Online Help - FAQ


  • Disconnection & Reconnection

    Disconnection
    GameColony has fast & underutilized servers & a direct internet backbone connection via an extremely fast 100 MB/S full duplex lines. Depending on your location, however, there can be up to 20-30 intermediate networks that connect you to GameColony - each of them is a potential point of 'occasional' failure. Although it is quite rare, but GameColony.com Tier 1 network has short term outages as well. To minimize the chance of a disconnection, when you are playing avoid whenever possible to download files, receive mail, or use ICQ or other bandwidth-consuming applications. The fewer appl ications you are running, the better.
    If you keep experiencing connection problems, please run the following command in your DOS window:
    tracert gamecolony.com

    The output will show your REAL connection speed and various bottlenecks as the information packets flow through MULTIPLE networks from your location to GameColony.com. You can run this diagnostics multiple times for comparison, especially at the time the problems appear.
    Your speed may seem slower due to the slowness of the OVERALL connection (i.e. net congestion) as seen from your location. Again, this may vary with time....The rule of thumb: if at a ny point it will be shown in the output of the above 'tracert' command that travelling from one 'hop' to the next one took more than 300 milliseconds -- you might think of changing your ISP provider...
    If you have a modem-based connection - it really belongs to the previous millenium. Please inquire whether DSL or at least cable connection is available in your area. Those are up to 100 times faster and far more reliable...

    Reconnection
    In the case of a temporary internet disconnection or browser-related problems [such as with old Windows 95, 98 systems and Windows 98-based Windows ME], GameColony provides you with the capability to reconnect without penalty to the same game. Reconnection without penalty has its limits -- your opponent will only wait for up to 5 minutes for you to reconnect. To reconnect, re-establish your Internet connection (you may have to close/re-open your browser, re-dial your ISP, etc.).
    Recommended way to reconnect:
  • Do not close your table at all!
    Instead.. start closing ALL of the other browser windows. The table, then, will close by itself.
  • Now restart browser & proceed to the same room to continue your game.


    * When the server detects that one of the players had lost connection, the remaining player will see a dialog, explaining the situation and showing the countdown (starting with 5 min). This time interval was introduced to allow the opponent to reconnect while the countdown is in progress. After the countdown reaches zero, the remaining player will have the opportunity to Abort the game OR to Take a win OR to keep waiting for opponent to reconnect.
    * There is also now an additional capability to reconnect to the same game in progress in case of problems other than loss of connection (e.g. local browser-related problems) - to accomplish that you can start closing the table (e.g. via the standard 'x' control in the upper right) and when the warning dialog appears select the 'reconnect' button. The above method can in most cases reload the applet and re-establish connection to the game.
    * While the game is continuing, it is even possible to fully reboot your machine and reconnect to the game. By default, you will have 3 minutes to do it unless your opponent allows you more time (by pressing 'Wait again' button)
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  • AOL & disconnection issue
    For AOL connection, there is usually a timeout in place & AOL will try to disconnect you if you do not use their services for a certain period of time. To counteract this, you may download a publically available program: KillTimer . You can download it at zdnet.com.. Your AOL is almost useless without it!
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  • Macintosh Issues
    Browser support for Macs is a bit different -- only Microsoft for now supports Java 1.1 for Macs & only Internet Explorer version 4.5 or later will work. Apple has made available a new java add-on (Macintosh Runtime for Java 2001-06-05 5.1 MB   HERE) which, when installed on your computer, should save the day when surfing on a java-powered site like GameColony  
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