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PBA Tour PC DC Cross Play: It almost works

Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2020 10:39 pm
by Ragfish
I was curious to see if the PC version of PBA Tour (called PBA Tour Bowling 2001) could connect online with the Dreamcast version that we all know and love. The answer is that it almost works. After setting my PC's DNS to 46.101.91.123 and setting up an account the same way I would on the DC version, I was able to enter the ShuMania lobby.

(sorry for the messed up image formatting, you can click them to view them properly)
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My Dreamcast was unable to find games created by the PC version, but the PC version could see and join games created by the DC version.
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Going to start the game caused an error on the PC version however.
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I don't really plan on messing with this further as my Dreamcast can't even play this game with other Dreamcast players, but it was neat to try it out since it doesn't seem like anyone has.

You can download the PC version here
https://www.myabandonware.com/game/pba- ... g-2001-dzh

Re: PBA Tour PC DC Cross Play: It almost works

Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2020 11:30 pm
by Bob Dobbs
Great go-at-it, mate! I will try it.

Re: PBA Tour PC DC Cross Play: It almost works

Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2020 1:32 am
by SMiTH
this is cool.

how many dc games work with pc players?

PSO, Quake 3 Arena, 4x4 evo? , Sega Swirl? , Max Pool? , Starlancer? , PBA?

If a pc online game works with dc then we should have isos of every compatible pc game here at dct.

Re: PBA Tour PC DC Cross Play: It almost works

Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2020 3:54 am
by Bob Dobbs
I will attempt this with my son this weekend.

Re: PBA Tour PC DC Cross Play: It almost works

Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2020 10:40 am
by pcwzrd13
It didn't work because PBA requires port forwarding so you can't play on two devices at the same time on the same network.

Re: PBA Tour PC DC Cross Play: It almost works

Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2020 10:41 am
by Ragfish
SMiTH wrote:this is cool.

how many dc games work with pc players?

PSO, Quake 3 Arena, 4x4 evo? , Sega Swirl? , Max Pool? , Starlancer? , PBA?

If a pc online game works with dc then we should have isos of every compatible pc game here at dct.

I can personally attest that PC versions of PSO, Quake 3, and Maximum Pool work with Dreamcast versions. Sega Swirl should work too, but I've never played it. 4x4 can connect to the Dreamcast lobby, but I didn't test an actual race. PBA almost worked for me, as shown above. I don't know for sure and obviously can't test it, but I believe Unreal Tournament might have had cross play too.

I haven't actually tried to play the other games that got PC releases together, but as far as I'm aware they might not work. I looked it up and found that Starlancer had different gamespy internal names and secrets for encrypted data between versions, which to me would indicate that they were probably separate. Worms World Party DC was missing a ton of features from the PC version so it probably wouldn't have made much sense to link them. The Next Tetris on PC doesn't seem to have online from what I gather. Monaco had online on PC but it's hard for me to find any information beyond that.

Re: PBA Tour PC DC Cross Play: It almost works

Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2020 10:43 am
by Ragfish
pcwzrd13 wrote:It didn't work because PBA requires port forwarding so you can't play on two devices at the same time on the same network.

It might not even be that, seeing as the PC version gave an error before it could even reach the screen where you select your bowler. Or maybe that's just what happens when port forwarding isn't set up, it's been a while since I tried playing this game online.

Re: PBA Tour PC DC Cross Play: It almost works

Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2020 10:46 am
by pcwzrd13
ReaderRagfish wrote:It might not even be that, seeing as the PC version gave an error before it could even reach the screen where you select your bowler.


Yeah that's usually where it fails if you don't have port forwarding set up.

Re: PBA Tour PC DC Cross Play: It almost works

Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2020 10:49 am
by Ragfish
pcwzrd13 wrote:
ReaderRagfish wrote:It might not even be that, seeing as the PC version gave an error before it could even reach the screen where you select your bowler.


Yeah that's usually where it fails if you don't have port forwarding set up.

Ah, got it. Then yeah, it's not a surprise that it wouldn't work within my own network. Would the needed ports be the same ones used for the DC version? I could try connecting to someone else on Dreamcast if they want to give it a try.

Re: PBA Tour PC DC Cross Play: It almost works

Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2023 1:10 am
by GRIANT
pcwzrd13 wrote:It didn't work because PBA requires port forwarding so you can't play on two devices at the same time on the same network.

Works opening ports via windows firewall?