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lan

How do games (such as Halo) scan the network to see if there are any LAN servers?

In Halo 1 for PC, you could open Multiplayer and search for locally hosted servers. In many other modern games you can do this too. How is this possible?

Solution

  • It's likely these games:

    • Send broadcasts ("is anyone out there?") and wait for answers
    • Send multicasts and wait for answers (see above)
    • Wait for others to shout ("Hey, I'm a server") via broadcasts / multicast

    Broadcasts and multicasts are propagated in the entire local network.