It's been a while! Dusting off my collection during the plague!

[Macabre]

Hello old forum I used to spend so much time on! During the pandemic I've been sorting out a bunch of stuff I had in storage, including my massive Sega Saturn & Dreamcast collection. Got me missing a bunch of people from a different time of my life. Are radkin & kireek still around?

I used to post a bunch here & play PSO online with a number of members. Are the servers still live? Do they run the same boot disc? We were tampering with converting phone-to-digital so we could try and play using something other than the bba's - has there been much progress? I'd love to kick back w/ my ol RAcaseal and venture with people if it's still possible!

Last time I was active here the SD card reader things were just starting to show up and blueprints were avail for people to custom make boards, involving soldering SD card readers and cables to the the rear dreamcast serial port. But now I'm seeing all these new fangled GDEMU things everywhere. I did a little research - are they worth the time? I still have my (junky) custom serial port board I made years ago, but it seems like things have really progressed!


EDIT: oh damn I see a bunch of new games have been made available for online play again! Alien Front!? Whoever brought that back is my hero! Is bomberman online back online? That's one of those games where you can't unlock all the costume parts unless you play online matches and I've had the same save file for almost 20 years now hoping to one day unlock them all

I hope everyone is doing well!

[Bob Dobbs]

Hello and welcome back. A great many games are back online since you have been gone including two newly available online games, PBA Tour Bowling 2000 and Internet Game Pack (IGP). As far as PSO (or any other online game), you should go to Dreamcast-Live.net for resources (guides, downloads, etc.). The PSO Palace is also great for PSO Sylverant Server info and other TTY things PSO. To note, PSO Sylverant is the server Dreamcast-Live and Dreamcast-Talk members typically play on.

SMiTH, Impulse, Ives, PCwzrd13 (Teal'c of PSO) and myself are some of the many that are still active here that are from your original run here. We have a really knowledgeable and fun group of active members as a whole. We have BlueCrab and Shuouma amongst others who have done great work with online servers (once again, DC-Live for info).

Hope you enjoy your time here.

[mazonemayu]

Well well...look who’s still alive. Been a while mate

[pcwzrd13]

Welcome back Macabre! Long time no see!

Yeah, there have been a lot of developments in the Dreamcast scene since you've been away. Especially in the online area. We now have 22 online games to play (not counting games with leaderboards like MSR and Jet Grind Radio among others). There's a new way of connecting called DreamPi which uses a Raspberry Pi mini computer and a USB modem. It's much easier and more streamlined than previous methods and even has a PSN/XBL style service called Dreamcast Now to show when players are online and what they're playing.

In short, it's amazing how far we've come. Big shout-outs to Kazade for developing DreamPi and Shuouma for his server reserve-engineering magic! You can check out my website, Dreamcast Live, in my signature, which details pretty much everything to do with playing online.

you should go to Dreamcast-Live.net for resources

There's no dash in the URL Bob. The only info he'll get from that is what a 404 error is.

[Macabre]

Ah nice! Familiar faces all around!

Thanks for the heads up per online play, I'll have to get in on this. I still have my bba but where I live we don't actually have a modem for me to connect to.

A few follow-up questions;

Has there been any movement on the dreamcast link cable? Last I recall we were trying to make a known blueprint for it so we could try and research all the (un)developed games that had the link feature. I still have my hardware packed away from testing and duplicate game discs, but I can't seem to find the old thread(s) where this was talked about.

Also per that gdemu thing, I'm thinking about looking in to one to add to my collection. What's up with all the different versions? Did the individual who produced it get scammed by counterfeit makers, or was it supply vs demand?

Is there a difference in quality on these chips? Or does chip version matter? I see newer "versions" on ebay vs older, not sure if we control the software it runs or if newer=better.


I spent most of last night re-running RE3 on my dreamcast, which was the reason I pulled everything out. I wanted to re-live the glory of my favorite RE game before experiencing the new remake. My save files are all still intact, was tempted to crush the game with her gattling gun but elected not to. I used to be so good at this game that I could go through it in no time, and perfect the mercenary missions. I'm so rusty lol.

Next I'm going to test my memory on a pile of my favorite shmups. Are there still "new" shmups made for the dreamcast? I think the last "new" game I got was either Triggerheart Exelica or DUX.



EDIT - oh I did run in to a bit of difficulty rebuilding my normal setup. I used to use a wireless logitech original xbox controller I moded, dasychaining it's receiver to an xbox-to-ps2 adapter, that connected to a ps2-to-dreamcast adapter. Something in my little trash-hack broke over the years as something in this combination is no longer working.

I see there's a bunch of new bluetooth wireless genesis & saturn controllers available on the market now. Has the dreamcast been given any special treatment? Or are there any better wireless controller renovations?

[CD AGES]

Ahh! Now that's a familiar name from back when. Glad you're doing alright.

Yeah, prenty of DC titles back online which is always great news.

In regards to wireless controllers for DC, Retro Bit has been working on their wireless variation for the DC, but they keep delaying the release. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if they don't make out until next year at this rate.

[beanboy]

I was doing that the other day. Good thing I didn't have much dust to dust off of my games, since I always clean them every now and then. And my Evoluton 2 game, must be clean at all times.

[dark]

What's so great about Evolution 2?

[beanboy]

It's platinum.