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The "For Matching Service" titles in Japan used encryption so it's not likely we'll be seeing private servers for those games until that gets cracked.

To be completely blunt, I kind of thought all the Japanese online games were a lost cause, so this is great to see.

Great news!
I hope that the author will finish the project.
I keep my fingers crossed and also for later adaptation to real Dreamcast hardware

@Rolly - There shouldn't be any "adaption" needed for this to work on real hardware. All the included patch does is make two small changes to the 1ST_READ binary:

1) Replaces the modem init string "ATN3+MS=V34,1,14400,33600,14400,33600" with this one "ATM1\r"
2) Replaces this made up domain "ca1203.mmcp6" with a static address "192.168.0.10" to the game server

If you're not using a real GD-ROM and are using an image on CD, you'll want to omit the second change or make it something easier to identify for the DNS resolution, like "gundam.dreamcast". Much easier to change a DNS address than it would be to edit the binary and make a new CD any time the IP changes.

dreamcast ™ wrote:@Rolly - There shouldn't be any "adaption" needed for this to work on real hardware. All the included patch does is make two small changes to the 1ST_READ binary:

1) Replaces the modem init string "ATN3+MS=V34,1,14400,33600,14400,33600" with this one "ATM1\r"
2) Replaces this made up domain "ca1203.mmcp6" with a static address "192.168.0.10" to the game server

If you're not using a real GD-ROM and are using an image on CD, you'll want to omit the second change or make it something easier to identify for the DNS resolution, like "gundam.dreamcast". Much easier to change a DNS address than it would be to edit the binary and make a new CD any time the IP changes.

So if Im understanding you correctly all this needs for real hardware is something akin to Sylverants PSO Patcher (or a CD Image of the game with it pre patched already) and its essentially "ready to go"? Minus actually long term server hosting?

@Banditpaw1 - From what I'm understanding reading through some of the GIT history, the modem init change was due to limitations in Reicast's modem implementation. The other change was just to avoid using a DNS server. Really, a retail copy of the game should work as is as long as you have a DNS server to resolve "ca1203.mmcp6". I'll know for sure either today or tomorrow.

dreamcast ™ wrote:@Banditpaw1 - From what I'm understanding reading through some of the GIT history, the modem init change was due to limitations in Reicast's modem implementation. The other change was just to avoid using a DNS server. Really, a retail copy of the game should work as is as long as you have a DNS server to resolve "ca1203.mmcp6". I'll know for sure either today or tomorrow.

if you are testing via dreampi I think you can add a iptables route to redirect the ip without any patching needed.

sudo iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp -d xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx -j DNAT --to-destination xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

just replace x's with whatever source and destination ip you need

Did not see this one coming! Really, really, really..... COOL! Looking forward to see how this one pans out, hopefully more JPN releases will follow.

dreamcast ™ wrote: 1) Replaces the modem init string "ATN3+MS=V34,1,14400,33600,14400,33600" with this one "ATM1\r"
2) Replaces this made up domain "ca1203.mmcp6" with a static address "192.168.0.10" to the game server

to play on a real console, these changes are not needed

This is quite an interesting turn of events. I too assumed JP games were a lost cause. Anyone have much contact with the dev?

I see there was a PS2 version of the game also. I wonder if both games would be running on the same sever.