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winteriscoming

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I'm working my way towards building a Raspberry Pi based server to handle netbooting for my 3 driving cabs.

I haven't attempted netbooting multi-player games yet, but I notice that some games reassign the IP address after the game loads. I would imagine that this could cause an issue with multi-player games if they all get assigned the same IP.

I wanted to get a list of games together where this is known to happen and see if there's an easy solution that doesn't require going back in and changing the IP every time.

I'm not sure if this happens with NAOMI games, but I have seen it on Chihiro and Triforce.

I think both Mario Karts (I know the first one does) do it and OR2SP.

I'll give more details when I get back on my laptop, but I searched the Mario Kart GP 1 rom file for an ascii representation of the IP I was seeing get assigned and found it. I edited it to what my test Triforce was set to, and it booted and assigned new IP.

This means that a worst-case scenario might involve having a version of each rom file with the desired IP assigned and push the correct version to the respective IP. A more elegant solution might involve a script that edits the bytes at the correct offset in the rom file prior to pushing it out.

It remains to be seen if this method will work on OR2SP. I don't recall if WMMT has this issue.
 
I'm not familiar with that error, though looking it up, it appears to be a gateway error. Is that on NAOMI? I have never seen it on Chihiro or Triforce and neither one seems to care if the IP gets reassigned to something bogus and the overall network configuration is blown up. Certainly network tests fail after the reassigned IP, but the games still happily boot.
 
I may have been wrong about OR2SP. I'll have to do more testing, but it doesn't seem to have reassigned the IP.

For Mario Kart Arcade GP 1, the assigned IP is stored at offset 325BBC and stored as ascii text. It can be edited with a hex editor. The original value in the rom I had was: 192.168.29.150

WMMT2 does seem to reassign the IP to 10.0.0.1. This will require more testing, but I don't see space to put in a longer IP in the rom file...
 
WMMT2 doesn't like letting me edit anything in the rom file. It just boots to the service menu. I'm not sure if this game uses a checksum somewhere, but I'm getting no errors, but cannot even get into game test menu, which ends up just kicking me back to service menu.
 
I wouldn't be suprised that all networked games do it. It happens when the game xbe is launched. It's like the dimm network adapter is connected to either the dimm or to the game. Maybe some don't do it if the cabinet is set to upright, as those were standalone unit's.
Basically, you can only load in a game if the board is running in it's segaboot routine. A possible trick might be to put it into test mode, as the main test menu is part of segaboot. The game test menu is a separate xbe that resides in the game partition together with the game (at least that's how it is with chihiro. No idea about Triforce)

If the dimm ram module doesn't contain a valid image, the system will also hang into segaboot and will show the gray chihiro splash screen with a message at the bottom of the screen. It depends upon the version of segaboot what that message will say.
 
I think both Mario Karts (I know the first one does) do it and OR2SP.


I'll give more details when I get back on my laptop, but I searched the Mario Kart GP 1 rom file for an ascii representation of the IP I was seeing get assigned and found it. I edited it to what my test Triforce was set to, and it booted and assigned new IP.

This means that a worst-case scenario might involve having a version of each rom file with the desired IP assigned and push the correct version to the respective IP. A more elegant solution might involve a script that edits the bytes at the correct offset in the rom file prior to pushing it out.

It remains to be seen if this method will work on OR2SP. I don't recall if WMMT has this issue.
Yeah, it looks like Mario Kart GP1 and GP2 both get assigned the same 192.168.29.150 IP on my netboot setup also.
I may have been wrong about OR2SP. I'll have to do more testing, but it doesn't seem to have reassigned the IP.

For Mario Kart Arcade GP 1, the assigned IP is stored at offset 325BBC and stored as ascii text. It can be edited with a hex editor. The original value in the rom I had was: 192.168.29.150

WMMT2 does seem to reassign the IP to 10.0.0.1. This will require more testing, but I don't see space to put in a longer IP in the rom file...
Would you mind sharing a how-to on the above? Thank you!

