[MUD-Dev] OpenTNL and DirectPlay (hardware acceleration)

[Harlan Beverly]

As ya'll know, I'm interested in hardware acceleration of networking
(and some related functions) for purposes of squeezing CPU
utilization and Network Latency out of online and LAN games.  I'm
making some progress on the idea, and ran across a tangent, that I
thought might be interesting for discussion here.

I've found two standard Gaming network APIs out there: OpenTNL and
DirectPlay.  Both provide variable Service reliability, and add some
cool features as well (such as Interpolation, Scoping, and
Security).  The question for discussion are:

  1) anyone have any idea of how many games are supporting these
  APIs?

  2) Any thoughts by the list here of what features in these APIs
  might be accelleratable by hardware packet inspection and
  connection state management (by hardware)?

  3.) OpenTNL is open, but Directlplay is not... any idea how hard
  it would be to get MS to let me put our hardware API into the
  software API.  (e.g. hardware support in the API itself (with
  patch)) [similar to what NVIDIA and ATI are doing with DirectX]

  4.) Am I barking up the wrong tree with this tangent?

Thoughts,
thanks,
Harlan.
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