DescentBB

I am running D3 on XP and I want to play against a friend. Apparently I have to have an IP address and then a port number. I know how to find the IP address (www.whatsmyip.org), but how do I determine my and my friend's Port number?

ANd then, once I have that, Do I enter the information like this:

xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:xxxx

Any help or tutorial you have on this topic would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Chaz

Well, it's probably easier to find a 1v1 dedicated server already up (see http://d3.descent.cx/tracker.d3 Also check out http://www.suncho.com ).

Generally speaking the one of you serving the game needs to open port 2092 and let the other one know his ip address. After the server is up the client can connect to it w/ using the ip.

I kind of want to play a D3 match on 2 PCs with a crossover cable sometime. I'm not sure if I still have one around.

The port number for D3 games is by default 2092. Port numbers are similar to different channels on a wireless phone or a walkie-talkie, because they keep conversations separate from each other.

I know it's a bit confusing, but here's a helpful analogy to explain how IP addresses and the Internet work:

Imagine the Internet is the postal system. You and your friend have P.O. boxes in your respective towns' post offices, and you send packages to each other using these P.O. boxes. When you address a package to your friend, you address it like "Michael Smith, P.O. Box 123, Faraway, USA". Likewise, your address is "John Johnson, P.O. Box 456, Righthere, USA". When your package arrives at your friend's post office, it is placed into his P.O. box. There are possibly dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of P.O. boxes in a single post office, but because you specified a box number, the clerk at the other post office can keep all the boxes separate neatly and quickly, without needing to know who is sending what to whom.

Each P.O. box number represents a different port number, the post office represents your network card (or modem), and the packages represent the packets of data that you and your friend send to each other. Before data is sent over the Internet, it is split up into packets. Each packet contains header information (like the address label on a package) and the information itself (the contents of the package). When the data gets to its destination, the program expecting Internet traffic reads from a specific port (gets the package from a specific P.O. box). Of course, in order for this to work, the two applications need to know what port to send and receive data on. This has to remain constant, because there's obviously no way of communicating before you can establish communication (you can't leave an address label incorrect or blank and expect it to get where it's going). So, an organization called IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) has standardized what ports different applications listen on. Applications are not required to obey this standard, nor are they required to register themselves with IANA, but it does make things a little bit less confusing.

Nonetheless, I could just as well tell Descent 3 to use port 80 (the port assigned for web servers) to communicate instead of port 2092. Any other people out there trying to access a web server at my computer on port 80 will fail, because I'm not running a web server there, I'm running Descent 3. It's akin to an incorrectly-addressed letter.

Thank you for your reply. It was very detailed and I definately understand it better. How do I tell Descent 3 which port to use for the Game?

Port 2092 is the default(you dont need to tell it anything).
so as DCrazy said it would be 2092

One thing that was glossed over was the fact that you have to forward that port.

If you have a router, you need to open the administration page (RTFM), and foward that port to your machine's IP.

If your modem is connected to the back of your computer, and you run a software firewall (hope so), then you need to set grant permissions for that port number in the firewall software.

Once completed, you can give your friend the IP, and he can type it in the box (no port needed, for either of you. You are correct, however, that if the port was necessary, the format is xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:yyyy.