29 March 2016

How to play LAN games using a wireless router



This is for people owning a WiFi router, who are just looking to setup a simple LAN game on their personal LAN network. Not via internet.

Assuming you have two systems: A PC and a laptop, with two different versions of Windows OS. Let's say Windows XP and Windows 8.


Setting the IP address:
  • Connect the wireless router to the PC using a LAN cable and connect it to a power source.
  • Switch on the PC.
  • Goto Windows network settings, click on the network properties and in IPv4, set the IP address of the PC to 192.168.1.10. Set the subnet mask to 255.255.255.0.
  • Switch on the laptop and allow it to connect to the wireless connection from the router.
  • Goto the laptop's Windows network settings, click on the network properties and in IPv4, set the IP address to 192.168.1.11. Set the subnet mask to 255.255.255.0.
  • Like this you could add a few more computers if you want, ensuring that you set the IP address to a different number.

Ensuring that the computers can talk to each other:
  • Temporarily switch off the firewalls on both computers (and ensure that they aren't connected to the internet for safety reasons). You could also keep the firewall on and allow the specific ports that the LAN games require for communication, but switching the firewall off is the easiest way.
  • Open up a DOS terminal (cmd.exe) in both computers.
  • In the PC, type ping 192.168.1.11
  • In the laptop, type ping 192.168.1.10
  • In both terminals, you should see a successful ping happening with no losses. If it happens, then you are ready to start gaming. If not, you need to check why the networks aren't able to connect with each other.

Now open up the game on both computers and enjoy!


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