Multiplayer Woes

[Hellbent]

I turn to the doom community for help with a couple problems connecting computers with ZDoom 2.2.0.

1st: my friend and I cannot connect. Soon as the game loads he gets the following error: 'bindtoport EADDrunuse' or something along those lines.

He has Windows XP, I have Vista. When I'm on my laptop we can dm, but when I'm on my desktop it never works.

2nd: 3way with croesus, r and I used to work, but now Croesus cannot connect with anyone. Game loads, but won't play--i get a black screen and can hear the menu when I hit an F key but can't see anything. And can't hear anything else (so game connection has not happened). Croesus doesn't think he's made any change to his computer--so this is a real mystery. One day it just didn't work for him anymore.

If anyone has any ideas on either of these, that'd be great.
Thanks

[Creaphis]

I remember you have a preference to have only one port on your computer, but I think that on a tried-and-true multiplayer port (eg. Skulltag) you and your friends would have fewer issues.

[Edward850]

1. The port the game is trying to use is in use by something else (in this case, 5029 udp). Well okay, I'm not to sure on this, but I believe that's the correct error message for it (it has been awhile since I have seen it).
This can be changed by using the -port <portnum> command (remember that all players have to set this). Or you could close the program that's using the port number in question.

2. Zdoom 2.2.0 is a fair bit old, and up-to-date versions of zdoom will also now auto configure the game to use -netmode 1 if 3 or more players are present (unless otherwise configured).
What is happening is that the default netmode requires all players to be able to talk to each other. Fine for LAN games or 2 player online games, but 3 players online this suddenly becomes a waste. This also creates problems when 2 other players in the game can't talk to eachother (both of them having closed ports), which is the exact issue you are having (basically, the game can't even process the first tic, as the request is never complete).
Putting -netmode 1 in the hosts command line will use a master/slave connection method (instead of peer to peer), meaning everybody communicates through the host instead, which should then allow the game to work for you (assuming you also correct issue 1 as well).