Maximum Active Connections? - Winsock Control

[WarrenW]

What is the most anyone has reached for active connections with the Winsock control as a TCP server? A couple people have said 100 is the most I could do. Other control developers have said they have reached 7,000 connections with 3rd party controls.

I want a tcp server setup for the client to connect and stay connected until they close the program. This way I can have an active list of all active users anytime. I can't have them log off and back on every 5 minutes to see if they are on - it needs to be a constant active tcp connection. There won't be hardly any transfer between the client and server either.

The machine would be a 800Mhz with as much memory as it will accept.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

It would accept as much effort you put into tweaking the code. For example if you're not going to Unload elements in the Winsock array, you'll run out of memory sooner or later. Have plenty of eror handling and recovery code to prevent the program from dropping out. Expect timeouts and delayed transfers from clients.

Only staying connected won't be too complicated, but once data transfer starts, keeping several hundred clients stuck together gets harder.