2 Comps, 1 paralel cable a million nightmares

[sentinant]

i tried networking two computers using a paralel cable to play games head to head (offline) i tried win98 cable to cable thingy and that didnt work
so i got laplink which seemed to be made exactly for this and again nothing at all

the port is detected on both computers but in never recognises the cable or the other computer
damn anoying but is there anything i should check ?

the ports are both lpt1 in ECP mode if that means anything though i dont understand the other option in my bios about 378/blah blah... and the DMA option in turned on

Do i need to setup all that jazz in networking adaptors and protocols etc.. ( I though laplink or DCC made it so i didnt )

both computers use Win98SE 1 is a AMD K6-3 500 V3 and the other an AMD Duron 650 Savage4

but ATM im connecting them both to the net on 64kISDN doing it that way but it seems really stupid when they are next to eachother
and will it be faster than them both being on 64k ISDN

Damn thing all i want to do is own my m8's at UT and RedAlert2


[Edited by sentinant on 01-02-2001 at 03:33 AM]

[mr_grumpy_man]

As far as I know it's never been possible to use a parallel cable to network PCs.

The exception, as you've noted, is using Laplink - but then that only allows the sharing of disk drives and the like - it's not a networking substitute unfortunatly.

You may be confusing the Parallel cable with a 'Null Modem' cable, which connects the serial ports on the two computers. This can be used for the games that support it as a method of communication (RA2 might, though I doubt UT will).

Frankly though, the simplest way to network is by getting two network cards (£10 ish) and some cable. Thats basically all you need for fast gaming (definatly faster the ISDN :)).

[Dead Man]

I agree with Grumpy, a few years back when network cards were expensive I tried for three days to network two comps with a null modem cable. Never did get them to work, my m8's still take the micky out of me over that....
:)

DM