Hooking up a DC online. Is it easy?

MillerTime2523

MillerTime2523

CAGiversary!
Feedback
119 (99%)
I am most likely getting a 2nd dreamcast soon. Now, I was thinking that I could get 4 controllers for both dreamcasts, and hook them both up online to play against some friends. (Think sports games.)

Would it be hard to hook up my Dreamcasts online? And does it matter that I have broadband? Also.. there are all these options that confuse me with the dreamcast lol. AND, would it matter that i am trying to hook up 2? I admit.. im a n00b lol and need help from CAG.

But my question is: Can my plan (easily) become a reality?
 
There are two problems with taking the dreamcast online.

1. The broadband adaptor is very expensive.
2. I don't know if any of the online games still have servers still active.
 
That's one thing I would like to know. The only way think I could go online is if I had a modem in my pc. I would use the modem to interface the dreamcast with the pc and then go out onto the internet with the broadband connection. I have no idea if that is possible though.
 
I believe Sega took down the servers in early 2004. If you still want the broadband adaptor for a browser or something it's kind of expensive on eBay.
 
There are no offical servers up. There are many fan made servers though. And some games do not need servers and have direct connections. Just google around for some fan servers.

I got everything except the computer to recognize the DC. I also could have had a faulty PC modem as I have never used it let alone installed drivers for it. And I also had trouble installing it when I tried to do it. If everything is working properly what that link says is very possible but a little complicated.
 
lol, ok.

See, here is what I was trying to set up.
Remember Arena on G4? Thats what I am trying to do with my dreamcast for games like Quake / Unreal / NBA 2k2 / NFL 2k2 with a bunch of my friends.
 
Has inspired me to go back and play the online features with the dreamcast. If I get it working again, I will post a FAQ
 
[quote name='MillerTime2523']lol, ok.

See, here is what I was trying to set up.
Remember Arena on G4? Thats what I am trying to do with my dreamcast for games like Quake / Unreal / NBA 2k2 / NFL 2k2 with a bunch of my friends.[/quote]

why not system link on newer consoles... soooo much easier than havign to link them up then set up this shit for old games.
 
[quote name='help1']why not system link on newer consoles... soooo much easier than havign to link them up then set up this shit for old games.[/quote]
Well for one.. I don't see myself coming across an extra xbox or xbox 360 anytime soon, or 2, I dont see myself coming across 8 Xbox/xbox 360 controllers anytime soon. With the DC I allready have 5 controllers (they are cheap too, thats also a good thing) And 2 Dreamcast systems. Also, I am a fan of the online games that I have for dreamcast, as opposed to the online games I have for xbox. For me, this arena type Idea I am trying to set up isn't really worth putting any money into (Ex. Buying a 2nd Xbox + Controllers, Buying a broadband adaptor, etc.) This is just kind of, Hey, I have 2 Dreamcast systems, 2 TV's, a handful of controllers, why not hook these up online together? Also, its not worth it $ since it will be used once or twice every few months.

Oh yeah, and thanks for the link Machine.
 
[quote name='dtarasev']You need to have dial up if you plan to just hook it up to a phone line

. There are ways to connect it to broadband through your computer though.

http://www.consolevision.com/members/mterlouw/

I tried it but I could not get it to work, I think my dialup modem is dead.[/quote]

This method DOES work well, I've tried it and it works.

There is 0 reason to get a BBA, particularly with this method available. The DC modem is a 33.6kb modem but because of the nature of dial-up, most people would only get like 5kbps anyways.

Running a PC/DC server with the above tutorial, the modem is going to be working at close to maximum speed, and 33k is more than enough for any game ever made for the DC.

Currently there are only a few DC servers still running. Most notably is the Starlancer server, which was recently reverse enginereed by a man named Luigi on GameSpy and is currently the only game with a permenant server (although Tetris and PBA bowling use a similar architecture, so they're roughly 80% complete, but not enough to be truely playable right now).

The problem is most games use the SNAP architecture which, according to Luigi, is very difficult to get running. So for now, there's not any work being done on getting those up and running (which is a shame, because I'd love to get some online Propeller Arena!).

