Lately I've really been getting back into the Dreamcast, and a big part of that is down to the fact that I've put together a DreamPi setup so that I can get the console back online. Since I've been having so much fun, I thought I'd start a thread here to see if there are any other players, or at least drum up some interest - I'd love to get some online games going. What's a DreamPi? DreamPi is a really smart bit of software for the Raspberry Pi, which has two main functions. The first is to bridge the Dreamcast's dial-up modem onto your broadband connection, allowing you to play online without having to do something ridiculous like arranging a dial-up ISP. The second is to redirect games to the player-owned servers that are alive, rather than having the Dreamcast attempt to connect to Sega's long-dead official ones. The DreamPi is also recognised by Dreamcast Now, a cool service that shows who's online and what they're playing. Why should I get one? The main reason is to play online games with other players - not every game that was originally online-capable is playable at this point, but there's a list of what's playable here. Some of them are really cool games that have never appeared with their online functions intact elsewhere, such as Chu Chu Rocket, Alien Front Online and Ooga Booga. The ever-popular Phantasy Star Online is obviously also available if you're feeling nostalgic, and while there are definitely other online Tetris or NFL games, they're nice to have too. Leaderboards and DLC have also been restored for games like Sonic Adventure, MSR and Jet Set Radio. Crucially, the mightily expensive official broadband adaptor is not compatible with most of these games. You can also try browsing the internet with your Dreamcast, but that's not really a pleasant experience today. How do I get started? There's a good guide by the DreamPi author here. The one thing I'd note is that instead of building a battery-powered line voltage inducer, you can get them integrated into USB modems for NTSC consoles, or get a USB-powered one for PAL consoles from the Dreamcast Live shop. If you're completely starting from scratch, that shop also sells complete kits for $99. I'm in, let's play! Wonderful. Right now I've been playing games mainly with players via the Dreamcast-Talk Discord, but I'd love to get some Retro-specific games going. To make that easier, reply to let everyone know what games you have and what time zone you're in. If you fancy playing with me, drop me a PM or catch me on the Sonic Retro Discord (HKT3030). I'm in the UK and right now I have the following games: Alien Front Online, Chu Chu Rocket, NFL 2K2, Ooga Booga, Phantasy Star Online v2, Planet Ring, Quake III Arena (I won't play more than maybe a round of this at a time as I have bad motion sickness), Starlancer. Let me know if you have any questions too, and I'll try to help as best I can.
Can US and UK players play with eachother with manageable lag? This could inspire me to finally get off my ass and build a DreamPi, and get legit copies of some of the compatible games, since I have none of them.
I've been looking into making a DreamPi myself. Everything should still work fine if you're using a GDEmu to run games, right? I have my legit copies but really don't wanna put the disc reader back on just for online lol.
