Because GraceLAN is set-up to run correctly on most AppleTalk networks out of the box, if you have a network that is connected with a star controller, you will probably need to modify the GraceLAN Network Preferences in order to achieve maximum performance.
The star controller configuration causes packets to collide frequently when GraceLAN is looking up the names of devices in a zone. This lookup process is call a Name Bind Lookup, and the number of names GraceLAN finds from the lookup is directly reflected in the number of devices that show up in the GraceLAN windows after you select a zone.
To give GraceLAN a better chance of catching the names for all devices on your star controller network, it is necessary to modify some of the Network Preferences in GraceLAN, which can be found under the File menu.
After you choose the Network Preferences item from the File Menu, a dialog box will appear with all of the available time out values. The two values we are interested in are at the top of the list, Name Bind Interval and Name Bind Count. By default the values for these fields are 12 and 3. This means GraceLAN will wait 12 units of time for names, and look for the names 3 times in a row.
The best values we have found for a star controller are 2 for interval and 18 for count. This means that GraceLAN will wait much less for names to appear, but try more times. Simply set the first two values to 2 and 18, and click OK. The preferences are stored in the GraceLAN application, so they will be remembered each time you run GraceLAN.
If you are still experiencing a problem where not all of your Macs show up in the Macintoshes window when you scan a zone, you may set the Name Bind values to higher numbers until everything is returned. We suggest the highest you set the first two values to is 25 in each field. Above 25 you probably won't see much more improvement.
