Need a bit of help lan-udp?

I can't seem to find a explanation as to how to network the control and game computers...I understand that you use the lan ports but User Datagram Protocol (UDP)??....do I just run the lan cable from one pc to the other or do I need a router....if someone can point me in the right direction or even better explain keeping in mind I have very little experience in configuring networks...Thanks.

You neeed a TCP/IP Compliant network . This means two ethernet cards (preferabbly 100mbit but 10mbit will suffice), and either a hub or network switch. A switch is prefered over a hub because a hub can suffer packet collisions which degrade network performance and therefore your simulators performance.

You also need two CAT5 ethernet cables to use when connecting both of your PC's to the hub or switch.

UDP and TCP/IP are simply protocols that communicate over this ethernet network described above. X-Sim uses UDP instead of TCP/IP because TCP/IP has additional packet overhead that would cause simulator latency.

NOTE: In addition to a switch or hub, a combination device may be best suited to your needs. For example, you can buy a cable modems or wireless routers that also have built in network switches.

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Thanks Bernard for the information...would this a be acceptable switch
http://www.microcenter.com/single_produ ... id=0210834 I don't have my scn5's yet but I would like to go ahead and try to use some of the desktop gauges included with x-sim...I'm sure I will be asking for quite a bit of help from the community now that I'm getting into the more technical part of the build...But I proceed with confidence because of all the help and information that is available here... :

Yes, this will work.

Ok I've hooked up the switch and given each pc an address thats all I've done then confirmed the connection by ping but the force sender and force profiler do not connect I get a socket connect error message...the ip address for the game pc is 192.168.0.1 and control pc 192.168.0.2 do I need to use 127.0.0.1 for game pc and 127.0.0.2 for the other...Thanks

The 192.168.x.x addresses are fine. Your issue is likely that you do not have a default gateway properly configured.

Forgetting about X-Sim for a moment, you should be able to go to a Command Prompt and type: 'ping 192.168.0.1' from the PC 192.168.0.2 and you should receive four replies. If this does not occur, then your issue is network configuration and not X-Sim.

What type of internet access do you have, and do you hope to get both PC's online? One way to get this together rather quickly would be to configure one of your PC's (the one you will play games on) to provide internet connection sharing. Then tell the other PC (the one running the profiler) to get it's internet access through the PC that you configured for internet connection sharing. This will effectively give both PC's proper default gateways.

Thanks again Bernard I was at fault here I incorectly entered the force profiler ip in the box at the top of the force sender..I now have a connection but its lost every 22 seconds if you click send data from force sender or play a game...there is no internet connection..under internet protocol TCP/IP properties the default gateway boxes were left blank...Im using port 1-2 not the router port of a linksystem workgroup switch...should all boxes be checked under network connection general tab this conection uses the following items?.. Thanks again

I have the same setup as RonK22 as far as having a switch and am still having a connection drop about every 22 seconds...Is this because i'm using TCP/IP? How do I change it to UDP? Also, should I be running the computers Network with half or full duplex?

I'm running on a win XP

This is very frustraiting as I have the same result using 3 different computers!

Any help would be great!

knubs

Is your workgroup switch providing DHCP (meaning is it assigning your PC's an IP address, default gateway and DNS information)? If not, you must have assigned them manually? Please provide this info so we can dig in further.

Since the machines are on the same 192.168.0.x network, they do not need a default gateway to talk to each other. The gateway and DNS are only required when they want to resolve Internet addresses. I'm running the profiler on XP and the sender on Windows 7 and not having any drop out issues. Do you guys have Windows Firewall enabled on any of the machines? Since they can ping each other, I assume that the firwall is open or disabled but it is something worth checking. Strange that the connection is dropping every 22 seconds to be exact. Could this be an issue with the profiler/sender software perhaps?

UDP is a part of the TCP/IP protocol and the developter chose to use UDP for better performance. You can't switch to TCP unless the software if written to support the use of TCP. Either half or full duplex should work, with full duplex being the faster of the two.

...Mike

You are right about the default gateway. However, machines that do not have a default gateway have to ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) for each other. Various versions of Windows seem to handle the ARP cache differently. If the ARP cache were to be cleaned by Windows for some reason, you can expect excessive packet latency until your other 192.168 machine is rediscovered and cached. I was thinking that this may be why some folks are losing connections.

Its not actually 22 seconds but if you watch the connection icons animated signal it cycles exactly the same 22 times then the connection is lost..if you watch the task manager the sender stops responding then restarts...I just ran the registry cleaner and reinstalled with the same results...also replacing each computer with a laptop and replaced the switch same thing...if I disconnect the sender pc from the switch the issue goes away...it loads faster about 6 seconds...connected to the network it takes close to thirty seconds and slow to respond...my computers are only up to sp2 no updates could this be the problem...my IP settings are game pc IP address: 192.168.0.1 Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0 Default gateway: 192.168.0.1 Preferred DNS Server: 192.168.0.1 the profiler pc IP address: 192.168.0.2 Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0 Default gateway: 192.168.0.1 Preferred DNS Server: 192.168.0.1 Thanks, Ron

I assume that these PC's do not have internet access? I'm guessing that this may have something to do with the Force Sender trying to connect to the internet for the community features. For some reason, they cannot be completely disabled. Do you have the same issues with version 2.0.7.1? It does not force the community features and the requirement for an internet connection.

Hi Bernard,

I've never had an issue with that using any version of Windows but that does make sense. This definately sounds like some sort of software polling issue.

...Mike

Hi guys,

I have my setup running now with 2 PC's and x-sim 2.1.03 and I am having the same issues. At first everything was working fine and then after about an hour, the force sender started dropping out about every 12 seconds. During this I noticed that the chat applicaiton could not connect to the server for some reason. These machines all have Internet access and when the chat application was working fine there were no dropouts.

I have removed 2.1.03 from the force sender PC and have installed 2.07 and all is working fine for the time being. I am hoping that there is a fix for this soon since a number of people are experiencing this. Is anyone experiencing this in a single PC setup as well?

...Mike

Yesterday, I installed 2.1.0.2 and had the same dropping out issue... I'm running with no internet connection on both computers...I uninstalled this version and installed 2.0.7.1 and it works just fine! I have a solid connection.

*Also When I use only one computer any version works fine for my connection and I am not online with this setup.

I'm using XP sp3 on both machines...

I'll try out the newest beta version tonight....

There is another thread discussing the same thing....hopfully we can all collaborate to get this solved...

http://www.x-simulator.de/forum/profiler-drops-connections-t1908.html

I just tried the new beta 2.1.0.4 and the same issue exists.

...Mike

I have connected both pc's to the internet and using version 2.1.0.3...now that the Simlink can connect the problem seems to have gone away..I've not tryed it for a extended period yet but will tonight....Ron

Hi Ronk22,

I am still having an issue and my PC's are connected to the Internet. For some reason my Simlink is in the offline status and seems like it's trying to connect but can't. No matter what I do, I can't seem to get it out of this state including uninstall and using the registry cleaner and reinstalling. All the buttons in Simlink are greyed out and I can't even reset the username and password using the SimXperience Commander software.