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Online Networking between Dreamcast and NAOMI?

twistedsymphony

twistedsymphony

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Cross-platform online play of Capcom vs SNK between the PS2 and Dreamcast came up in discussion on a Dreamcast group I'm a member of. It was also mentioned that NOAMI arcade systems could cross play with the PS2 and Dreamcast versions of the game and this article was presented as proof: http://spong.com/article/1920/Amazing-cross-platform-Capcom-Vs-SNK-news

This flyer certainly indicates that CVS2 had cross-platform play between PS2 and Dreamcast, though I don't see any mention of NAOMI or arcade connectivity.
17098280_1368008086554065_4782045470502724904_n.jpg


I've never seen any NAOMI gameplay networking other than the optical link setup. Any of you NAOMI gurus know if there was some other online gameplay networking setup available for NAOMI? Or was this something that never came to fruition?
 
I'm not personally aware of any NAOMI game that was multi cab multi player aside from local otpic link, or using multiple IO boards to use 2 cabs for one game. It would be awesome to find out otherwise though.
 
The optical link is what sega used on previous hardware.
The netdimm is what sega used on their hardware that came after naomi.
Couldn't it be used to connect the naomi to the internet as well?

Not that I know examples of this, but it's the most logical choice.
 
Can the NAOMI actually use the net-dimm to run networked games? I was under the impression that the ethernet port on the net-dim was only used to load the game data from a server, not for actual gameplay networking.
 
The details how the network adapter works are unknown, but it interfaces to the host like a disk partition. Some sectors are reserved for the network interface. I have no idea how the naomi sees the netdimm disk. On chihiro, it's interfaced to the ide port of the main board. There still is some hocus pocus going on to initialise the system. It looks like the firmware is uploaded to get the system going. That firmware is found in the flash rom of the netdimm.
 
twistedsymphony said:
Can the NAOMI actually use the net-dimm to run networked games?
Click to expand...
yes, sure.
but I think this was really used only in few DIMM-based so-called satellite games - "World Club Champion Football" and "Dragon Treasure" series. in this game satellite/client units communicate with main server using DIMM board ethernet during gameplay.

DIMM networking was also used in Virtua Fighter 4 (GD-ROM versions only) for VF.Net access. mainly for download player account profile from servers, and later upload it back to store player progress.
if I not mistaken, there was no smth like network multiplayer.

that's the only Naomi games I know, which use DIMM Ethernet networking.
 
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Isn't the sega derby owners club using naomi as well? It's likely also a candidate.
World Club Champion Football was released one year later and used pretty much the same hardware.
 
obcd said:
Isn't the sega derby owners club using naomi as well?
Click to expand...
correct, but "Derby Owners Club" Naomi series uses optic network communication boards, same as InitialD and number of other games. custom token ring thing, there no TCP/IP or smth.

there is also "Star Horse", "Dragon Treasure" series and "Oinori Daimojin" game, which uses ARC-NET comm.boards.

and "Alien Front Online" game, which supports either Modem or optic comm.board for multi-player.

anyway, answer to origin question - NO, Capcom vs, SNK doesn't use/supports network DIMM features. I don't think this game know about Net.DIMM existence, its supposed to work with regular DIMM, like almost all other Naomi GD-ROM games as well.
 
As the original question got answered, I hope nobody minds if I derail this topic a little.

My question is, how does a dimm and netdimm interfaces to the naomi?
Usually, if those are announced on ebay, they say you can use them on naomi, chihiro and triforce.

I know the type 1 connected using the same 3 connectors a rom cartridge is using, so, is it simply memory mapped into the sh4 address space, or does it work differently?

Do chihiro 1 and triforce 1 have some logic on an additional board (not part of the netdimm) to interface that to either ide (and whatever the triforce is using)

Maybe some members here were (are) involved in the development of a dreamcast / naomi emulator and have the answers on a plate.

I am most familiar with the chihiro 3. On that, the additional baseboard is mostly the controller to jvs conversion and some power related electronics (produce 5V from the 12V). The xbox mobo ide interface is pretty much simply a "pass trough" going to the dimm board.
 
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