Server-hosted games - machine going to sleep?

[ceremony]

I've been running an Online (server) game for a few months now, and have noticed that occasionally players report that they are unable to connect, despite having the correct IP/port info.

I thought this was a firewall problem, but lately I have noticed that in another game I'm playing in, I get the same problem. However, when I telephone the person hosting it and ask him to check the server, I'm always able to connect shortly thereafter, despite the fact that he says he didn't do anything except move the mouse to check if the computer had frozen. So perhaps it is that the computer is going to sleep? Shouldn't a port request to the game wake it up?

Is there a way to turn off the "sleep" function in the system when using Windows?

Also, a note for people planning to host server games: if you minimize the server game to the taskbar, the game will take forever to process information. It took players up to five minutes just to end their turns. Dom2 doesn't like being minimized!

You can adjust your settings in "Power Options" There is a way to turn off standby.

Other than that you have to go looking around on your computers settings to make sure it doesn't do things like turn off power to your Network, or come awake on network activity and things like that.

[ceremony]

Thanks - I checked under Power Options and while it was never going to Standby, the hard drives were shutting down after 1 hour. I'll see if that helps, or if I need to investigate further.

[Zapmeister]

I've noticed this as well (it's just happened again in a game I'm playing, but I'm not the host).

The thing is, the loss of connectivity always seems to happen just after the turn has hosted, which doesn't grok with the theory that it's caused by Windows or the hardware going to sleep after some period of idle time.

[Zapmeister]

Here's a wild theory totally out of left field.

In the cases where connectivity has been lost, I'm pretty sure I've been keen to get my turn, and tried connecting a couple of minutes after the due host time, only to get the "Waiting for game info" message. I've had to CTL-ALT-DELETE out since the window doesn't respond to anything else in that state.

"Damn", methinks, "it's still hosting". Then, after a few more minutes, I can't connect at all.

Could it be that attempts to connect while the server is hosting is what's causing the problem?

It can. Depending on the speed of the turns. Really big games late in the game and slow speed of the server it could cause large lag time to provide.