noob help..online gaming wireless link issue

Hi folks,

first post here and would just like to say hello to all and many thks in advance for any help that can be provided and will certainly do my best to answer any questions myself that i can.

sorry to be jumping right in at the deep end but i could do with some advice.

currently have a desktop plummed into a sky wireless internet connection via ethernet cable with my son's lap top in his bedroom accessing the net via the wireless link...so far so good...but my son and i cannot play online games like tiberian sun and cod against each other...we can see each other in the games starting lobby but when we attempt to start a game between each other we lock up or cannot start...i presume that the problem rests with both of us sharing the same ip address but is there a way around this....i suppose i could just link the laptop and pc together with a crossover cable and attempt to play a 2 player Lan party but i don't have a scooby on how to do this.

both laptop and desktop are running XP by the way

 

Do you have a router? I couldn't tell from the information you provided.

If you do have a router, the problem could be the wireless being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data. Try connecting both PCs via ethernet cable and see if the problem persists.

 

thanks for the tip..will give it a go..many thks

 

Can you play games seperately from each other on the server at the same time, just cannot be in the same game together? I am not familiar with these games themselves, but if you can play games seperately from each other at the same time then it is not a bandwidth or connectivity issue, but something related to how the game application operates.

For example, when you are both logged onto the game server for the chat channel aspect of it you don't have any problems. When you try to play a game together maybe it has one of your connections operate as the host for the game and the other connects to it. Trying to connect to your own external IP if you are using a NAT set-up (most likely the case with a router and only one external IP) it does not know which PC to forward the connection to since you are both operating on the same port. This may have nothing to do with it, but I am just trying to run some scenarios through my head.

Try networking them via ethernet as kegobeer selected to rule that out, and also try playing games with seperate people at the same time as opposed to being in the same game with each other and see if that works. Post your results and maybe someone can help to figure out how to allow it to properly forward the connection to the correct internal PC if that is the problem.

Maybe it is something with your firewall settings that does not allow external connections from an internal host?

Or maybe each computer needs to be set to access the game on a different port and have the port forwarded to that internal PC on your router so it can properly forward the connection between the two of you. This would need to be set-up through the game first if there is an option to choose the port you connect on and then through your router to forward the port appropriately (remember to remove this forwarding again as soon as you finish playing the game).

It may also be the case that the game software does not allow more than one connection from the same IP address at all, in which case you would need to be on seperate IP's to play on the game's multiplayer server together.

I am just tossing out a lot of ideas since it is hard to say without looking at it directly and without being familiar with how these games handle their online play.