4 ms·

Why wasn't the networking in doom just done as TCP/ip (or UDP/IP)?

arantius 4y ago
Doom was from the early 90's. The internet wasn't a common thing, so TCP/IP was not as thoroughly established then as it is now.
jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
In the early 90s IPX/SPX was more common for LANs than the IP stack. It required much less configuration. Managing IP addresses in the days before DHCP was a hassle, while IPX just used MAC addresses directly. It also was just a simpler protocol. This was in the days of DOS where the driver had to run as a TSR the lower 640KiB memory area, so the driver size mattered. In the later 90s IP pushed it out, partly due to Novel Netware fading away, and partly because IPX didn't scale to large networks the way IP can.
- bennysonething 4y ago
  Great response, thank you :) Googled tsr, terminate and stay resident if anyone else is reading this.
- bennysonething 4y ago
  One other question, if a dos game used TCP/ip, would the developer have to write their own ip stack? Presumably dos didn't provide any of this?
  - jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
    Yeah, IP wasn't batteries included in the OS until later. I believe there were a variety of library venders but honestly don't know for certain.
    - bennysonething 4y ago
      Thanks
flatiron 4y ago
Fun fact about doom IPX is 1.0 absolutely spammed the heck out of the network finding peers. Most colleges had big problems days after its release because doom was DDOSing the network. They quickly patched it but patching wasn’t as easy as it is now.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- quartz 4y ago
  Funny, that's actually how Jay Cotton (co-creator of Kali) learned about Doom and what led him to start exploring the network side of gaming. There's a decent interview with him that relays the story: https://episodiccontentmag.com/2016/08/26/kali1/ https://episodiccontentmag.com/2016/08/26/kali1/
bsaul 4y ago
that comment brings smile to my face and tears to my eyes :))) Because "internet" barely existed at the time doom got out. People played multiplayer games mostly in the same physical room.

Doom was from the early 90's. The internet wasn't a common thing, so TCP/IP was not as thoroughly established then as it is now.

jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago

In the early 90s IPX/SPX was more common for LANs than the IP stack. It required much less configuration. Managing IP addresses in the days before DHCP was a hassle, while IPX just used MAC addresses directly. It also was just a simpler protocol. This was in the days of DOS where the driver had to run as a TSR the lower 640KiB memory area, so the driver size mattered. In the later 90s IP pushed it out, partly due to Novel Netware fading away, and partly because IPX didn't scale to large networks the way IP can.

bennysonething 4y ago
Great response, thank you :) Googled tsr, terminate and stay resident if anyone else is reading this.
bennysonething 4y ago
One other question, if a dos game used TCP/ip, would the developer have to write their own ip stack? Presumably dos didn't provide any of this?
- jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
  Yeah, IP wasn't batteries included in the OS until later. I believe there were a variety of library venders but honestly don't know for certain.
  - bennysonething 4y ago
    Thanks

flatiron 4y ago

Fun fact about doom IPX is 1.0 absolutely spammed the heck out of the network finding peers. Most colleges had big problems days after its release because doom was DDOSing the network. They quickly patched it but patching wasn’t as easy as it is now.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
quartz 4y ago
Funny, that's actually how Jay Cotton (co-creator of Kali) learned about Doom and what led him to start exploring the network side of gaming. There's a decent interview with him that relays the story: https://episodiccontentmag.com/2016/08/26/kali1/ https://episodiccontentmag.com/2016/08/26/kali1/

bsaul 4y ago

that comment brings smile to my face and tears to my eyes :))) Because "internet" barely existed at the time doom got out. People played multiplayer games mostly in the same physical room.