# Possible to Connect two computers together with a crossover cable to play games



## risingstar64 (Jul 10, 2010)

Hey everyone. I'm on vacation for the week, and I'd like to play some computer games with my brother via our laptops. Normally we would go about doing this by playing over the internet, and either connect in-game, or through a program such as gameranger. However, there are few unsecured wireless connections here, and they are so weak that we cant keep a signal long enough to do anything. So my question to you guys is; Can we somehow connect our computers to each other wirelessly without the use of a wireless connection (Some handhelds such as the nintendo ds have this functionality [ds download play], so I don't see why it could not be done on a computer with some special software)? If not, can we do so using a crossover cable? Will this still allow us to play games together (primarily rts games such as ai war or age of empires), or does this depend on the game? I'm sorry if this question sounds crazy, but I don't know much about networking. Any info would be appreciated (I'm always looking to learn so I can provide support for others in the future, and so my thread can help others with similar issues to my own), and any solutions would be even better. Thanks!
-If this is the wrong section, please don't hesitate to let me know and I'll do what I can to have it moved.


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## Wand3r3r (Sep 17, 2010)

Yes you can network the two computers using a crossover cable between them

The rest will depend on the game. One laptop would have to be the "server" hosting the game and the other would be the guest. This does depend on if you brought the game cd and if the game does not require internet access to be played.


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## risingstar64 (Jul 10, 2010)

Thank you for the info Wand3r3r. We went to radio shack to purchase a crossover cable today, but they did not have one. Tomorrow we will check some other stores. I will let you guys know how we make out.


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## risingstar64 (Jul 10, 2010)

Well, we couldn't find a crossover cable anywhere, but we did find a cat5 ethernet cable. Despite several online sites suggesting it wouldn't work, the ethernet cable worked perfectly. We started up age of empires 2 while both connected to the network, and we were able to find each other's games through both the lan and the internet options. However, for some reason, file sharing did not appear to work, not that it matters to us. Before I mark this topic as solved, could anyone please explain the differences between connecting 2 computers via an ethernet cable, and connecting them via a crossover cable? Thanks!


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## Wand3r3r (Sep 17, 2010)

google mdi/mdix

this is the standard that supports autodetection of the cable and auto correction to make it work.

One or both of the nics support mdi/mdix.

you use a crossover cable when
1. lan to lan or similiar to similiar
2. no mdi/mdix support
example would be computer nic to nic or router lan to router lan, or switch to switch with no uplink [uplink does the crossover] etc

patch [straight thru cable] is used when
1. pc to switch
2. router to modem and other similiar examples


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