Dreamcast VS games online?

[brourke228]

I was just thinking, isn't the VS link cable just a regular serial cable connecting two Dreamcasts? If thats the case couldn't someone just use a DC coder cable (DC serial to rs-232) like the one here instead? http://www.consolesandgadgets.co.uk/cat ... p-191.html

Then connect their Dreamcast to a computer and use some serial to ip software to tunnel the connection over the internet . And on the other end someone having a similar setup would receive the serial over ip data, map it to their physical COM port, and relay it to their dreamcast through another coder cable in order for the two to communicate and negotiate a game. I don't know if this has been tried before or if it makes sense, but it seems like a trivial connection. Of course if it does work I'm not sure how the increased latency would effect the games. What do you guys think?

[BlueCrab]

In theory, you could build some kind of program to sit in the middle on a PC and do something like that, but I'd suspect that the latency could cause quite a bit of an issue. The VS link cable using games were pretty much designed to assume that the communication would be instant (i.e, less than 1ms or so of lag, most likely). Adding in a PC program and tunneling it over the Internet would increase the lag quite a bit and the games probably would not be capable of dealing with that in a sane manner.

[brourke228]

Yeah thats what I figured. It would still be interesting to try though. Many of the VS link games had online counterparts, so you never know.

[Favrenation]

I am up to try this. Would need to get a coders cable though.

Found it here: http://www.consolesandgadgets.co.uk/cat ... p-191.html but kind of expensive.

[brourke228]

Yeah that was the only place I was able to find which had it. However it says the product is on back-order. I have a feeling they aren't getting anymore in stock. I still want to try this though. I'm probably gonna end up just making one.

The serial connector can be made doing this: http://translate.google.com/translate?h ... md%3Dimvns


And then for making the adapter... http://mc.pp.se/dc/serifc.html

[madmax2069]

I am up to try this. Would need to get a coders cable though.

Found it here: http://www.consolesandgadgets.co.uk/cat ... p-191.html but kind of expensive.

I do think the effects would be simular to that of a Gamecube with the BBA adaptor using xlink kai (that is if you can get the DC to connect or stay connected due to lag). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAgX5Wy3_Cs as a example, there are other videos of it runnin correctly because the other person lived really close to him. but the above video is what i expect to happen in the best case, you will likely have sync issues.