Looking to get a new Router and/or Modem

[Bobbias]

I was hoping for an actual monitor, like the one in WoW. One that would work while I'm ingame and notify me of lag spikes and such. Plus, the windows ping requires me to set the default timeout value to something different if I want a real answer (WoW's will even tell you if you're lagging stuff like 2 seconds).

I guess if I could find a way to draw onto the game, like Fraps does, I could make my own pretty quickly, but that would require figuring out how to draw on the game's window, lol.

And no, I can't find the IP, because the file containing the IPs seems to be encrypted or something. It's extension is .ndt and it has a magic string at the opening that is NCR.

[Spectere]

You have dual monitors, right?  Start up a ping /t in a command prompt on one screen and run the game in the other.  Vista has a tendency of blanking one monitor if the resolution changes but as long as the resolution and refresh rates match up with the desktop resolution on the main display the second screen should continue to display as normal.

I'm not entirely sure what drawing onto the game's framebuffer would involve, but if I were to guess I'd say it would probably involve some interception.  I've seen plenty of things that do it (numerous trainers, fraps, and I think even Multi Theft Auto).  As for how to do it...*shrug*.  Perhaps it hooks into the Direct3D/OpenGL API in some way?  I doubt it would be a straight-forward thing.

And no, I can't find the IP, because the file containing the IPs seems to be encrypted or something. It's extension is .ndt and it has a magic string at the opening that is NCR.

Two other possibilities: (1) the IPs could be hard-coded into the executable (sort of doubtful) and (2) the IPs could be acquired from a sort of master server, ala Half-Life and numerous other games.  The client connects to the server, retrieves the list, and displays the names of the servers.

You could always connect to the server in question and run netstat on your system to see what it's connecting to.  If you're lucky, the server might even have an Internet-accessible hostname assigned to it.  That would make finding it very simple and obvious.

[Bobbias]

The IPs seem to be stored in an encrypted file. Actually, the .nds files seem to be common in the Atlantica folders, so I'm leaning heavily toward the idea of an encrypted file (possibly also capable of archiving multiple files in one, and then encrypting them all).

In any case, the lag mysteriously disappeared now... :/

And no, I don't have dual monitors with my laptop. The desktop in the basement running XP that my brother seems to think he owns now  has dual monitors. And I went over th Gamedev.net and asked them in their D3D section, and they linked me to a thing about hooking the D3D routines and inserting my own code in via DLL injection. Unfortunately, all the code is in C++, and I have not worked in C++ in way too long. I was hoping for it to be possible in C#, but seeing as how encapsulated C# is in some ways, I severely doubt it would work without even more work.

Also, if I write my own program after all, I won't use the ping /t command, because I want more control over my pinging. I'll earn what is necessary to actually do my own ping command.