Actually, I would use serial or parallel port networking if it exists. For what I need to do, I think it’s plenty fast enough. I wasn’t sure if Win98 allowed the use of a simple cable for networking or not, though. I’ll look into it.
sailor, for my laptop, the USB port was preferable because the BIOS will auto detect a USB mouse and let me use it without disabling the touchpad mouse. When I unplug the USB mouse, Win98 doesn’t freak out or anything. For some reason, this doesn’t work with a PS/2 style mouse - I’d have to disable/enable the touchpad whenever I went from mouse to touchpad. Not all laptops are like this - my SO’s Sony works identically with either the PS/2 or USB mouse.
I’ll have to look into the Y adaptor. All the hubs I find are rather pricey, and given that I’ve seen things like $50 keyboards come with 2 extra USB ports built in, the technology can’t be that expensive.
dhanson, as far as hubs with firewalls, there’s no need for one. I’m doing a local network to play a game, there’s no internet connection involved. And hopefully no $140 item!
I think Handy is talking about the Win98 version of DCC. Whether this will mimic or work with the networking protocols Athena indicated the game needed, I don’t know.
Yeah, Handy is being kind of cryptic here. Getting information from him is like pulling teeth: slow and painful.
If he is talking about the DCC, I am familiar with it but it is not a LAN as such, it does not use the same protocols, it is something different (besides also being slower). While it may serve to transfer files I do not know if it would serve for that game.
If he is talking about true network I do not know how you can just connect two computers with a cable and get it to work.
handy, can you be a bit more specific and explain how you would do this?
By the way, I also use the Infrared (IrDA) connection between laptop and desktop. I wonder if you could use the IrDA connection between the two laptops. That would be neat, no physical connection.
Handy always leaves me scratching my head as I do not seem to follow his logic. It happened in some other threads before. Like this one and some others.
Handy, I think you need to be clearer because you just confuse the heck out of me.
I imagine you could use it without too much fuss as in many Win98 setups the IR port is set up as a network port and has access to net protocols. I suspect it would be pretty pokey in real world use though. A game would probably run better over a pair of cheap 10 base T PC Card NICs (approx 35 each) and a little 4 port 25 hub.
Your USB LAN device sounds interesting. Any idea what the real world transfer rate is?
yeah, come to think about it, I think that game is much more likely to work over IrDA than over the Direct Cable Connection (where I think the chances are close to zero). Athena, do you have IrDA on both laptops? If the game does not require great transmission speed IrDA might work and save you spending a single dime.
I believe the specs for the USBnet transfer is lower than Ethernet (something like 6 MBPS but I am talking off the top of my head here). Let’s see, I just transferred a file 28,850 Kb in 90 sec which is quite a bit slower but it could be affected by the disk drives. I use it regularly to transfer large amounts of information but I have never bothered to time it. I just copy all my files back and forth between desktop and laptop, often almost 1 GB at a time. My guess is it goes quite a bit faster than this experiment I just did would indicate… Hmmm, now I am curious.
When I got the USBnet I did consider getting a PCMCIA ethernet card and using Ethernet but USBnet is simpler and has the advantage I can connect to any other computer with USB. That was the deciding factor.
Getting back to Athena’s game, I have no idea of what the transmission speed requirements are but if they are not too great IrDA would probably work pretty well. If it is a game that can be played over the internet, it should work fine over IrDA.
I don’t have Athena’s game. If i did have Athena’s game, I would have looked in Athena’s game manual. Not having Athena’s game manual, I’d have to search the net for Athena’s game & then Athena’s game manual as I did before but it seemed to be taking forever.
Now, it’s possible to play some games with DCC, however, not having Athena’s game manual, nor Athena’s game, I can’t know for sure.
Handy I appreciate you are trying to be helpful but you need to express yourself more clearly or you just confuse the issues.
I do not really need to know that much about the game. Athena tells us she needs a LAN connection between the computers and I know pretty much any LAN connection will work, whether USB, Ethernet, IrDA etc because they use the same protocols, are bidirectional etc.
You said “Why cant you use the W98 serial/parl networking?” and when I asked if you could explain you said “W98 has way better networking than W95” which still clarifies nothing. If what you are referring to is the Direct Cable Connection, I would NOT consider it networking, it is not full duplex etc. I doubt the game could use this unless it has been specifically designed for it.
So, If you do have a solution we are missing, I for one would be very interested in learning about it, but please explain it clearly in detail, don’t just throw a few vague words and leave us wondering. Maybe games are routinely designed to run over the DCC. I really don’t know this and I would be curious to know.
Athena, did you find a solution? We are all biting our nails over this, don’t keep us in the dark.
BTW, i have the game Red Baron 3D and it is sometimes a bit sluggish is I play against the machine but I read that if I would play against other players over the net it will be much faster because my computer does not need to simulate the enemy as now I have a “real” enemy. I found this interesting.
sailor, the reason I posted the faqs is because this person doesn’t even have the game yet! 2. the faqs state it can be played by modem, thus, I suppose they could direct connect their modems & play the game they don’t have yet cause they ordered it from amazon.com…
Half Life requires TCP/IP or IPX to work. One machine will have to run as a server while the other would just connect as a client. The designated server will play slower, and if the laptop in question barely meets system requirements the game might not be very playable. Half-Life was really designed to be played on a network (or internet) where one machine could sit and be a dedicated server, allowing large groups of people to log on (30+ if the server can handle it), as opposed to “head to head” gaming with only 2 computers involved.
Oh, and USB mice are nice for gaming because the refresh rate is much higher than a PS/2 mouse, allowing for much greater accuracy in aiming. Not really a serious application, but I have a port open.
There are network “kits” that you can purchase at (insert computer megalomart here) that contain 2 ethernet cards and a hub and all the cables you need.
Then again, you may already have a solution by now. grin
If you haven’t already taken the plunge, allow me to offer a couple of suggestions:
First, port replicators for each laptop may be something to look into. Many have additional USB ports and 10/100base-T Ethernet ports.
Next, USB>Ethernet adapters would be the way to go versus PCMCIA. I have a Linksys 10/100 USB adapter and it works very well. It is about half the cost ($50 street price) of a comparable 10/100 PCMCIA adapter. Ethernet is very preferable to a direct USB network for the expandability it offers. 100baseTX is a very solid standard and dozens of different types of devices exist that connect using that standard. USB direct networking is pretty limited in expandibility.
>> USB direct networking is pretty limited in expandibility.
Well, yes very true. But if that is all she needs, then, that is all she needs.
A USB network solution is much cheaper than what you propose. Yes, it is a tad slower and limited in expandability (it is expandable though, how many conputers does she think she may possibly be connecting? If suddenly one day she feels the urge to have a network of 10 computers at home, I think fitting them with ethernet adapters would be a minor concern).
Your advice is like saying to someone “don’t get a small car, get a big 20 ton truck in case you may want to start an earth moving business”.
IMHO, the USB network does everything she would need and would be the cheapest solution. I also mentioned the IrDA possibility but she has not come back to comment…