4-player Multiplayer

[665c5c92c1046ripa]

We're having problems with System Shock 2 multiplayer with 4 players. Multiplayer with 3 players works fine*, and me and friends even played the game from start to finish with 3 players a while ago. However, in the lobby, once the fourth player joins, one or two other players are dropped. No matter who hosts or in what order players join, the fourth player causes problems.

Everyone installed System Shock 2 and SS4Tool v4.0 according to these instructions: https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=4141.0

We tried with and without Tunngle, and with and without firewalls, but I don't think the problem lies here since it works with 3 players. I'm wondering if this NewDark 2.4 patch has caused a regression in multiplayer capability. Unfortunately, two of the players can't get SS2 working without the new DirectX 9 display system introduced in 2.4.

Has anyone here been able to play SS2 multiplayer with 4 players in any version or with any patches or mods?

* With the occasional crash every now and then.


edit:
We were able to all get into the game if each player joined the game and clicked Next and Start New Game before the next player joined. We were all able to chat using ingame chat, but unfortunately we couldn't proceed past the training and ability selection: the game gets stuck in the Synchronizing... screen before the actual game is supposed to start in the room where the antenna explodes outside the window.

[665c5c92c11a3Valiant]

The last time I tried to play this with four people, I almost turned super saiyan.

[665c5c92c14a6ripa]

The last time I tried to play this with four people, I almost turned super saiyan.

Ok.

On topic: I'll try to find out if the game ever worked with 4 players before NewDark 2.4. I just need to find more computers. VirtualBox and Virtual PC weren't able to run System Shock 2 due to lack of/incompatible virtualized 3d acceleration.

[665c5c92c17beValiant]

Ok.

On topic: I'll try to find out if the game ever worked with 4 players before NewDark 2.4. I just need to find more computers. VirtualBox and Virtual PC weren't able to run System Shock 2 due to lack of/incompatible virtualized 3d acceleration.

if I wasn't being clear...

We found it extremely hard over numerous attempts separated by years to play this game with four people and the sheer instability always drove me crazy. The less players involved, the less desynchs, crashes and bulkhead problems.

So unless you're extremely patient, you should probably stick to two players at most. We got as far as the body of the many with 3 before we gave up due to instability, the fourth guy bailed after engineering.

[665c5c92c18d7Rhiyo]

Same issue with me.

Odd thing is, it worked 4 player the very first time we played it though. But then we had to quit for some reason and rehost. Never worked again, same thing now keeps happening to me.

[665c5c92c19d7ripa]

Nice to hear that it has worked at least at some point. Maybe someone will find a workaround. Despite the crashes, the game was excellent as co-op with 3 players.

[665c5c92c1b57ripa]

Update: we managed to scrape together 4 Windows XP computers that could run the old 2.3 patch. All 4 players could join the game at the same time in 2.3.

The bad news is that we also tried 2.4, and unfortunately, it's now clear that 2.4 broke 4-player multiplayer support, because once the fourth player joined, another player got dropped.

The good news is that 4-player support wasn't broken by Windows 7, so if you can get 2.3 running on that, you can still play 4-player co-op. My friend with an integrated Intel graphics chip was able to run 2.3, but others with discrete Nvidia or ATI graphics cards couldn't.

Anyone else been able to run 2.3 recently on Windows 7? I have a feeling that some Windows or driver update broke it, because it used to work.

[665c5c92c1d28voodoo47]

ddfix definitely works under win7, but the final results vary depending on the graphics card and driver (and star constellation, it seems).

[665c5c92c1eecripa]

Update:

My Windows 7 friends who had problems with 2.3 for some reason had DirectDraw acceleration disabled. For yet another reason Microsoft has decided to remove the "enable DirectDraw acceleration" button from dxdiag in Windows 7. Fortunately, this little utility worked perfectly: http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4017.html

On Windows 7, enabling DirectDraw acceleration with that utility fixed the startup crash (faulting module: ddfix.dll), and renaming lgvid.ax to something else fixed another startup crash (faulting module: shock2.exe).

Finally, disabling ddfix completely on my WinXP PC fixed a crash when loading a save game in multiplayer.

In conclusion, 4-player co-op works in System Shock 2.3 with a bunch of tweaking, but not in 2.4.

[665c5c92c2146argotechnica]

first post yaay!

Okay just wanted to throw out there:

• I have, with three friends, beaten this game on 4-player co-op before
• 2.4 (newdark) does indeed break 4-player -- the behavior described above happened to friends and I using win7 with hamachi: three players work OK (actually crashed on first bulkhead, but that's another story), but if a fourth player tries to join, it creates "connection lost" issues

4 player co-op was not easy. It took us a year of our lives, countless hours, the sweat of our brow... Blood... But it was worth it. If you have to play this game without NewDark in order to accomplish 4-player, do it!