Hi there. I used to run a Win2k server with Worldgroup and TWGS installed. Today I turned the BBS on again but in a VMware environment on a big linux server. No problem, I figure, since the games aren't very resource intensive.

To my surprise, when TWGS is running, it screws up when clients try to talk to the game, but more importantly it messes up time altogether on the windows machine and throughout the Worldgroup BBS. In one of the mud games I run the timers that govern your rate of attack runs seemingly in slow motion.

Can anyone speculate as to why this is happening? It seems like TWGS functions based upon some interrupt hacking, which might explain its problem running under vmware. Thanks for your thoughts and hopefully we can get this back up to speed! I'm missing my trade wars!

From a trouble-shooting stand point you you need to find out whether its VMware, the BBS or the door.  Leave the VMware container running, shut down the door and see if that changes anything.

If the issue still happens then its either the BBS or VMware. You see where this is going.

Post back the results and we can go from there.

Thrawn runs a lot of stuff in VMware so I am sure we can work toward a solution.

Cerne

Here are a couple links that are related to VMware, Windows 2000 and clocks
Link1 - This is a PDF
Link2 - A thread from the VMware forums

windows also has a time service that has been known to give twgs fits.

MS Windows issue?  NO, cant' be.  Any and all programs that run on the wondows environment have to be Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista approved, or it may contain erros making it incapable of running in the windows envoronment.  Please contact your software manufacture and ask them to spend millions to make it compatible with the windows environment you're trying to run it on. 

Interesting. I'd do some testing - turn off one application at a time, see if the problem still exists, if it does restart the application and shut off the next application., rinse and repeat.

If this doesn't find the problem (and I suspect it won't) things get complicated. I should be around for most of the next week, feel free to ICQ me. If I'm not on your list mentioned Trade Wars in your application to be added so that I know you are legit.

I also am having the same problem.
I am running TW2002 on Windows 2000 which is a virtual server under VMware.
I am not running a BBS door, just TWIGS server so your problem is not with your BBS programs.
My VM server is running Redhat Linux at the host computer. My game is running on a virtual using Windows 2000. I also have another Virtual running the Webs server under Fedora core 5.
I have noticed the clocks on the Host and the Linux virtual are working correctly. Just having the issue on the Win2k with TW.
I have also installed winsync to adjust the time every three minutes with an external time server, but still loosing a lot of time. Several hours a day:-(
I am looking forweard to any help or ideas on this
Commander Data
http://www.mytradewars.com
telnet://mytradewars.com

By George, I think I got it
Been working great for over an hour now.
Make sure you have VMware tools installed for the Win2k Virtual host. Then open VMtools. The icon might be in your SysTray by the clock. If not It's accessable hrough the contral panel.
Then in the VMware Tool Properties ---> Options
Check the box for Time Syncrozation between the virtual machine and the host.
If you need to have your computer sync with a time server, do it from the host, not within the virtual machine as this can cause problems
There is a very good explination of this here:
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/micros ... .do?cmd=di splayKC&docType=kc&externalId=http--wwwvmwarecom-pdf -vmwaretimekeepingpdf&sliceId=pdfPage_15&docTypeID=D T_PRODUCTDOCUMENTATION_1_1&dialogID=6653164&stateId= 0%200%206649852
Commander Data
http://www.mytradewars.com
telenet://mytradewars.com
 

I just returned to see this discussion, and I learned this the hard way too. I run 2k in a VMWare Virtual Server. I had my clock sync to my time server internal and it caused issues on my end. I too had to check the time sync for virtual and host. Sorry I could not post earlier on this.

Thank god for VMWare Tools

I have TWGS running under vmware, and havent seen the time issue. but the twgs when left alone for a while. When i go to down the server it crashes? I have to taskmanager it closed then reopen it.. It will work for a while then if you click on any button CRASH? could this have anything to do with time?

BTW this is running under server 2003

Might depend on the OS you are running your TWGS on and the amount od RAM you have allocated for it.
I ran mine with Redhat Linux as the VM host and WIn2K for the virtual running TWGS. I had allocated 512MB RAM for the Win2K server. You may have insufficient memory alocated to it. I have 1GB RAM in my server.
I was also running another Virtual server on that box with Fedora core 5 and using it to run an Apache Web Server.
I had a few gamers complaining of high ping times so I moved my TWGS server to it's own PC running WinXP (Home Edition) and it's flying now with decent ping times.

Well lastnight I built a windows XP pro virtual machine and set it for 512 megs of ram. It did the same thing. I even tried running it as a service same issue. I wonder if has to do with my vmware. I running the VMWARE EX server edition. I guess I could put a box togther and make it my tw server but thats a waste of hardware and space.

In the long run, it's better to run TWGS on it's own machine rather than in VMWare. I'm using VMWare for all other apps now and the TWGS is on it's own box.