Amid the buzz about the new 6.5 features, it's easy to have missed a significant under-the-hood improvement in 4D's networking architecture. This is that 4D v6.5's new network components will perform considerably better over "high-latency" connections than do the 4D v6.0 network components.

The performance improvements will be of interest to anyone running 4D over a WAN, dialup or Internet connection. The 4D v6.5 TCP network component uses fewer, larger packets to communicate between client and server. This means that the extra "latency" (transmission delay) that WANs, dialups and Internet connections have to deal with has less opportunity to slow down communication between 4D Client and 4D Server.

For this reason, 4D recommends that if you are running 4D over a wide-area or similar network via TCP, you should employ the v6.5 network components. Since these network components are incompatible with the v6.0 generation of Network Components, to use v6.5 NCs, you must ensure that you remove the v6.0 NCs and install the v6.5 NCs for all your 4D Clients and your 4D Server.

To install the v6.5 TCP Component into client and server v6.0 on a Macintosh:
1. Launch the v6.0 TCP Network component installer.
2. Click on the Open button.
3. Locate and open the client application in the dialog you see, as if it was a document.
4. Click on the delete button.
5. Repeat steps 2 through 4, but open and install into server.
6. Launch the v6.5 TCP Network component installer.
7. Click on the Open button.
8. Locate and open the client application as if it was a document.
9. Click on the Install button.
10. Repeat steps 7 through 9, but open and install into server.

Send the 4D Client application you modified in this process to everyone using 4D Client, so they will have the v6.5 network component. Tell them to delete their previous copy of client.

On the PC, you will need to ensure that the new TCP network component dll is in the \Windows\4D\Network folder (on NT, this will be the \WinNT\4D\Network folder). The file is called 4DNCTCP.dll, and will be in your Network folder after you run the v6.5 installer. Make sure that every machine involved, client and server, has the same Network components.

Also, you should delete the tcp.opt file you will find in \Windows\4D (on NT, in \WinNT\4D). Make sure that you do this on all client machines and the server.

This is all a lot more complicated to explain than it is to do. Once you have done it, you should notice a significant improvement in client performance over high-latency connections.