Game Server

Create a network layer for yourself that allows you to create, kill, listen, etc.. to a socket. In the implementation use WinSock for windows and Unix Sockets for just about everything else.

If you really want to have a single implementation file you can look at some cross-platform API''s but I would bet they probably do about the same thing I recommended and all you would be doing is putting a layer on top of another layer. QT, and Cygnus have cross-platform libraries that would accomplish this. I think Cygnus got swallowed by RedHat but you should still be able to find some code on it.

Based on experience in shipping product, going the Cygnus route was less optimal then my first suggestion. QT is a pretty cool API but that is a lot of code to add for just a socket layer.

I would prefer to avoid winsock if possible.... I think I recall hearing that there is some open source thingy by Apache I believe anyone know about it or have any other recommendations?

If you use the winsock 1.2 and 1.1 implementation (i believe that''s them) the code is damn near cross platform, except for calling wsaStartup once in windows, and redefining some things.

Apache is a web-server which uses Winsock.

You have two choices: Winsock or DirectPlay

I suggest DPlay for beginners as it does most of the work for you. Winsock is a little more advanced.

Ben


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I think what the winsock people are trying to get at is that winsock is approximatly the same as sockets for most things. Therefore write your own simple socket access class for connecting, listening, sending, receiving etc and then do the simple small changes you need when you port it to Unix.
If you want to use a pre-rolled sockets solution then you''ll find that the win32 version uses winsock and then the unix version will use almost the same socket calls.

As long as you use straight socket calls and not all of the WSAxxx stuff winsock is compatible across Windows and Unix. Mostly all you need is a few #defines on the Unix side to stub out the WSAStartup call and to change closesocket and ioctlsocket to close and ioctl respectively.

I''ve written several winsock based apps that I ported to Unix in a few hours.

-Mike

I''d check out www.hawksoft.com/hawknl .It''s a whole network layer for just about any platform you can think of. It''s free and designed for games.

"I would prefer to avoid winsock if possible.... I think I recall hearing that there is some open source thingy by Apache I believe anyone know about it or have any other recommendations?"


If you don''t have any solid ideas for a better solution, and ''some open source thingy'' is not a solid idea, then I wouldn''t be so fast to rule out Winsock.

As has been stated, if you want to go crossplatform for networking, you''re talking about sockets. Whether that''s Java sockets or Winsock / Unix Sockets, you''re going to be using a socket at some point. A Socket is just a notion of how you communicate over a network.