15 minute Time out in LAN game

[thylacine]

Re: Dune 2000.  Networking.  I connect on a Lan and always the game drops out after 15 minutes.  It always fails to maintain a link and I have never been able to network the game regardless of what hardware I have bought over the years.  Network cards, drivers, hubs, switched hubs, newer computers etc etc.  I always used Win98SE. Westwood refuse to answer or address this problem as I have approached them countless times and after years of emailing them and getting no response I gave up.

Any ideas?  I tried just about everything I could but noone locally has succeeded in getting a Successful LAN game running either.  Did we get a bad batch of CD's issued from Westwood?  Any ideas anyone?

kind regards

Thylacine

[Nyarlathotep]

Somewhat more info on how you connect may be of help. Does the problem happen when you join, or when you create a game (or both) ?

I assume single player works fine ?

[thylacine]

Hi, Thanks for replying.

The game works fine in Single player.  It is a Multiplayer issue.

When Logging onto a game or setting up/hosting a game it works fine for the first 15 minutes.

All functions of Play work great up until 15 minutes passes then the game cuts out with a out of sync error.  Both players freeze for a few seconds then they end up by themselves still playing the same game, but without a network link.  The Game can be played singly then, but not connected.

Both disks were legitimate disks.  I say were, because though they were a present my son and myself gave ourselves one Christmas, we were sadly disappointed. we tried everything I could think of. Eventually after trying on and off for a few years we just gave up and gave one of the disks away to a friend.  It was really a letdown. 

Others I have known locally who also had legitimate disks bought about the same time all said that they had a similar problem and they just never bothered to pursue it after the first few failures.  We reinstalled hundreds of times complete with full unconditional formats and fdisking on various Hard drives both IDE as well as SCSI.  Where SCSI drives were tried, all SCSI adapters were Adaptec.

Computer software wise, All functions of power saving etc, were always turned off.  Having absolutely no other software on the systems still resulted the same.  Clean installs, new network cards, switched hubs  etc have all been tried.  Different hardware from Pentium 166's up to Pentium 850's have been tried over the years as we upgraded, and various friends tried the disks with their systems and the  same resulted.

We have had video cards such as, Voodoo 2 3000, Voodoo 3 and Geforce 2 cards as well as TNT etc.  Sound cards have been variations of SB16 and other Creative Vibra cards as well as onbourd soundcards.  Motherboards have been mostly Gigabyte with some Asus as well.

It often appeared at first, as if, when we encountered another player, then the game dropped us out of sync.  We tried deliberately not engaging or crossing the same territory and found that the same out of sync error repeated itself after approx 15 minutes.  we tried finding each other immediately and sometimes that incurred a out of sync error a bit faster but again it would be about the 11 to 15 minute time.  Differing network settings were tried with all the different hardware.

Different video cards DirectX, drivers of all sorts.

Windows 98 SE was the one consistent thing we tried at home. On different peoples systems they tried Win ME and 2000 as well.  All were legitimate software.

I once again tried the Westwood troubleshooting network settings, about 18 months or so ago and these failed as well.  It has been a bug in my ear to say the least.  I tend to believe that the CD's distributed here may have been a bad batch but I have never recieved a serious response from westwood, only automated ones.  The local reps did not want to know about it and even refused to accept me sending them back to have them replaced.

I have even tried the frametype and network address adjustments both with 10Mbit Networks as well as 100Mb networks.  Various Netcomm and otehr network card brands as well.  With and without hubs and with varying cables.  All other games I can hook up and play without a hitch and even the most cantankerous can generally be sorted out in the long run.  I even play LAN games with friends who have Mac's.  I have played for years everyting from Arena and Command and Conquer through to Diablo2 and Quake Doom, Unreal tournament etc etc, but though I love Dune2000 and would love to play a LAN game...... getting it to stay hooked up.??..  ARRRGG.... to say the least.

Can you help me with this please?  I think I would die happier.

Kind regards

Thylacine

[gryphon]

Sorry for the late reply, I just got my laptop back as it broke down early this week...

Have you tried the RC mentioned in this topic ?

[thylacine]

Hi thanks for the info.

Have applied 1.06 patches and never worked.

As to the RC.  Tried to find this but no luck so far.  Links not working and I cannot find it with a search. :-

[erjin999]

Don't know if this will help much but I was advised to open port 1234 and grant access on my firewall when I couldn't connect, and it helped.

[thylacine]

thanks erjin999,  I wish it was that easy.  I turn the firewall off and have removed it entirely.  clean instal with no firewall and still after 15mins gaming it goes out of sync.  I can just about set the clock by it. :'(

[scotsman]

use this link for the rc patches.

http://www.geocities.com/dlafalcon/home

I don't believe they will help with the time out issues.  The rc patches only help to hold greater than 4 player games together online.

The out of sync error usually happens when in multi player mode. One player has moded version of the game. All players need to have the same version, preferably no mods, otherwise it will bring the game to a halt after a period of time.

[thylacine]

Thanks scotsman,  I will download the RC and give it a try anyway. 

My installs have always been identical and I generally don't run mods. 

I have been checking out past sites and boards and it seems a lot of people had this problem and could never fix it.

Someone reckons its because the code was pretty poor in the networking side of the game.  Why they never put a patch out for that when so many people could not Network the game it I don't know.  Seems they were only interested in fixing internet troubles.  :-

I will give the RC a go and if anyone else comes up with anything I would appreciate it.  I have tried 802.3 and forced even packets and network identification as well as a multitudes of hardware.  patches 1.06 and the earlier versions.  thylacine

[FoX4Play]

:) install the netbeui protocol.. prolly too late tho :(