Flying into flak in the big virtual sky

MICHAEL FOREMAN and a colleague find an internet flight session frustrating.

Games servers are fine for playing games with strangers around the world, but if you want to play with a friend across town, try cutting out the middleman and play directly over the internet.

Most popular multiplayer titles include a direct IP (internet protocol) option, which is likely to deliver better performance.

But when I linked up with colleague Peter Griffin I discovered that they can also be a little tricky to set up.

Griffin was logged on to a JetStream digital subscriber line (DSL) service. I was using an integrated services digital network (ISDN) line shared over a local area network.

His connection was at least eight times faster than mine, but as long as the slowest connection is fast enough, it does not matter.

What is more important is that both players are running the same version of the same game.

We planned to try shooting each other down with one of Microsoft's Combat Flight Simulators.

But after some discussion the only CD we had in common that had not been borrowed or scratched beyond repair was Flight Simulator 2002.

To begin a direct session, the host - the player who is setting any rules or options - needs to know which internet protocol address they are connected to, and then tell the other player.

This address, made up of four groups of numbers separated by dots - an example would be 230.98.75.24 - can be thought of as the telephone number of your PC but with most connections it changes each time you log on.

Finding your IP address can be a bit of a mission.

If you are using Jetstream, you will need to get the client IP address from your modem's control panel. On most versions of Windows, go to start/run and type winipcfg in the box.

Once Griffin, the client was armed with the right IP address, it was easy for him to join me in the flight session I set up.

But when we tried flying our Cessna light aircraft we found that the virtual sky, just like the real sky, is a big place.

We kept losing sight of each other even though we were in contact on the phone throughout the session.

"Where are you?" one of us would ask every 30 seconds or so.

Just getting the two Cessnas close enough together to take a screen shot, took every bit of flying skill we could muster.

When we switched to Bell helicopters, maintaining contact proved to be an almost impossible task.

We both had to keep crashing deliberately, so that our aircraft would go back to their starting point on the runway.

Finally we gave up when Griffin reported that he had crashed for the umpteenth time.

"Fine, I'll see you back on the runway," I replied.

"No, my PC has crashed ... I'll need a few minutes."