DCnet is here for Flycast and Dreamcast to be able to play native online games!!!

[Nexus222]

Hi guys, Today I have some HUGE updates/new for you all out there! So last week, Flyinghead once again made our Dreamcast experence even better, and released DCnet. Sense it has come out, everyday he has been adding more features, and more games, and stability fixes, and currently, the playerbase is amazing already! Were going to talk abit about what it is, why you should care, and what its doing for all of us not just in the Flycast community, but the Dreamcast Community as well!

What Is DCnet?
DCnet is the way forward for most Dreamcast native online multiplayer. Most don't know this, but the DC was the first home system to come with a modem built in for online play. MANY games had these features built right in. Obviously most of these servers have gone down over time, but there are HUGE dedicated fans that have revived these servers and even the internet pages you could access from within the games! Flycast has made this so much easier. Now you can connect with flycast to the online servers, but there are many restrictions and a complicated for many setup involved, making it a pain and most people avoid this. This is where DCnet comes in. DCnet, is hosted by Flyinghead, and can be connected thru Flycast or a realdreamcast with some tinkering, and the best part, no setup, and many more network connections will be able to be used, like Open Wifi, and cellular networks. In most cases, you just go to FLYCAST SETTINGS>NETWORK>and TICK "DCnet" and you are all set! The player base is growing super fast, and on the offical flycast discord *link is on our Subreddit info to avoid reddit filters from marking this post* which has a DCnet Text chan that announces when players have joined a game or is waiting, which many use to jump in when they see others and so on. To ensure consistant gameplay, join up and utilize this, *More games are being added to the server currently*

How Do I Use DCnet?
It is VERY simple. First, google "Dreamcast CI Releases" and use the resulting git link to get the DEV release of Flycast for ANY system you are on, [Android, IOS,Win,Lin,Switch,Xbox,and so on], if you are updating your current install, just extract the single "Flycast.exe" and paste it in your current flycast directory [ Rename the current Flycast.exe in there to FlycastBKP.exe if you want to ensure a back up] then run it, go to settings>Network> Tick "USE DCnet", and then enjoy! No NAT or PORT FWDING any more, no network restrictions like their used to be, you can playu this over your phones network if you want, works GREAT.

What Games Currently Are Supported?
Ooga Booga

NFL 2K2

NFL 2K1

NCAA 2K2

NBA 2K2

NBA 2K1

World Series Baseball 2K2

Internet Game Pack

ChuChu Rocket!

DeeDee Planet

Monaco Racing Simulation 2

Pod Racer

Planet Ring

Toy Racer

Quake

F355 Challenge - Passione Rossa

Each game is the USA version only, except any games that only had a EUR release, then currently thoes are the only exceptions, like Toy Racer. FlyingHead is CONSTANTLY adding new games, so check back DAILY to ensure you are keeping up with the current library of supported games.

~SUPER IMPORTANT INFO YOU MUST KNOW~
Many games [like the 2k Games] Will ask for a username and password once you login to DCnet. Register your acount BUT NOTE. YOUR USERNAME AND PASSWORD MUST BE 6 CHARACTERS. ANY LESS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. From here you can now say " I have an account" when asked, and use your login you made initally when going thru Reg.

GO TO FLYCAST> SETTINGS> CONTROLS> and the tiop half of the screen where all the devices plugged in [Mouse, Keyboard, Controllers, Etc] to the right of "Keyboard" select PORT D, then on the lower half of the screen where it shows you the 4 ports and what is hooked up to them, for PORT D, click the drop down and select keyboard. You should now be able to use this to type where ever there are TEXT BOXES in chat, logins, and game things.

F355, aside from Quake, is the most played game, and there is a trick to ensure fast load ups, and to ensure your name is not "No Name" when racing. Go to OPTION>GAME SETTINGS> USERNAME to set your username that will show on the discord announcment page [ Join to ensure consistant game play] and in the game its self, then at the main menue go to CAR SETTINGS, set your car number and color and other adjustmensts here. NOW IMPORTANT PART HERE... YOU MUST SAVE BOTH IN THIS CAR SETTINGS MENU, AND ON THE HOMEPAGE. When you load back in to play, you MUST LOAD the CAR SETTINGS AND THE GAME PROFILE from the MAIN MENU.
PRO TIP: After you do both loads, SAVESTATE on Flycast. Then when you boot the game, you can instantly hit LOAD STATE, and it will load both your car and user profiles, and you just need to go to network connections. This is PERFECT for when you see a user join up on the discord and want to join that race.

UPDATE FLYCAST DAILY. Flyinghead is releaseing updates jsut about every day right now for DCnet, so to ensure you get every fix, and addition, you must download the updates as often as you can.

IN ORDER TO PLAY ON ANDROID!.... Currently the DEV, NOR, the Stable Google Play Store versions have DCnet. It is coming very soon, but if you want to play on android, you MUST downlaod the Android DEV release from the FLYCAST CI GIT REPO [Google that} and manually install, and once its live on the dev path for GPS, you can switch back to ensure auto updates occur when using GPS.

