WiFi Communication Between PPCs

[gregmills]

Is it possible for two PPCs to find each other and establish a connection over WiFi without some type of router in the mix?

What I'm looking for are applications that will allow things like file transfer, IM and multiplayer gaming to occur between WiFi equiped PPCs. I've found programs that use Bluetooth and even IR for those purposes but not 802.11

[Darius Wey]

Is it possible for two PPCs to find each other and establish a connection over WiFi without some type of router in the mix?

What I'm looking for are applications that will allow things like file transfer, IM and multiplayer gaming to occur between WiFi equiped PPCs. I've found programs that use Bluetooth and even IR for those purposes but not 802.11

I don't see why not. WiFi connections can work over a router or via ad-hoc (two devices connected directly to each other) connections. There may be a setting on the PPC for you to enable an ad-hoc connection.

[Sven Johannsen]

You certainly can do this, but it is a PITA. That is mainly because both PPCs need to be manually configured for AdHoc mode and all the IP settings entered by hand...unless the kind game programmer, or whatever, can code in that setup. Generally the reason the router based setup works so easily is because the router has a section in it that supplies IP information via DHCP. It hands out IPs subnet masks, gateway addresses, DNS #s, etc. For AdHoc all you need is IPs and Subnet masks, but still, they need to be compatible with each other.

[gregmills]

I would prefer to have an application that would let the devices "discover" each other and setup the ad hoc network automatically. Or even specialized applications like IM that would configure themselves for communication.

However, if once I configured my device to connect to someone elses I had a more flexible connection that would allow me to everything I normally would be able to do over a network then the extra setup process doesn't bother me that much. I wonder if there are any good web pages out there that would walk me through how to set it up.

[Jeff Rutledge]

I recall an app called Colligo that (I think) did something similar. Maybe do a google and see what you get.