In case you haven''t seen this: --------- Mark - Another question for ya. Same thing, Winsock VS DirectPlay8 I don''t know of any games using the new DirectPlay8 (Which was completely rewritten). Any news on that? Does DirectPlay actually use Winsock itself? Tim Sweeney - The answer here is much easier. DirectPlay is a bloated heap of junk kept alive by who-knows-what internal political forces at Microsoft. Everyone wishes they''d just kill the thing. Windows Sockets (the other Microsoft networking API, by the way!) is much better. All of the other DirectX8 components are excellent, though: Direct3D, DirectSound, and DirectInput.

quote:Original post by granat
About security...As DirectPlay is based on sockets how can the security be better in DP ??? Ok maybe is requires more work using sockets but I would assume that the same level of security could be achieved.

Seeing how "secure" Microsoft''s server programs are, I wouldn''t trust on it as blindly as KalvinB does

M$ may be saying that DP is top security and super fast, but it''s bullshit according to those who have actually compared DP and Winsock.

Having quite a bit of expirience in both WinSock2 and DirectPlay, here''s my 2 cents:

TCP in games in not a good idea, as TCP has a nasty habit going into a "lag" mode. Basically if it can''t send something from the first couple of attempts, it slows down. I am sure you all expirienced this behavior while browsing: you access a page, browser says "connecting..." and then stalls forever, you press refresh and voila - page is there. What happened is that TCP socket was in "lag" mode and refresh kicked it out of it.
Also, TCP is stream based which is not convinient for games.

UDP is fast, packet-based but unreliable. Enough said.

DP, on other hand, gives you reliable UDP (or fast, packed-based TCP - whichever way). This simply doesnt exist in Sockets.

Another neat feature of DP is enumeration of games, and yet another one is a connectivity to GameZone and such.

I believe, DP8 has built-in speach communication.

ETC.

Yes, DP is a bitch to set up and documentation is bad, but to be honest learning curve with Sockets is also very steep. I am not talking about blocking "ping" or "gettime". Once you have it set up it gives you tons of features that dont exist in Sockets.

I think Tim was a bit too harsh about DP and his opinion was probably based on DP3 or something.

Cheers!
Meduzza

I learnt the basics of using unix domain sockets (sockets, as in winsock) with tcp/ip in, hmm, less than two hours. I haven''t tried DP but learning how to use sockets is a breeze. Having that said...

DirectPlay is not portable!!! Ek, so don''t even consider it I would have to run my server on...on a...*shudders* Windows server! hehe
While sockets port to pretty much any system, even Windows - only you gotta call WSAStartup and use closesocket rather than just close.

"DP, on other hand, gives you reliable UDP (or fast, packed-based TCP - whichever way). This simply doesnt exist in Sockets."

TCP is packet based, so is UDP. UDP is reliable in the way that if and I say IF the packet arrives at the destination it''s intact. TCP also ensures it''s going to arrive in the correct order, i.e. "Hello" "World" rather than "World" "Hello" (and of course you don''t have to bother ACK''ing everything manually ).
Now to the actual point - if you choose TCP/IP as your service provider (read not IPX, not modem, not serial/parallel) won''t it just sit on top of a socket? Right.
Secondly TCP is pretty much reliable UDP now isn''t it (I''m sure connections have their role here), if you make a new secure-udp protocol you''ll loose speed - there''s no doubt what so ever about it.

"This album was written, recorded and edited at Gröndal, Stockholm in the year of 2000. At this point in time money still ruled the world. Capitalistic thoughts were wide spread. From the sky filled with the fumes of a billionarie''s cigar to the deepest abyss drenched in nuclear waste. A rich kid was a happy kid, oh..dirty, filthy times. Let this be a reminder."
- Fireside, taken from back of the Elite album

quote:Original post by Meduzza

Having quite a bit of expirience in both WinSock2 and DirectPlay, here''s my 2 cents:

TCP in games in not a good idea, as TCP has a nasty habit going into a "lag" mode.

...

UDP is fast, packet-based but unreliable. Enough said.

DP, on other hand, gives you reliable UDP (or fast, packed-based TCP - whichever way). This simply doesnt exist in Sockets.

I think this is what you meant, but just to clarify, everything that is offered in DP is possible in sockets because DP is built on top of Winsock. It might take some work to implement, but it''s certainly possible to implement reliable UDP with sockets... or it wouldn''t be a feature in DP. However it''s quite true that things like reliable UDP aren''t an out-of-the-box offering of Winsock.