Saturn Japanese Xband games are back!

[SEGA RPG FAN]

Saturn online enthusiasts, this has been teased in a few places, but I would like to officially announce that the Saturn Japanese Xband games can now be played online!

Netlink owners have been able to play the North American Netlink games for a few years now using VoIP. The Japanese games can now use the same method. I've modified the Japanese games to direct-dial and bypass the matching server they would normally need. Xiden, in addition to helping me test everything, has added a major update to the main Netlink VoIP guide with all the details here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8453

Let the Xband games commence!

[Xiden]

Saturn online enthusiasts, this has been teased in a few places, but I would like to officially announce that the Saturn Japanese Xband games can now be played online!

Netlink owners have been able to play the North American Netlink games for a few years now using VoIP. The Japanese games can now use the same method. I've modified the Japanese games to direct-dial and bypass the matching server they would normally need. Xiden, in addition to helping me test everything, has added a major update to the main Netlink VoIP guide with all the details here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8453

Let the Xband games commence!

Thank you for all your hard work SEGA RPG FAN!

I think you all will be super pleased with all the new improvements made to the gameplay performance as well. This is quite a large change up of things. Please let me or Sega Rpg Fan know if you run into any issues with the guide or Saturn.dreampipe.net

[Anonymouse]

I am extremely interested in this and have a Netlink but havent tried it yet.

I haven''t checked in on Netlink stuff for over a year: has there been any improvements in lag since then? What is the lag like with the XBand games? A video would be great!

[Anonymouse]

Just ordered an SPA1001

[SEGA RPG FAN]

Gameplay is slightly improved with reducing speeds to 14.4k, fewer pauses and smoother gameplay overall. That said, there is still some improvement needed. Without getting too into technical details, these patched games eliminate a major barrier that existed to a dreampi based solution and work is being done on that front. For now though, VoIP is the best option we have.

[colgate]

Wow I'd love to read about how you patched the xband games, have you written something about that?

Sent from my Moto G Play using Tapatalk

[Anonymouse]

Sounds great. I look forward to testing it out. Are you saying that there is improvement to both US NETLINK games and jap XBAND games or just jap XBAND games?

Will a DreamPi solution offer a lower ping?

[Mechanic]

There was a guy who joined our discord chat last night during fragnight who said he was the creater of xlink or xband i forgot. We told him to join dctalk. Sounded legit

[Anonymouse]

There was a guy who joined our discord chat last night during fragnight who said he was the creater of xlink or xband i forgot. We told him to join dctalk. Sounded legit

That would be very promising if genuine.

[SEGA RPG FAN]

Wow I'd love to read about how you patched the xband games, have you written something about that?

Sent from my Moto G Play using Tapatalk

Some background:
The Netlink games and the Japanese Xband games are very similar in that they both use a version of the Xband OS. However, they're not similar enough that simply patching in the Netlink software would work. That's the first thing I tried with no luck. The Netlink games are designed to direct dial an opponent and you have complete control over the number dialed. The Japanese games first contact a matching server that passes along opponent info and their phone number then the systems direct dial each other. It's the matching server that hasn't been recreated and has been the reason these games remained locked out to us. I noticed that a certain developer disc contents were dumped online so I started looking at the Netlink documentation. This was useful for describing which xband files/programs were doing what. Most importantly though, the disc included a version of the xband OS that was intended for developers. It was described as essentially a translated version of the Japanese OS with direct-dial functionality bypassing the matching server. It turns out that this version of the OS can replace the Japanese retail OS.

Four main things were changed to the Japanese games:
1. The Xband loader program was replaced with the developer version - this bypasses the modem check and allows both Netlink and Xband modems to work.

2. The Xband OS and libraries were replaced with the developer versions

3. I wanted these games to be forward compatible with a Dreampi solution. This was a challenge because although you can call into the dreampi easily, the dreampi can't ring the phone line on the answer side of the connection. I made it so the answer side attempts to dial out first and connect to the dreampi while keeping that process invisible to the software. If using VoIP, the modem will go into normal wait for ring mode after ~5 seconds. Work is being done on a Dreampi solution, but VoIP still works in the interim.

4. In our testing, we found that 14.4K modem speed (what the JP modem uses) works better with VoIP. It uses a different modulation than the Netlink's 28.8K that seems to survive the VoIP audio encoding better. The games were modified to cap speed to 14.4K so that Netlink users can have the same experience as JP modem users.

Hope that's what you were looking for!