If you are getting "Network out of sync" or "Lost a packet" errors, go to the "Errors" section at the end of this document for explanations and hints on fixing these problems.
For information about the Advanced Options settings, see the "Errors" section at the end of this document.
Shadow Warrior Macintosh supports several multiplayer options to let you play against other Mac and PC players. To start a network game, run the "SW Net Startup" application. You can then select the type of network game and options before having Shadow Warrior started for you in network mode.
A couple general hints:
- Internet games of more than 2 players require fast Internet access to play fast enough. 28k connections will generally not be able to keep up with 3+ player games. It is recommended for 3+ player Internet games that all players have 56k+ connections (ISDN/T1/etc) to the net, with low latency and high bandwidth.
- If you are playing a network game, and at some point the game seems to lock up and not let you do anything, its probably because some network problems caused the game to become out of sync. If this happens, you can press Option and ESC at the same time to quickly abort the network game and quit. You should do this rather than hitting the reset button on your Mac or force-quitting Shadow Warrior.
- If you are having the game slow down a lot, there are a few things you can try. Play the game with no monsters or monsters on one of the first couple skill levels. The higher the skill level (and thus the more monsters) the slower the game runs, since it has to keep track of more things. Which game level you play on also affects the speed of net games. Many of the later levels are much more complex than earlier ones, so they slow the game down. Also try changing the "moves per packet" to 2, 4 or 8 in the Net Startup application(see the following hint for more info on this). Finally, a two player game will play faster than a 3+ player game.
- In the options for each network game type, there is a setting for "Moves per packet". This tells the game how many player moves to put in each network packet before sending. The higher the number, the fewer packets will need to be sent. Over the Internet or on slow network connections, you may get better performance by setting moves per packet to 2, 4 or 8. This also helps on slower machines. Everyone playing in a net game must have the same setting for moves per packet. The moves per packet option corresponds to the /f1, /f2, /f4, and /f8 options on the PC.
- The user map button in the Net Startup application lets you select a 3rd party user level to be available for net play. Everyone in the network game must select the same user map(with the same name) to be able to play on that user level. You can also start a net game with a user map by dragging the map onto the SW Net Startup application.
AppleTalk hints
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- The Unique ID setting under AppleTalk Options lets you have more than one net game going at the same time on a single network. Everyone who wants to play in the same game must have the same Unique ID setting.
- The zone(s) you select under AppleTalk Options tell Shadow Warrior where to look for other players. To select multiple zones hold down the shift or command key while clicking in the zone list.
IPX hints
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- The socket number setting under IPX Options lets you have more than one net game going at the same time on a single network. Everyone who wants to play in the same game must have the same socket number.
TCP/IP hints
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- You must enter the absolute IP address of each player you want to be in your network game in the TCP/IP settings dialog. The first player address is not editable, and contains your current address. If you need to tell other players what your address is, use this address. Remember if you are playing over the Internet, with a PPP connection, your IP address may be different every time you connect to the Internet with your modem, so other players may need to update your address frequently.
Network Errors
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"Network out of sync" - this occurs when the position your machine thinks each player is at doesn't match the position other machines think each player is at. You can continue to play while the game is out of sync, but strange things may happen (damage might not be counted, people won't really be where they appear on screen, etc.). If you are getting out of sync errors, first make sure everyone playing Shadow Warrior has the same "Moves per packet" settings and the same setting for "PC Compatible Mode".
Normally out of sync errors happen because of network errors(lost packets). If you get an out of sync error, you can try to start a new game (press Esc and then select New Game), which should reset everything. If you continually get errors, it may be because one of the machines you are playing against is very slow, and can't keep up. See the "general hints" section above for hints on how to speed up play on slower machines.
"Lost a packet"- this messages shows up when your Mac was too busy doing something else to be able to service all the packets coming in from other players. Lost packets can lead to out of sync errors. If you get lost packets and no out of sync errors show up, you can keep playing the game without any problems. If you constantly get packet losses, you may want to try setting the "moves per packet" option in the Net Startup application to 2 or 4. See the general hints section above for more information on the "moves per packet" options.
Advanced Options
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To improve reliability of AppleTalk and TCP/IP games, there are several advanced settings you can tweak to get the best game play. When changing these values, it is important that all players in a game have the same settings. These settings should not need to be changed to play up to 8 player Appletalk games on normal networks or head to head games over the Internet. They should only need to be changed on unreliable networks or 3+ player Internet games.
Non-move oversend: This option tells the game to send multiple copies of important game setup packets, in case the network is losing packets. The default is 2, which means two extra copies are sent for each setup packet. If the game seems jerky and you have a reliable network connection, you may set this option to "off". If you have problems with some machines getting stuck "waiting for players", turn this option on.
Non-move delay: The amount of time to delay between sending extra setup packets. Default is 10, which should be correct for nearly all networks. Higher numbers reduce chances of packet collisions, lower numbers make the game pause less betwen packet sends.
Move oversend: Number of duplicate packets to send for in-game move packets. This defaults to zero and shouldn't be changed unless you are on a very unreliable network.
Out of order queue for 3+ players: This option is only applicable on 3+ player TCP/IP games. Due to the nature of the Internet, it is common for packets received from several other players to be received in incorrect order. This option attempts to save out of order packets and recover the correct sequence at a later time. For 3+ player Internet games it may be necessary to have this on.
