Free Xbox Live Mutiplayer Replacement - XBConnect
Saturday, April 5th, 2008Microsoft charge $5 / month for access to their online multiplayer network, Xbox Live. I don’t really think it’s fair since the freaking games cost at least $50.00 each, then you’ve got to pay more to enjoy them to their full extent. I remember coming across some PC client that allowed XBox online gameplay for free, so I went in search for it.
A few posts on forums suggested a program called XBConnect - so I downloaded and installed it. So far, so good - it found my brothers’ XBox and found a bunch of games. Then, a problem. Every time I tried to join a game, “Console Activity” would flash, and then the attempt would time out and the XBConnect game window would close. A problem, indeed.
- XBConnect’s FAQ mentions that forwarding the port 8602 may improve the situation. Not for me, though.
- Allowing this port in Windows Firewall didn’t help
I was getting pretty pissed off by now, after about 50 minutes it still wasn’t joining games. Fortunately, XBConnect has a chat room within the program and the people seem to be nice - they helped me. I needed to enable ‘Use WinPCap Library‘ in the general options. That’s all I had to do. Conclusion:
XBConnect Game Window Closes When Connecting - Timeout
Solution:
- Enable ‘Use WinPCap Library‘ in ‘Tools -> Options -> General Options‘
- Forward the port 8602
- Have fun!