So, basically... yeah, that solution does work and works well. There are games, although not many, still running. The potential exists for other games to have servers built, but right now no one is openly working on a generic solution for the vast majority of games.
 
I'm not very computer smart, but I might try the sharing broadband with the computer idea in the future so at least I can have another option of getting online even for just surfing.
Is there any way to connect using those Intec broadband network adapters that were originally intended for the PS2?
Is there also a cable that has the ethernet plug on one end and a phone plug on the other end?
 
[quote name='anotherpoorgamer']Is there any way to connect using those Intec broadband network adapters that were originally intended for the PS2?
[/quote]

No.

You can not make or modify a network adapter to work with the Dreamcast.

I investigated this awhile ago. It's custom hardware.

I've heard some people who think it's theorhetically possible to modify a stock Dreamcast Modem, but it's been widely (including the people who think it's possible) considered a fools errand since it'd take an epic amount of work (tons of hardware and software hacking).

There are two ways to get your DC working on your network-
1)The Dreamcast BroadBand Adapter.
2)The PC/DC Server mentioned in this thread.

The PC/DC Server isn't super tricky, the instructions on the site are pretty good. It took me a few hours. But even if you're really not good with computers, I don't think it would take more than a week (trial and error).

So if you're not really computer saavy you have a classic time/money trade-off decision to make.

What is worth more to you, the week it'll take you to get the PC/DC server up and running or the $200 a BBA might cost you?
 
I wonder if you could make a cable with a phone connector terminated on one end and an ethernet connector on the other end. The second drawing on this site looks like what I'm thinking.
 
[quote name='erehwon']I wonder if you could make a cable with a phone connector terminated on one end and an ethernet connector on the other end. The second drawing on this site looks like what I'm thinking.[/quote]

Wouldn't work either. Sure you could wire the pins up and plug it in, but then what?

If the Dreamcast has a modem in it, then it's going to expect to use it. It'll attempt to dial a server and establish a connection. Your network gateway would just ignore it, because it wouldn't be expecting that from another computer (your router will think the DC is a computer, which it is).

It'd expect a DHCP request and then it'd assign it an IP (if you have Dynamic IPs) and then your computer would send and ARP request to build it's ARP table (in very simplified terms, maybe not even in order. I'm not a big network guy).

The reason you need to hook it up to your PC is not because it has a phone jack in it, but because you need it to trick the DC into thinking it's connected to a server over a phone line (well, technically it is). So the PC is a vital part since it's the component that is going to tell the DC "Okay, your on the network now" and is going to be passing data to it.

I'm not aware of any modems that have direct dial support (so that you could dial into your home network from anywhere, for example). So the chances of your router being able to understand and negotiate such a request is probably slim to none.

Then again, one of the best things about routers is they're basically computers, so one could write the software needed for just such an instance. But at the end of the day, it's probably going to be a lot more work than just setting up your PC using the above tutorial.
 
I think that list will pretty much be up forever from that topic at GAMEFAQS. Thay's just about the exact same list that I saw when i was into the DC scene in 04
 
I think this topic could use a bump..

Dreamcast #2 and 4 controllers will be here thursday or so. Hopefully I can try to set this all up before then ( i doubt it lol )

Thanks for all the help so far guys!
 
There is a better reason for not getting a BBA- The vast majority of games do not support it. In fact, Most games are only designed to work with the modem. Even if you could get your hands on a BBA, the DC->PC via modem is highly preferred (unless you only plan on only playing the 6 or 7 games that support the BBA).

As far as hooking up numerous Dreamcasts goes, they would all need to "dial in" to your PC(s). You can get modems for your PC for cheap, ie:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16825180003

I was considering a while back setting up an old computer with linux and 4 or 5 modems and using it as a Dreamcast hub, but it sounded like a lot of work and I'm lazy :)
 
Can the dreamcast be used for normal Intenet, I mean besides games? I was wondering if it is a good alternative when there is no computer around. I know that the broadband adapter is expensive and hard to find, but what else are the pros and cons of using the dreamcast for web surfing?
 
