If you only want 8 players its a good idea to use DirectX's DirectPlay and a peer-to-peer client structure. the book I mentioned in my Book Recommendation post "Multiplayer Programming in DirectX" teaches you how to do peer-to-peer and client-server applications and games using both Socks and DirectPlay. Amazon Rates it as 4 stars but I personally give it 5 well actually a 6 if I could go that high.

I really recommend using a client/server setup even though its not fault tolerent its easier to keep track of multiple clients in game.

Peer to Peer is fault tolerent, meaning if the host drops out another peer can take over being the host, the big disadvantage to peer-to-peer client gaming is each players machine in game has to keep track of multiple clients at the same time which slows network traffic.

If you weight the advantages of both client/server and peer-to-peer the best way to go for small multiplayer games is peer-to-peer but if you want more players to join in the future its best to have a dedicated server program running on another machine and have all your players log on to that server.

[edited by - Lord FireFox on November 10, 2003 9:48:27 PM]