How to: Set up IPX multiplayer

[Rhumi]

For me it works to change dosboxdescent_single.conf in the game folder, changing ipx=false to true for any player and additionally

- For the host: insert "IPXNET STARTSERVER" in the line before Descent.bat
- For any other players: insert "IPXNET CONNECT xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx" instead, using the IP adresss of the host instead of the Xs


So it should look like this (for the host)

[IPX]
ipx=true

[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.

mount C "."
c:
cls
IPXNET STARTSERVER
Descent.bat
exit

[Hyper Sonic]

Can you play DOSBOX Descent on Kali or Kahn?

[Sirius]

Not that I know of - it uses its own IPX tunnelling.

[Hyper Sonic]

Interesting, I didn't know that. Some related links I've come across on the subject:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPX/SPX#Implementations
http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Connectivity#Start_IPX_server
http://www.3drealms.com/tech/ipx.html aparently XP still had IPX, while Vista did not

While not using their IPX tunneling, can you at least use Kali's/Kahn's matchmaking services using DOSBOX by chance? I doubt DOSBOX uses Steam's matchmaking services. Or you just get on some chat service and manually share IP addresses, then edit the conf file for each game? If on a LAN you could easily search which games are playing. Being peer-to-peer there isn't really a server, just someone who started the game who could later leave and someone else could continue the game.

I could be missing an important concept here. Does 'IPXNET CONNECT xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx' connect you to a 'virtual IPX LAN' from which you can search for games, or does it connect you directly to a game?

[Sirius]

You could use Kali to share IP information and set it up that way, yes. It didn't do anything fancy for matchmaking though - it just has a few chat rooms, effectively. If you were on the same server, you could see the games everyone on that server hosted - like a virtual network of sorts.
Presumably the DOSBox IPX commands would set up a virtual network in the same way. It doesn't know anything about the games it runs - just provides the infrastructure.

Edit: I should also note that there were old Windows versions of at least D2X that supported IPX netplay - maybe also D1X 1.43, although it didn't work very well from what I remember. The only way any of that worked with Kali under Windows NT was if you launched them directly from the program, though... was a lot more picky than 9x.
I don't know how well it works with Vista onwards, though, with the driver model change - the virtual device driver used by Kali may not work, although I'm not absolutely certain of that.

[Spechtosator]

Thanks for the info, man! It was very helpful!