Network Protocol

[luisgordo]

Hi folks,

Just wondering what protocol you guys are using for your network communications with WideFS. Typically almost everybody will be using TCP/IP, but other options are present, namely: UDP and IPX.

Does anybody have any experience regarding usage of UDP and/or IPX protocols? I am specially interested in UDP since it is referred to as a faster protocol (with no error checking).

Any inputs?

Thanks!

[Trevor Hale]

I am not sure if you can configure Wideclient to run on UDP only, but That may just be my lack of network knowledge.

Let us know how you get on with it, I would do almost anything to speed up my network comms..

Best regards,

Trev

[Bob Reed]

I know FSUIPC will work with IPX, but I do not think it works with UDP.

[Thomas Richter]

I know FSUIPC will work with IPX, but I do not think it works with UDP.

In WideServer set
ProtocolPreferred=XXX (XXX being TCP, SPX or UDP)

[Bob Reed]

Ahh and there you have it. Been a while since I looked at that part of the FSUIPC docs...

[luisgordo]

Yep, that's what yopu can find in the PM documentation, but I wanted to know if anyone had tried UDP.

[sas550]

I have used both udp and tcp but I haven't noticed any difference in performance.

[Thomas Richter]

Yep, that's what yopu can find in the PM documentation, but I wanted to know if anyone had tried UDP.

If the PC's are fast enough you will not see a difference because the PC has enaough time to handle the Network by-side.

And in any case if you don't have problems with TCP/IP and your Network setup is correct, I would not search for problems and implement them on my system :D

[Peter Dowson]

I know FSUIPC will work with IPX, but I do not think it works with UDP.
WideFS can be set to use TCP, UDP or SPX. The latter two are faster (and take less PC resources for stack handling and buffers), but SPX is more difficult to set up (and needs explicitly installaing from the XP install disks), and UDP is unchecked.

I use UDP, but if you try it check the Logs after a session to see if there are errors -- without error checking and retries by the protocol you can get lost blocks, and, if you have more than one route between PCs (eg a firewire token ring), out-of-order blocks which will look like lost blocks to WideFS.

Whether you will notice any difference in performance (PM or FS) really depends on what sort of frame rates you get in FS, and how many PCs are in the WideFS network. There are usually 10 in mine, and I'm using FSX which needs as much of my still rather feeble processor as it can get!

Regards

Pete