You could get libnet or HawkNL. Otherwise you would have to deal with windows sockets which are evil.

Although I haven't implemented anything yet, there is Raknet. Check it out, its got a full version for non-commercial projects, and as of today, is cross platform with linux. The interface seems to be really easy as compared to doing your own sockets.

I plan on checking it out when I have some free time. I looked into libnet and HawkNL as those seem to be two that the Allegro community loves, but on the whole seem somewhat lowtech. (Sorry for not mentioning GNE Gillius, but thats above my head until you get the high level stuff finished )

There are a few more nice networking libs floating around, my personal recommendation is to goto the gamedev.net networking forums and just try browsing around. Warning though, the gamedev crowd does not take kindly to stupid questions.

Good luck,
-Flecko

1. The .lib files are for MSVC, so you can't use them with MinGW/Dev-C++. You'll have to build it from the sources.

2. The problem lies with the pthread library that HawkNL uses by default for threading in Windows. Try this: delete the .o files that were created, and then add #define NL_WIN_THREADS in nl.h - this tells HawkNL to use native Windows threads instead of pthreads. Then recompile. This should work.

IIRC, there's no "make install" option, so you'll have to copy the relevant libraries and header files to the proper directories yourself.

[EDIT]
Weird. Now I can't get it to work. Anyway, since I still have libNL.a and NL.dll from before I lost my mojo, I uploaded them to my university account:
hawkcomp.zip [44 kB]

[EDIT 2]
It seems you can get it to compile - by manually removing -lpthreadsGC from the makefile.

Evil? Isn't WinSock a close clone of BSD Sockets? I used them to make an HTTP server. They are quite easy to use...

use the forum search, I found a thread that linked to several good resources for WinSock.

with the exception of doing ipv6 (takes special code) and doing asynchronous DNS lookups (get the lib adns for that) I think winsock and bsdsock are the best ways to do networking. the only exception is when you just want to throw some crap together. which I hope you aren't

as for hawkNL or any similar lib, I consider it close to crap. while it indeed brings you closer to the code you want, it adds another library dependance and 99% of it is just renamed commands.

the alternative (for those crap programs) is to move out all the stuff that makes sockets hard into "big" commands. but that will make you lose so much speed MS word will have higher FPS.

the best way is to make your own abstraction layer that suits your game the best - but then you will prefer to get your hands dirty because of the extra control it gives.

edit: and to really answer the first question:
winsock is the traditional bsd sock. only, you have to call a function at start and the #includes are different. so a simple #ifdef WIN32 will give you portability windows<->any other OS.

you forget I do C, not C++ that code surely does not look like ordinary sockets

Edit: but I have some well encapsulated code you can borrow that does what you want; just look me up on IRC if interested.

I'm dumb!. it had so much other "crap" with threads and stuff I started wondering what you were up to