Hi, I recently got interested in networking games, I am doing research on networking software and I was wondering from anyone who has developed multiplayer games before, what are a few of the benefits to using DirectX''s capabilities over WinSock and vice versa. I have read a few posts on here that talk about people thinking WinSock is the better networking solution right now. What reasons are there for this? Thanks in advance.

For learning multiplayer games, it is probably best that you understand how the underlying networking works. I would recommend using WinSock to start. There is a great tutorial over on Flipcode under the closed articles link.

Once you understand the basics of networking, you will be a little more prepared to make an informed decision over whether or not to use something like DirectPlay. Keep in mind that there is pretty minimal amount of work to port WinSock code, while DirectPlay is completely non-portable. Maybe that''s not a consideration... your call. If you go to a job interview and talk about multiplayer games, you will 99% guaranteed NOT be asked networking questions about DirectPlay. They will most likely ask about sockets, and probably some other Windows/UNIX IO concepts.