Reconnection error during lan games

[Arrahant]

Me and my friends are trying to play RA 2 over lan, after finding out there is now a tcp/ip patch around for the game (http://www.understorm.net/downloads). Back in the day with ipx/spx we always had trouble with people not able to find eachother in the lobby, etc. Now everyone can find eachother perfectly in the lobby, and we also no longer get into that screen with the green/red horizontal bars, slowly seeing people disconnect (if I recall it correctly). Fantastic! Finally our favorite old fashioned rts game with sprite graphics working over lan!

But now with the tcp/ip patch during some games (let's say 1 out of 5 games) and after a while we get a reconnection error and all the players are forced to quit! Especially since it never happens after a couple minutes but after a couple of hours this is really anoying. Now before I bury this game and we go back to Starcraft II: is anybody able to share some ideas as to why this might happen?

The game is installed and patched to 1.006 in exactly the same way on every pc on the network. The setup has been run as administrator on every pc and the game is being run in windows 98 compatibility mode. Nobody is using cheats or trainers for the rest. We play on 4 pc's with various specs and OS's (Windows 7 64-bits and one Vista 32-bits computer). We use a Sitecom WL-342 300N X3 small wireless router with the firewall turned off. On our pc's we made exceptions for RA2 in our Windows Firewall. And as I said, it doesn't happen every game but it does seem to occur randomly in one or two out of five games. Last night we were busy for 1,5 hours in a Path Beyond II when it happened, then a new game in Bay of Pigs and after two hours it happened again! Nice way to spend your evening!

I have googled around, but a lot of those reported problems are pre-TCP/IP RA2 patch or are related to ppl using cheats/trainers/exploits online. Any help or thoughts would be greatly appretiated. I'm also very curious as to why the game doesnt just lag for a moment and then continues or something, and instead every players is forced to quit.

[Jared.e.lasley]

how are u even getting it to play on a lan. i can get into the game. get to the network part but i cant create a game. this a is pain being i just rebought red alert just to play on lan. anything u can help would be awesome

[Arrahant]

Are you sure you put that tcp/ip dll in the same folder as RA2.exe? It should function then.
Do the computers see eachother through 'Network' in Windows? That should be the case. And remember to allow your firewall to pass RA2's data through.

Last night we tried two more games of RA2 with 6 players. Second game gave a reconnection error after an hour or so. We're gonna go back to Starcraft II.

[braxos2003]

gogogo

[NeoGrant]

Are you sure you put that tcp/ip dll in the same folder as RA2.exe? It should function then.
Do the computers see eachother through 'Network' in Windows? That should be the case. And remember to allow your firewall to pass RA2's data through.

Last night we tried two more games of RA2 with 6 players. Second game gave a reconnection error after an hour or so. We're gonna go back to Starcraft II.

Play via XWIS and you won't have an issue. Or if you're really up tight with using LAN, download the installers for the game. http://xwis.net/downloads/ Uninstall any hacks, cheats and try again.