   Winsock is easy and great
  Keep it up networkers!!!My projects networking core is based on Winsock with non-blocking sockets. I recommend any aspiring network game programmer to use it. Do much reading before hand - multiple tutorials to get a wide view on how things work first. The concepts can be sticky in the beginning, but persevere and the understanding will slot into place and you will be able to (with a great class design  ) build a solid core for your apps. It's NOT months of learningAlso, if you really don't want to mess with it, once my system is finished, I might sell my TCP client/server system with server-finder capabilites to you for small fee. (UDP soon enough)It's proven and running an internet cafe as well as my game projects.Happy Coding!!![edited by - AntiVeggieBoy on September 21, 2003 8:10:54 AM]
  Thanks for the offer but I''ve been developing Winsock apps, TCP & UDP, client and server for the last 8 years so I think I''ll be OK. ;  nice answer AP :D*btw AP are my evil twin [evil] :D * ;  "I might sell my TCP client/server system with server-finder capabilites to you for small fee."I bet you''re joking."Server finder" == IP scanner.  You don''t use an IP scanner to find servers.  It a big giant waste of time.  You write game servers that log into a common server and report themselves as active and inactive on shutdown.  Clients then go to the common server which pulls from it''s list of active servers, verifies a server being live and willing to accept a connection and tells the client to connect to it.It''s also refered to as a "lobby."You can download my plug and play pair of TCP/IP Winsock classes from the DevZone at IcarusIndie.com for free.Ben   [ IcarusIndie.com | recycledrussianbrides.com | Got Linux? ];quote:Original post by KalvinB  You don''t use an IP scanner to find servers.  It a big giant waste of time.  Not to mention a good way to get your IP banned from servers running some security programs.;quote:Original post by AntiVeggieBoy  I might sell my TCP client/server system with server-finder capabilites to you for small fee. I''ll pass too. I just bought "Advanced High-Performance Network Servers for Dummies".;  In general, using TCP is about 10x easier than using UDP to do the same task.  Let us know when you get the UDP finished and if you still think that Winsock is so simple. ;  Ouch... I think I am the only DirectPlay user here.Please guys dont swarm and beat me up ;  DirectPlay is cool..  Don''t beat me up either..   .lick;  I started with DirectPlay.  I was thinking about hosting Gang Wars once I go with colocation on the 29th but I just remembered one of the main reasons I stopped hosting it to begin with; DirectPlay 7 uses fixed ports and a number of them which makes it virtually impossible to run a server behind a router using port forwarding.  I tried moving it to Winsock but DirectPlay entangles itself too much into the rest of the code.DirectPlay 8 fixes that problem but I''ve moved on to Winsock now.  DirectPlay doesn''t play well with OO coding where I easily put together a plug and play class with Winsock.Ben   [ IcarusIndie.com | recycledrussianbrides.com | Got Linux? ]