OK, I know this isn’t a tech support board, but I’m hoping someone can answer what I think is not too hard a question, or at least point me in the right direction:
My roommate and I want to network our computers together, pretty much just for gameplaying. He has a Mac and I have a PC. Do we need any hardware other than just the network cards? What software would you recommend? Are there any compatibility issues? Any other advice you’d care to give? Much thanks.
You need a cable (or two and a hub). Depending on what kind of network cards you have you need different stuff. For twisted pair (looks like a bigger version of a phone jack) you need either a special cable (crossover cable) or two normal cables and a hub ($40 bucks or so for a cheap-ass one.)
You then need to install networking software on each computer - this usually comes with the OS. Once you’ve done that, you need to configure the machines to be in the same general network vicinity. Look up IP address spaces on the web if you want more info, but here is something you can try if you promise not to ask me what the numbers mean:
Mac:
IP address 192.168.1.1
Subnet mask 255.255.255.0
PC:
IP address 192.168.1.2
Subnet mask 255.255.255.0
Then, if you install some server software on one machine you can connect to it from the other using the IP address. For example, if you install a web server on the PC, the mac could surf to “http://192.168.1.2” and get there. You can also install an FTP server to transfer files. You can download free FTP or web servers for PC or mac, try http://www.download.com to find some.
By the way, unless you do something fancy like have one of the machines connected to the net and want to share that connection, you won’t be able to get useful stuff like name resolution (e.g. you can’t type “http://www.yahoo.com” and have it work.) This also means it doesn’t matter what you put for “DNS” in the setups on the machines. There was another thread on doing connection sharing, if you search for ‘LAN’ you may find useful info.
Having more ‘friendly’ networking between a mac and a PC, for example to allow file sharing like you may be used to between two PC’s or two Macs is tougher, but possible. You’ll probably need some shareware or other software to make it possible, and either advice from someone here who cares more than I do, or a few minutes with a search engine.
Good luck!
Good info. Thanks. So what do those numbers mean?
The IP addresses are 32-bit binary numbers, represented as four base-10 numbers (each ranging from 0 to 255). Every computer on an IP network (such as the Internet) must have a unique IP address. (There aren’t enough IP addresses available to handle all the computers that ever connect to the Internet, so there are various schemes for sharing and minimizing the need for IP addresses; these techniques don’t matter to this discussion).
IP addresses are assigned by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority; they only talk to ISPs and the big boys. But IANA has set aside three ranges of IP addresses specifically for use on private networks (see RFC1918). These IP addresses are never used on the Internet itself. The most commonly used range is from 192.168.0.0 through 192.168.255.255. You can see that the two IP addresses that were suggested to you are in this range. (The other two ranges are 10.0.0.0 through 10.255.255.255 and 172.16.0.0 through 172.31.255.255)
The subnet mask is required, and allows setting up smaller “sub-networks” within one IP-addressed network. The subnet mask is also a 32-bit binary number written in the same four-base-10-numbers notation. Basically, if two IP addresses are exactly the same in the areas where the binary version of the subnet mask is 1, then the two addresses are on the same subnet and a packet can be sent directly between the two computers; if they differ in any of those areas, they are on differnet subnets and a packet must use a router to get from one to the other.
Since 255.255.255.0 is 11111111.11111111.11111111.0000000 in binary, a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 and an IP address of 192.168.0.1 means that 192.168.0.1 through 192.168.0.255 are on the same subnet, and anything else is not.
Formally, you AND the subnet mask with both the source and destination addresses, and if the two results are equal the two addresses are on the same subnet. You can see these calculations and try some examples at Daryl’s Subnet Calculator.
There’s lots more information at Daryl’s TCP/IP Primer.
I used to have a dog in this fight, having been VP of a software company that made software for connecting PCs to Mac networks, but I’m better now.
What you need depends on what hardware you have and what you’re trying to do. Assuming both machines have network adapters, the physical connection can be made with a crossover cable, or two regular cables and a cheap (~$40) hub, as mentioned elsewhere.
For networkable games, you’ll need to make sure that the game is available on both platforms, and find out how it communicates. Anything that is available on both the Mac and PC is likely to use straight TCP/IP, which means that DougLips’ instructions will probably work, with the caveat that you may not be able to connect to the Internet via a modem connection unless you take special care (it’s possible to have parallel network connections and configurations under Win98 and NT, while on the Mac you’re probably going to have to switch back and forth between two configurations).
For simple file transfers, FTP is the easy and free way to go; MacOS 8.5 and higher include an FTP server, and there are numerous freeware and shareware FTP servers for both platforms.
If you want to be able to directly open, edit, and save documents between machines, or share printers between them, you’ll need third-party commercial software. There are two possible approaches, equally valid in this case: teach the PC to use AppleTalk, or teach the Mac to use SMB (the resource sharing protocol in Windows Networking). There are two options for the first approach, PC MacLAN from Miramar Systems and TSSTalk from Thursby Software Systems. TSSTalk is simpler, offers better printing support under Win95/98, and is cheaper (~$129) – and it’s the product I managed for years (under another name, with a different company). PC MacLAN offers more features, is more fragile, and is more expensive. It used to be the case that TSSTalk could be evaluated in a fully functional version for ten days from the time it was installed – don’t know if Thursby have changed anything in that regard. PC MacLAN used to be available for evaluation only in a severely crippled version that offered only certain functions, popped up nag screens every few minutes, and stopped working within a certain amount of time after each reboot – again, Miramar may have changed that.
There’s only one product that goes the other way (teaching the Mac to use SMB): DAVE, also from Thursby. I believe there’s an evaluation version of it available as well.
A great general source of information on cross-platform networking is John Rizzo’s MacWindows site. John used to write on cross-platform issues for MacWEEK, and his site has become the default location for both users and vendors to share information about such things.
Let me know if you have other questions.
Or you could just visit snap.com & input ‘network a Mac & PC’
Frankly I don’t know how you’d do that as both use seperate operating systems & software for a game.
Be aware that many games don’t allow interoperability between the Mac and PC versions. Before I went down the difficult road of figuring out how to get the machines connected I would call tech support and ask them if the two versions are compatable.
Good advice. Games are pretty much the extent of the use the network would get, and I think all the ones we both have are TCP/IP, so it sounds like it shouldn’t be too tough. Thanks, all.
Hm? There are lots of games that run on both Mac and PC!
Being an RTS addict, my personal favourites are:
Total Annihilation (greatest RTS so far!)
Warcraft 2
Starcraft