Hello all, I've decided that I'd like to write a network game and I've spent the past couple months researching various networking topics of all kinds.. Now I'm starting to wonder if I should use DPlay or just core UDP.. Something to keep in mind if replying to this post is that I will be limited to using DP7 for reasons I won't go into here. (Please don't suggest I try to learn DP8, that isn't the problem, just be assured that if I use DP it will be DP7. Which is unfortunate, from what I've been reading on this board) I have a couple of questions that would help me make my decision: 1) As far as I know, DP7 has a reliability flag that you can enable when sending a message. Does this merely ensure the packet will arrive, or does it also make sure the order is kept? I sort of hope that its only ensured to arrive and not in order, otherwise that sounds pretty much identical to TCP/IP which kind of throws away the usefulness of the pre-designed reliability scheme heh. Throwing away 'old' packets is something thats pretty peanuts to add, so I hope DP lets me worry about that.. 2) Whats the overhead like on DP7 packets? In terms of added size, and speed? Is it really that noticeable? 3) I've read that DP is based on UDP..is this entirely true? Therefore maybe DP isn't all that bad? (heh) 4) Also I will ask what are the major disadvantages of DP7 in everyone's eyes. I should mention that the bloated init time is unimportant to me, as well as the fact that that it would render the game much more difficult to port to non-windows systems. Also the appearance that DP is lame with firewalls and such is somewhat annoying, but not enough in itself to make me look elsewhere..Things of concern are speed and ease of use, or anything else that would blatently hinder my programming Thanks in advance, /¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯\ |--=»§û®®éå(_«=--| \_________________/ Edited by - SurreaL911 on October 30, 2001 1:38:32 AM

wow, I''m surprised to think that *no one* in this forum knows any of these answers, I didn''t think they are that difficult questions
Maybe if I *bump* this post up a little people might spare me at least a quick comment..

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1) You can specify if they arrive: guaranteed (not in order) or guaranteed (in order.)

2) Overhead is not extensive. Reasonable.

3) It is based around UDP if you use the network side of things (non-modem direct, etc.)

4) Use DPlay8, not 7. They fixed a ton of things and rewrote the entire thing. DPlay8 has finally made DPlay a viable communication system in my opinion.

Hope that helps..





LostLogic
www.lostlogic.com
Author, Multiplayer Game Programming

2) The additional overhead is 4 bytes per packet (at least for DPlay 8)

cu,
Prefect

Unfortunately, DP8 is not an option, as I mentioned in the post So then is this above information true for dp7 or only for dp8..?

What things did they fix in dp8? (and thus are of my concern since I''m thinking of using dp7?)

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