I was wondering what was the best book for understanding how TCP/IP and LAN work and about what really is going on and happening? And what is the best book to learn how to program TCP/IP and LAN? thanks

UNIX Network Programming
Vol 1 Second Edition
W. Richard Stevens

For learning how your LAN operates, I would recommend browsing the IEEE 802.x specs. If they are a little over your head try picking up any CCNA prep book. They usually go over ethernet and token ring in obnoxious detail.

Give Network Programming for Windows a try if that is the platform you will be running on. It is a really good book. It goes over more than just IP (TCP and UDP) though, so if you only wanted TCP this wouldn''t be the book for you.

..and, if you''re going to be doing games programming, you''re going to need to know the pros/cons of TCP vs. UDP.

You should check out this FREE tutoriol.
www.codewhore.com
then check out http://www.sockets.com/
don''t think that because you pay $50 for a book with a fancy cover you will learn more than you could from a couple free tutoriols on the net. Also, if it''s not exactly what you want at least you haven''t wasted the money.

Sweet.

Thanks everyone.

Probably not too useful but...

I''m an NT Systems Engineer(MCSE). I learn about this a long time before I ever made any network code by playing with a packet sniffer and reading a few Technet Whitepapers.

I plan on doing a fair amount of testing of my multiplayer code with a sniffer running. If for no other reason than to gather performance statistics between different ways of handling messaging. e.g. dropping a single byte from the main movement message, what is the performance increase?


I use the one that comes with Microsoft SMS, I''m sure their are free ones out there though...

gimp