Having had problems with this in Dungeon Siege, Freelancer and other games that use DirectX, I have a solution for you!
DirectX has a networking component (Direct Play) which uses (in theory) the ports 2300-2400 (as you will see by checking with Microsoft).
There is a problem though - most games that utilise Direct Play default to a standard port (2302) which you cannot change. Therefore any PCs sat behind a router using NAT will suffer severe disconnections if they are trying to connect to the same remote server.
There are two ways round this:
1. DirectX9 in theory resolves this as long as you have UPNP enabled on your router. There have been reports that this solution can be erratic though.
2. (The solution I use) - Download a third party program called DXPort from
www.puffinsoft.com. It is free and simple to set up, effectively forcing DirectX to use a different range of ports for each PC behind the router (combined with port forwarding to the relevent PCs). I have set mine up so it loads on boot up.
It has solved all the problems I used to have.
(Note: If you want to play a DirectX game over a LAN you need to shut it down first).
Enjoy.
Edited by - quercus on 09-05-2003 19:11:45