Regarding connecting with Dial-Up

[gbitz]

I don't really see much on it here in the sense of how to connect. I figure it's pretty straight forward. I was gonna pay for 56k dial-up. Once I do that, is it as simple as connecting the DC to 56k modem and inputting the right DNS?

[Gary_b]

There are many threads that speak about getting online. The Dreamcast has the modem already connected and it would be better to use a Dreampi than to pay for dial up. This is assuming that you already pay for high speed. You will pay for the Dreampi equipment one time and then you will be able to play all the dial up games for for no additional monthly fees.

To answer the question about how easy it is for using real dial up, yes it is pretty simple. You enter your login information such as user name and password, enter the DNS information etc an then you can play online. not many people pay for dial up these days though.

[gbitz]

I would usually agree but these games were optimized to run on 56k connection speeds and PSO should run okay without the BBA. I'm moving in two weeks anyway and idk if and when I'll be back on broadband. I know I can get a dial-up service for 8-10$ per month. I don't know what months and how long I'll play even, and if I can just plug it in and go, I'd rather do that then build a line voltage inducer and buy a pi2 and an sd card to flash the dreampi image to. If I buy the necessary cables to do that and the game I'll spend 100$+ anyway. I just wanted to know how simple connecting like this would be. And I literally just plug the DC into the phone line and input the necessary values and bam I should be good? And then if that's true I should just be able to burn the PSO Patcher and login right?

[gbitz]

Actually if I connect good old dial-up method and just use the PSO Patcher I shouldn't have to really do anything else to connect, right?

[HuntrRose]

if you want to play Quake and be at a competitive level you will want a BBA.. but for everything else.. nothing is easier or cheaper in the long run than a Pi... pcwzrd13 does a setup for around 70$ and youre done...

-edit to add-

sure.. a real dialup ISP would probably be the next best thing...

[Gary_b]

Actually if I connect good old dial-up method and just use the PSO Patcher I shouldn't have to really do anything else to connect, right?

possibly! once you have everything configured you should not have to mess with it thereafter. As far as speeds I am not sure why you even mentioned this? The Dreampi does not connect at broadband speeds it simply mimics dial up over broadband so that you would not have to pay for two types of service. there is another option and that is to build a dc-pc server, but this is pretty much the same basic idea that the Dreampi is. The only reason one would do this over a Dreampi is if they already had an old pc laying around and it might save that person money. consider that if you paid the $10 each month in 7 months time you would have paid for a Dreampi and in my opinion the Dreampi has faster and more consistent stable speeds than what I use to get over dial up. In either case you are limited to the 56k Dreamcast modem and if you are trying to spend less money now dial up might be your best option. You might even have a free service in your area. Here in Michigan we have free dial up service provided by dial in free. I have used Dial in free in the past and it worked ok, but this was years ago.

[Xiden]

I would usually agree but these games were optimized to run on 56k connection speeds and PSO should run okay without the BBA. I'm moving in two weeks anyway and idk if and when I'll be back on broadband. I know I can get a dial-up service for 8-10$ per month. I don't know what months and how long I'll play even, and if I can just plug it in and go, I'd rather do that then build a line voltage inducer and buy a pi2 and an sd card to flash the dreampi image to. If I buy the necessary cables to do that and the game I'll spend 100$+ anyway. I just wanted to know how simple connecting like this would be. And I literally just plug the DC into the phone line and input the necessary values and bam I should be good? And then if that's true I should just be able to burn the PSO Patcher and login right?

PSO should work on traditional dial up + patcher disc A few other Dreamcast games work too but I cant find the thread that lists the games that work with traditional dial up. But I recall pso being one of them

[Gary_b]

I would usually agree but these games were optimized to run on 56k connection speeds and PSO should run okay without the BBA. I'm moving in two weeks anyway and idk if and when I'll be back on broadband. I know I can get a dial-up service for 8-10$ per month. I don't know what months and how long I'll play even, and if I can just plug it in and go, I'd rather do that then build a line voltage inducer and buy a pi2 and an sd card to flash the dreampi image to. If I buy the necessary cables to do that and the game I'll spend 100$+ anyway. I just wanted to know how simple connecting like this would be. And I literally just plug the DC into the phone line and input the necessary values and bam I should be good? And then if that's true I should just be able to burn the PSO Patcher and login right?

PSO should work on traditional dial up + patcher disc A few other Dreamcast games work too but I cant find the thread that lists the games that work with traditional dial up. But I recall pso being one of them

All the current online games should work on real dial up. I would not want to play quake on dial up or without a mouse and keyboard though

It is worth mentioning that the type of phone service that you use might affect your ability to play Dreamcast games online using dial up. Back when we switched from AT&T to Charter my ability to connect changed. Charter provides their phone service through a cable modem and for some reason the the dial up provider did not work right over that type of phone service. We have moved to a new house sense then and I have never tested this house to see if that mattered, but it is not likely to be related to the house and is more than likely due to it not being a true phone line, like that you would get through AT&T.

[DR TEAMCAST]

Actually if I connect good old dial-up method and just use the PSO Patcher I shouldn't have to really do anything else to connect, right?

Yes, but make sure you get an ISP that doesn't need you to be running their browser or custom software to use the ISP. Netzero does this for example. Some ISPs give issues with DNS, but the ISP I had for real dialup didn't give me any problems. Then yes you pretty much input your ISP login and new DNS

[Gary_b]

Actually if I connect good old dial-up method and just use the PSO Patcher I shouldn't have to really do anything else to connect, right?

Yes, but make sure you get an ISP that doesn't need you to be running their browser or custom software to use the ISP. Netzero does this for example. Some ISPs give issues with DNS, but the ISP I had for real dialup didn't give me any problems. Then yes you pretty much input your ISP login and new DNS

this is true, juno is another one that does not work. There are a lot of little issues that come up with using modern dial up on such an old console. You should know that Magic Jack is reported not to work either.

The best dial up that I used on the Dreamcast was provided free to me by AT&T/SBC. It started as SBC, but was bought out by AT&T. It used to be that when you paid for their DSL service they provided you with free dial up. I do not know if they stil do this but it would be worth it for you to look into this as you would get both high speed and dial up for one price. It does look like U verse customers had free access to dial up as late as 2010
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r236978 ... s-with-DSL