Page 14 of 18
Re: Unreal Tournament - Status
Posted: Fri May 20, 2022 8:08 pm
by korni
Someone from ut99.org tried to go ahead with the online functions:
https://ut99.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1 ... ow#p133149
He wrotes:
Calm down friends, for those who don't know I'm trying to revive the online function of this game on the Dreamcast. I managed to revive the master server, open the server, had some texture and map errors and all were successfully bypassed. No one has gone that far in this process. The player has successfully connected and appears on the map, but still needs some adjustments. What I was looking for is someone who could decode this content of these files for me, so I can keep trying to adjust the server. I'm sorry for having created three different topics, but it's because the mistakes of the previous ones were different and have already been overcome, some with private help from the same community. I am so grateful for all your efforts. Just ask for one last help with this decoding, contacting one of the developers of this version, he told me that this file is similar to engine.u with the same encoding and that the old unreal communities could help me. Thanks to everyone and sorry again.
Re: Unreal Tournament - Status
Posted: Fri May 20, 2022 11:50 pm
by Xiden
korni wrote:Someone from ut99.org tried to go ahead with the online functions:
https://ut99.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1 ... ow#p133149
He wrotes:
Calm down friends, for those who don't know I'm trying to revive the online function of this game on the Dreamcast. I managed to revive the master server, open the server, had some texture and map errors and all were successfully bypassed. No one has gone that far in this process. The player has successfully connected and appears on the map, but still needs some adjustments. What I was looking for is someone who could decode this content of these files for me, so I can keep trying to adjust the server. I'm sorry for having created three different topics, but it's because the mistakes of the previous ones were different and have already been overcome, some with private help from the same community. I am so grateful for all your efforts. Just ask for one last help with this decoding, contacting one of the developers of this version, he told me that this file is similar to engine.u with the same encoding and that the old unreal communities could help me. Thanks to everyone and sorry again.
Does this guy have a DCTalk account. I bet shu could help give him. Imagine having two game reverse guys in dc world. I need to reach out to the guy who reversed gundam to see if he has in other dc games in the pipeline.
Re: Unreal Tournament - Status
Posted: Sat May 21, 2022 8:22 am
by pcwzrd13
Unfortunately this is no farther than anyone else has gotten. Shu and I have gotten just as far as this just playing around with the PC server config and files. Bypassing the texture errors makes no difference. The PC and DC servers are fundamentally different and aren't compatible with each other.
Couple screenshots from my testing last year:
Re: Unreal Tournament - Status
Posted: Sat May 21, 2022 8:54 am
by ncman071
i know the secrets on how to get this game back online...i will be willing to leak these secrets out 1 word at time at a cost of $8,000 per word....no more...no less...and it has to be in pennies
Re: Unreal Tournament - Status
Posted: Tue May 24, 2022 12:32 pm
by korni
Xiden wrote:
Does this guy have a DCTalk account. I bet shu could help give him. Imagine having two game reverse guys in dc world. I need to reach out to the guy who reversed gundam to see if he has in other dc games in the pipeline.
Off:
The Japanese version of Capcom vs SNK 2 for Playstation 2 contains the debugsymbol list and is cross compatible with the Dreamcast version. So it is possible (or at leas easier) to reverse engineer the playstation 2 version. Based on this information I think the chance to bring back the network mode of the game is the highest at the moment.
Re: Unreal Tournament - Status
Posted: Tue May 24, 2022 3:38 pm
by moi
pcwzrd13 wrote:
Unfortunately this is no farther than anyone else has gotten. Shu and I have gotten just as far as this just playing around with the PC server config and files. Bypassing the texture errors makes no difference. The PC and DC servers are fundamentally different and aren't compatible with each other.
Couple screenshots from my testing last year:
utdc.jpg
join.png
That's a bummer.
PS:
When researching older Q3A betas released by LaurentC I've noticed those versions having a different folder structure, way more similar to the PC version such as not using the the "4 zip files for each map" format of the final game.
Maybe those UT99 betas LaurentC had uploaded might also feature older versions of the engine , more similar to the PC version helping at eliminating the "entry.dat"-issue mentioned in the said topic on the UT formus?
Re: Unreal Tournament - Status
Posted: Tue May 24, 2022 3:55 pm
by korni
Where to find these betas from UT?
Re: Unreal Tournament - Status
Posted: Tue May 24, 2022 4:28 pm
by pcwzrd13
The only beta I know of is on Hidden Palace and it's the PAL version so it has no online mode.
Re: Unreal Tournament - Status
Posted: Tue May 24, 2022 5:18 pm
by korni
Has anyone looked at the botpack.u file? If I saw it correctly, it contains some functions from the client side.
Re: Unreal Tournament - Status
Posted: Fri May 12, 2023 5:15 pm
by webcd
pcwzrd13 wrote:
Unfortunately this is no farther than anyone else has gotten. Shu and I have gotten just as far as this just playing around with the PC server config and files. Bypassing the texture errors makes no difference. The PC and DC servers are fundamentally different and aren't compatible with each other.
Couple screenshots from my testing last year:
utdc.jpg
join.png
Do you know what version you had working up to this part? How did you get the server list to appear on your Dreamcast for the game UT99?
It's been a long time since I've seen that screen.
I think custom maps in the game might be causing connection issues. The weapons (such as the redeemer), character skins/voices, and music/ambience in the maps are also different from the PC version. It's possible to identify patterns in the server debug needed for the client(DC), but it depends on the specific server you're running.
Everything on the server/host also has to make sure it's
under the Dreamcast's 16mb of RAM.
Any map or patch that doesn't completely match the dreamcast's version will most likely fail. All other addons/plugins must be disabled and some of those server patches probably won't work with the client's (DC) build.
Despite the challenges, it's amazing that you were able to get the game running to this part and I'd love to tinker with it myself. UT99 was a big part of your online multiplayer experience in 2002 and you still enjoy playing it today on PC.
UPDATE: In the early days of Unreal Tournament Dreamcast multiplayer (around 2001), there was a glitch where players could enter the console command 'PAUSE' which would freeze te game for everyone until someone else typed the same command again. This was fixed with a server patch by late 2001 or early 2002. They had to patch this on the server side because there were no updates that could be sent to Dreamcast player.
However, I have noticed that I cannot access the console in single player mode with the keyboard, and the trick of using 'say' or 'teamsay' (and backspaces) to access the console doesn't work for me. It's possible that different versions of Unreal Tournament allow for console access in single player mode but I do not recall. Additionally, I have noticed that my version of the game does not have the Secret Level intro music.