The Flycast Discord has a DCNET text chan, and you can set that to announce when a message is posted, the only messages posted in there are the bots showing whos waiting to playonline, and using this can ensure you always find a player!





ALSO.... can we do everyone here a favor... if you want to just be negitive and nag, and start issues, can we just....not? There have been so many people here that I have met that hace just STOPPED doing projects/working on things for the rest of us to enjoy, because users that do NOTHING,l come in and bring everything/everyone down. This world has enough hate in it, let us fix that!

[Scrivani]

Debuting on DCNET with a real Dreamcast console.

First tests.

With instructions from flyinghead, a small change was necessary in the DreamPi Python script, where:

1 - Modems establish a connection (ATA), as usual.

2 - Replacing the native pppd process on the RaspberryPi, giving way to the call of a NETCAT process, which will divert all modem traffic (ttyACM0) to the established VPN tunnel.

3 - DCNET cloud server hosts the pppd service and the server services for each game.

4- Since both actors are within a virtual private network, the immediate benefit is that it eliminates the need for port forwarding for those games that require it.

I understand that it is very positive as server redundancy, however, the audiences are isolated. Especially positive for people who do not have the ability to have functional port forwarding from their Internet providers.

A simple shell script process can help to switch between a traditional DreamPi script and the script with the small tunneling change for DCNET.

However, I believe the main target audience will be Flycast users on mobile devices, who will be able to play games that require DMZ/port forwarding, using any internet signal, even a mobile connection.

I think this is a great achievement and deserves congratulations, very interesting, both the functionality only for Flycast, and this welcome integration capability with DreamPi.

EDIT:
Still on tests , flycast vs dreamcast not working at the moment (VC games)

[Holsten]

so what is going on here? a lot of those games i already played online on flycast and real hardware?

[Holsten]

is it just playing on flyinghead servers instead of shuouma´s servers?

[Scrivani]

DCNET Server - Ooga Booga - 2 Players per console - Split Screen mode



Using Dreampi + DCNET Binary + Real Dreamcast Consoles

Performance may be better for people in North America and Europe.

DCNET binary is yet to be made available by the creator flyinhead.

In short:

DreamPi users can connect to the DCNET server if they want, by adding a binary file to the RaspberryPi and an instruction in the main dreampi.py script code.

Possible cons:
You would have to keep a backup of the original dreampi.py script, and switch between the traditional version and a version modified for DCNET. Creating an automation for this task is easy, but it will still require access to the command line to execute.

[Johne]

Ooga_manual.png

DCNET Server - Ooga Booga - 2 Players per console - Split Screen mode



Using Dreampi + DCNET Binary + Real Dreamcast Consoles

Performance may be better for people in North America and Europe.


Captura de tela 2025-01-23 203542.png
Captura de tela 2025-01-23 203456.png


DCNET binary is yet to be made available by the creator flyinhead.

In short:

DreamPi users can connect to the DCNET server if they want, by adding a binary file to the RaspberryPi and an instruction in the main dreampi.py script code.

Possible cons:
You would have to keep a backup of the original dreampi.py script, and switch between the traditional version and a version modified for DCNET. Creating an automation for this task is easy, but it will still require access to the command line to execute.

[flyinghead]

is it just playing on flyinghead servers instead of shuouma´s servers?

No, the idea behind DCNet is to allow users to play online Dreamcast games from any network environment, including public wifi and cellular networks. Even if you have access to your home router, configuration is cumbersome and you are limited to one player per public IP.
Unfortunately the only way to do this is to have separate game servers since DCNet uses private IP addresses. (This is only true for games using inbound network connections, so there's no need for separate F355, Quake III or PSO servers.)

[OUTFOXEM]

Damn I was hoping to play some Super Turbo with matching service, since I never got to back in the day (Japan only).

[Scrivani]

DCNET tutorial (for real hardware)

https://github.com/scrivanidc/dreampi_c ... /README.md

Important issues: Reusing the DreamPi for DCNET will require you to manually change the options on the command line every time you want to return to the default connection mode (default dclive/shuouma servers). If this is unpleasant for you, I kindly ask you to avoid it.

Accessing the command line of your RaspberryPi is very simple with remote access via the network, via your computer or smartphone. I recommend searching for and researching SSH access. I recommend the software Putty on the computer and something like JuiceSSH on the smartphone. You only need to know the IP of the RaspberryPi and be on the same wifi network. In many cases, the IP can be replaced by the hostname dreampi.local

Dreamcast WEB BROWSER ISP Setting: Use any username (you own) and password need to be "password" (no impact with shuouma sega tetris server authenication, will also be safe) Example: user: scrivani pass: password

[manksalot]

Very easy to use, thank you! I hope we see more DC players online than ever