[quote name='tangytangerine']Don't you need the Web Browser 3.0 for the broadband adaptor?[/quote]

I heard that too, hopefully it will work with the one included with the dreamcast.

I know the dreamcast contains a watered down version of the windows operating system. If I wasn't clear enough I was wondering if you could do things besides text based, I mean like watch movies on websites like youtube and play games that require java on yahoo or flash media type games?
Sorry I'm new to using a videogame console for online stuff, I looked on gamefaqs, but found nothing really about the quaility of the dreamcast/broadband adapter as a second computer. Thanks ahead.
 
Yes, DC can be used to browse the internet. Only certain Web Browser programs support the BBA. Luckily, there is a homebrew Web browser that supports the BBA. It's called XDP. You might want to search for "XDP Dreamcast Browser" or something.

As for the downsides... browsing with a controller sucks, you may need a mouse and keyboard. I don't know if XDP or any other browser supports flash and other things, I would just assume not. Also, the resolution sucks. Everything will be huge so it's readable on the TV.

Another idea would be to look into the Linux or BSD DreamCast projects. As far as I know they are able to run the said OS along with some applications. Certainly there are memory restrictions and I don't think Firefox is going to work on it. But if you want to play with LinuxDC or similar, a VGA out adapter is absolutely required along with the keyboard and mouse (FYI: there are DC->PS/2 adapters so you can use a regular keyboard and mouse instead of having to find the "official" ones). I read about being able to use a DC as a router/firewall on your home network and stuff like that, but don't go thinking that you can boot Ubuntu and surf with Firefox on DC, it ain't going to happen ;)

DC came with a version of WindowsCE but it was not used for any games because it was too slow and sucked. The original browser may have used it, but it doesn't support the BBA. Either way, WindowsCE was there to make porting PC games and programs to the DC easier. But the performance was terrible and the capabilities limited, so everything used DC's own internal OS.

The DreamCast can certainly be used in place of a computer, but with limited capability. Mostly with the Linux/BSD projects. If you want just web browsing on a TV, go with XDP. Remember that Linux for Playstation 2 was officially released by Sony and came with a keyboard/mouse/harddrive/BBA and that was fairly usable as a desktop computer replacement. But those are nearly impossible to find. I don't know how active any projects are for the DreamCast. I certainly haven't seen any "click here, burn this, and you magically have a working desktop OS" projects. Good luck :p

http://linuxdc.net/
http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/dreamcast/

Offtopic, but PS3 is supposed to come with Linux on it's harddrive so you could plug a keyboard/mouse and actually use it as a computer. I think it has sufficient RAM to run common apps such as Firefox as well.
 
^Thanks Slash, I got a dreamcast keyboard and have a Dreamcast hooked up to a Sony PSone lcd screen. The controller as a mouse sounds challenging, now to figure out the connecting with the PC or finding a broadband adapter.
 
[quote name='Emperor Bohe']Say I were to hook up my Dreamcast to my phone line right now, when I go online, would I have to pay any fees?[/quote] You need a dial up connection of some sort (AOL, NetZero, etc). There are no fees besides that because it's the same as if you dialed up to the internet on a computer.
 
Well I had this problem before with a computer that only had Dail up network adpater.

I was thinking that with this method we might be able to talk with telephones for free or create a program like that.

Right now I use the main Ethernet connection where my computer acts like router.

I was thinking about the NDS connection where you could just establish a whole seprate network with the wireless USB adapter.

What I was thinking we could run oru own mini server via
Dail up Network cards and the Dreamcast would dial into the computers sever.
I was thinking it could be something other then 192 since that is the main address of all networks and BAMN instant game server or even extra network.

ON the topic of the NDS network wouldn't a wireless phone jack adapter to usb work also?

I have seen a couple of them out there and here and they work preety well with the phone line.

Or we could have a network like the NDS on this wireless/dail up network?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
bread's done
Back
Top