 192.168.1.01 or 192.168.1.02 or even as 192.168.1.10 but in fact something depending on your ISP like 212.10.68.86

You only have one external address, NAT enables your internal adress to spoof externally but it only works for one IP address that you define within the NAT table.

What on earth am I trying to say?

Simply put, That you can only connect to one server with one IP address, otherwise packets dont know where the hell they are going.

If your brother was to try a different game or a different server he may well find it works, but both on the same server at the same time, using one external ip address, thats a no go, at least until the server tries working out which packet is which.

And therein lies your problem, as far as the game server is concerned its one machine with two sets of data requests to the same IP number, imagine for a second playing a lan game using the same ip number as someone else, apart from windows blowing a monkey and dropping the IP, if it was to try to work, imagine the packet loss, well thats what you have now.

In short, although you may well have a dsl or high bandwidth connx, as you share the IP address (thats what the software program does) you can browse the net, but try and play against a server that hits your ip address its a no go, when you connect to the game server, watch the IP address your at, its not your internal ip address its shows, its your external one.

What you need to do is drop your network connx sharinf program, open the router to enable direct nat across all ports and ips and it may start to work for you, but sharing the external IP is a no go I am afraid.

In fact, i just reread your note, you said it yourself, you swopped sides almost as if you were receiving each others data packets perhaps?

Like I said, you can have a hundred machines browsing the net, but play a game and the game server just sees your single external ip address, hence the problem, you can only have one machine on one ip.

[Blacksheep]

Wow you learn somthing new every day lol cheers for that m8 yeah i didnt think of it that way i knew i had only one external ip but i just didnt think of it in that way you just cleared my head lol.

[SquireMuldoon]

In as much as I understood what Zhardoum was saying in his reply... I don't totally agree with his conclusion.

I have had multiple PCs playing the same game/server over my connection without problems. If things were as clear cut as is suggested, then this would be impossible.

There is more to it, but my knowledge of protocols at that level is a little hazey.

[zhardoum]

The point I may not of made clear is, he is using a software gateway to allow the pc's out onto the net, he needs to disable that, and in the router config all open nat translation across all ports and ip's and then it would work.

Sorry if i didnt make that clear

[MONK]

R I was wondering if solidshare gave NAT support.

Get winroute...

[Blacksheep]

Just did much easier :)

[MONK]

Plus it comes with a nice lot of fetures :D