Combat Flight Simulator 2 multiplayer connection problems

I posted this message over at Sim Outhouse, yet after about two dozen replies, NO luck. Maybe someone here could shed some light on this (copy 'n' paste follows)?

 

Me and two of my buddies used to play numerous multiplayer games with CFS2 for several years. Earlier last year we slacked off, and haven't played since then. We decided to get back in to CFS2 multiplayer games again, but ran into a MAJOR snag... we can't seem to connect .

 

When we were playing about a year ago we could ALL connect to each via TCP/IP other without ANY problems at all, it didn't matter which of us hosted. We always had good connections, and were able to connect to each other quite easily and quickly.

 

Last night we decided to give it a whirl again, but had NO luck whatsoever. We all tried hosting, but the hosts' game NEVER showed up in CFS2 for the other two players. We all have exceptions added to the Windows firewall for CFS2.EXE, as well as opened our ports for our routers, just like we did about a year ago.

 

All of us are currently running Windows 10, just like a year ago with one exception: My PC is one that one of my buddies gave me earlier this year, and is the EXACT SAME ONE (and the existing OS that was on it) that he used a year ago to connect to me. I was on an Windows XP machine at the time, but he bought a new one earlier this year and gave me the one that I'm currently using. The one that I'm currently using has had NO Windows updates installed on it since I first got it from him. That being said, like I mentioned above, I was using a Windows XP machine at the time, but am now currently using the EXACT Windows 10 PC that one of my buddies gave me that he was using a year ago to connect and/or host.

 

The other buddy has two PCs... also, the same ones that he had a year ago, one a Windows 10 PC and the other a Windows XP PC. He ALSO used to be able to host and connect with either of those two PCs back then.

 

Anyhow, fast-forward to last night: NO luck at all connecting with CFS2 regardless of who attempted to host. Does anyone have any ideas?

 

This is driving us/me NUTZ! Other multiplayer games seem to working just fine, games on Steam, TeamSpeak, and EVEN the old Quake II, etc... but NOT CFS2 :(

 

P.S. SIDE NOTE: When we were heavily playing CFS2 multiplayer a year ago or so, we would occasionally announce the games here in the Sim Outhouse forum. We even had someone from here join us one time, he was able to connect to us via TCP/IP as well at that time without a problem.

This is a little late but have you tried running more than one hard drive on your Windows 10 pc? At one point I had three, one with Windows 10, one with Windows 7, and one with Windows XP. 7 and XP require doing a little research and figuring out how to get them to work with a modern pc but they do, or did, work. I run XP so I can play War In The Pacific: The Struggle Against Japan the Matrix game and it runs well on that. I'd give the hard drive dedicated to only XP a try. I was in a CFS2 squad 15 years ago and we had carrier ops, navigation (CFS2 as with the civilian versions of MSFS has the whole world modeled with the correct lat and lon and you can use trigonometry and rhumb line calculations) to plan flights, attacks, and egress back to land on the carriers. We even had modified B25's with tailhooks so we could enter multiplayer, land a number of them on a carrier and taxi to take off position, and then launch the DoLittle Raid. We actually flew for 7 hours one time to recreate that attack on Japan by DoLittle and his pilots and then flew on to China.

Thanks for the info, but that wouldn't help. The problem that we have is not running the game itself (the game runs just fine), but simply connecting via IP. One of my buddies still has a Windows XP rig and has tried hosting (as well as joining) the multiplayer game, but still no luck.

 

I'm really thinking that it has something to do with a Windows update to W10, but I'm not sure.

 

The problem now is that my buddies have just about lost interest... I really need to nag them to get them to try this thing out again. We REALLY had a LOT of fun playing CFS2 multiplayer games. We played at least 3-4 evenings a week. and not all that long ago either, we started slacking off as early as a year ago. All of our CFS2 MP games were played on the same PCs and OSs that we currently have... very little has changed, hardware or OS wise.

 

P.S. The MP games that you described and played sounds quite COOL! :)

 

BTW, do you still play CFS2? If so, maybe we could try an MP connection some time.

Edited October 31, 2022 by rfnagel