Regards,
Jim
 
Hmm, we'll it's going to make a netboot server more complicated. I'll be able to initially push out games, but now I'm concerned there are going to be networking challenges once the games boot.

OR2SP is for sure not assigning an IP.

MKAGP1 for sure is, but my work-around for editing the rom works.

WMMT2 is going to be the game that throws a wrench into my entire plan. I have a WMMT pair, and it appears it made use of a crossover cable in the stock configuration. I'm guessing the pre-assigned IP is done as a means of not having to mess with configuration in the stock setup. Perhaps there are checks in place to see if an ip is already assigned to another game on the same network and it moves on to assign another (there are multiple ips visible in the rom file).

My plan was to have everything wired into a router and the netboot server pushes out from there. This has worked for my singe units, but I've never booted for multiplayer, so not sure what's in store for me with trying to get that working.

It's unfortunate that the IP gets reassigned and I can't seem to control it, because I figured out a way to issue a reboot command via triforcetools which would have been handy for getting the mutiplayer games to reset at the same time so that they are all ready during the multi-player pairing event that happens after boot (at least on the Namco games).

If WMMT is my main challenge, I might be able to set up the router to work with the 10.0.0.X range and get the other games working in the same range. If I run into other games that seem to lock me out of changes and assign a completely different range, I might have to take more complicated measures.

I suppose it's also possible I could make use of a switch rather than a router. I'm not well-versed in networking, so I don't know what all the options are to handle widely different, but predictable, IPs.
 
For Mario Kart Arcade GP 1, the assigned IP is stored at offset 325BBC and stored as ascii text. It can be edited with a hex editor. The original value in the rom I had was: 192.168.29.150
What value should 325BBC be set to have an IP address of 192.168.1.2?

The current Hex value at that offset shows '45'?
 
For Mario Kart Arcade GP 1, the assigned IP is stored at offset 325BBC and stored as ascii text. It can be edited with a hex editor. The original value in the rom I had was: 192.168.29.150
What value should 325BBC be set to have an IP address of 192.168.1.2?
The current Hex value at that offset shows '45'?
Maybe I gave the wrong offset? Search for ascii text string "192.168.29.150". The first occurance should be the value you want to edit. It should work by setting it to "192.168.01.002", but you'd have to try it.
 
Maybe I gave the wrong offset? Search for ascii text string "192.168.29.150". The first occurance should be the value you want to edit. It should work by setting it to "192.168.01.002", but you'd have to try it.
Found it thanks!
0030B384-0030B391

Old values:
31 35 30

(Sorry forgot the netmask change too) New values:
30 30 32 30 31 2E 30
 
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All good info.

When testing with triforcetools I just leave tcpdump in another terminal.

When relying on the gateway time limit hack, the IP reassignment breaks this and causes the naomi style error 33 / gateway not found. OR2 SP works fine, but wangan games crash after the reassignment of IP.
 
So what do I have to do so it doesn't give me a error 33 on or2sp after boot?
 
So what do I have to do so it doesn't give me a error 33 on or2sp after boot?
The only way I could get my OR2SP to work was with a zero key.
Otherwise, after booting it stop working after about 60 seconds.
 
Been using a zerokey, boots fine then Error 33's after 1-5 minutes everytime
 
Find the triforcetools.py that stays running and says "time limit hack looping". It sends a packet once in a while so the system doesn't give you error 33.

Honesty it should not be necessary with a proper PIC, like with naomi you should be able to disconnect. But on type3 chihiro even with a 0 key I have to leave the time limit hack running.
 
But on type3 chihiro even with a 0 key I have to leave the time limit hack running.
This is not the case for me. I have mostly used transfergame.exe and it has no ongoing connection. I don't have issues with any Chihiro games giving an error. The Chihiro does stay connected to a router, though, so not sure if that has any impact on this issue.
 
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