Im have trouble here. I have 2 computers with Win ME and bought a new computer with Win xp on it for a total of 3. My Me comps play lan games together no problem but xp will not play. if i host the game on xp the other computers can see the game but hangs if i try to connect to it. Any help would greatly appreciated

i did that is didnt work. I can file and print share without any problems. just can play a single game over lan. I've tried diablo 1 and 2 Age of empires 1 and 2 Starcraft need for speed 3 and porche unleashed and a few others. The 2 Me machines work togeter fine but cant join or host a game with xp

I can play games online no problem, and can join a game from me machine hosted on xp using an ip address but most of the game dont allow that only a handfull do.

When playing lan games on the ME machines i use ipx/spx

Do those games use IPX/SPX normally? What protocols do you have installed on the WinXP box? Can your WinXP and WinME clients talk to each other doing other things (file and print sharing)?

I can file and print share just fine. the protocal's i am using are IPX/SPX compatible on the ME machines. on XP its says NWLink IPX/SPX/netbios compatible transport protocal. Is there a difference?
Im very new to the nt line of os might be something very simple im missing.

Do you have TCP/IP installed as well on these systems? It sounds like you have IPX installed properly, and if you can file and print share using only IPX then name resolution and connectivity are working well too. I don't know if these games require IPX/SPX, or if they can use TCP/IP as well, but I would suggest installing TCP/IP as your primary protocol anyway.

Honestly, I am fairly limited in gaming with IPX, since I only used Kali to play online (it had some funky interpreter/translator to let IPX/SPX games work over TCP/IP) in the few games that did need it.