29 replies to this topic

[rush6432]

Anyone currently working on something to tunnel jaglink games over tcp/ip? With todays internet speeds i dont see it being a problem tunneling a serial link over tcp/ip. would just need a jaglink for each console, an rj45 to serial adaptor plugged into pc and then a program on each pc that crates a connection over tcp.ip and sends the serial port data out over the internet to another and vice versa. seems like the program is really the only hold-back here.... hardware has already been developed and all you REALLY need to do is make a cable.....

2 player aircars,bs,or doom

[Punisher5.0]

As far as I know no one has done this. It would be awesome if it ever happened. I had a blast playing Halo on Xbox this way.

Ultra Vortek should work this way with two JVM's as well.

[Jagman]

cool idea.. although Doom over Jag link crashed enough as it was.. but BattleSphere would be fantastic Haven't had the opportunity to play linked up in many years.

[LinkoVitch]

TBH you would want to use UDP probably, TCP could introduce some wacky lag..

May be possible with some of the Serial->IP stuff out there.. It is something I considered looking into years ago, but then lost interest in the Jag for a lot of years.. who knows… Maybe one day someone will

[Zerosquare]

It's a cool idea, but it has the same potential problem as any similar project for other machines : latency on the Internet is much higher than on a direct cable (up to several hundred milliseconds, instead of one millisecond or less), can vary unpredictably, and there is always the risk a packet is lost completely. Games were not designed to handle this, and we don't know how they would react.

UDP seems like a bad idea to me : it doesn't guarantee packet delivery, and I'm not even sure it's even possible to make it work in all cases (especially for people whose ISP uses NAT routing).

It would still be an interesting thing to try ; with a Jaglink-to-RS232 cable (and a USB-serial adapter for the PC which don't have a serial port). Maybe we could even use software designed for other machines, if it exists.

[LinkoVitch]

I suggested UDP as this is the protocol used by most online games. TCP whilst guaranteeing delivery may cause more lag due to that guarantee. EG If a packet were lost, TCP would wait a chunk of time before doing a re-transmit. However using UDP, you fire of n+1 copies of the same packet, if any go missing the idea is at least one of these will make it. NAT shouldn't be affected by NAT. If your ISP is using NAT.. get a new ISP that's horrible!

As you say tho, online games are designed to handle this lag so have some element of prediction in their code etc.. although Doom is capable in its original flavour to go via IP so who knows…

To make a best effort of this, it would be best if the converter from JagLink to IP understood the games protocol, so it could better transmit the data, and also possibly emulate the sender for padding out the quiet bits.

I'd imagine it would mostly work, as I'd imagine data that is sent is mostly delta's between players.. so Player 1 pressed fire, player 2 moved left.. etc.. The serial network for the jag still will have some latency in it, although probably quite low, so it 'could' work assuming good net connections etc.

[TXG/MNX]

I think a JVM emulator with cable to PC would be enough from there some software can tunnel it over the internet.

Advantage of JVM emulation is that existing games don't need to be rewritten and JVM info is available :-)

[Zerosquare]

LinkoVitch, on Wed May 18, 2011 8:59 AM, said:

If your ISP is using NAT.. get a new ISP that's horrible!

I agree, but IIRC, in some countries you don't have the choice...

LinkoVitch, on Wed May 18, 2011 8:59 AM, said:

To make a best effort of this, it would be best if the converter from JagLink to IP understood the games protocol, so it could better transmit the data, and also possibly emulate the sender for padding out the quiet bits.

Absolutely. Anyways, at a minimum, you need to know the baudrate and comm parameters the game uses (and cross your fingers the baudrate is close enough to one that is supported by the serial port/adapter... the Jaguar clock frequency is completely different from the standard PC one, so you may end up with "weird" numbers).

LinkoVitch, on Wed May 18, 2011 8:59 AM, said:

I'd imagine it would mostly work, as I'd imagine data that is sent is mostly delta's between players.. so Player 1 pressed fire, player 2 moved left.. etc.. The serial network for the jag still will have some latency in it, although probably quite low, so it 'could' work assuming good net connections etc.

Yup, maybe.

TXG/MNX > JVM as in Java ? I don't understand why it would be better than a native client, apart from being more easily portable, maybe.

Edited by Zerosquare, Wed May 18, 2011 4:01 PM.

[rush6432]

I do seem to remember thunderbird saying that he would give a little bit of info on the BS communication settings to make it work. as for doom, the source code is out there and i do remember seeing some interesting info in the source code a while back. i did do some research on doom as thats the only game ive got 2 copies of here and that the source code exists for (in public hands). seemed like after a bit of research that it would work, but doom sadly does have the inherent slow-down/crash and die issue that pops in occasionally. thats not to say aircars or BS wont work. i would think BS would be a litle more tolerant of the lag.

Anyway, an entire GUI could be created that even links players up randomly and if you got into the code much you could even have the program intercept some packets with game score info and maybe even keep stats..... have your own profile. would be pretty cool.

Anyway ive had the idea for years but never actually done anything with it... ive found two serial to IP devices that would probably work but at 100 bucks a piece i dunno if its really worth it now is it?

As for the protocol, zerosquare covered it basically with the tcp vs udp and why udp is better. It would have to be UDP to keep lag at bay. the problem is that im not sure how the jag game on one end would act if it never received a packet if one was lost... TCP works but there is no point in re-transmitting a packet that happend well over a second or so ago. it would just introduce major hiccups in gameplay and probably connection issues...

As for the JVM emulator... i dont think that'll happen ever. not to say that it cant be done, but... no point.. only one game supports it realistically (2 if you count the club drive beta, But that code has never been tested)

Edited by rush6432, Wed May 18, 2011 5:11 PM.

[Tyrant]

Zerosquare, on Wed May 18, 2011 8:22 AM, said:

UDP seems like a bad idea to me : it doesn't guarantee packet delivery, and I'm not even sure it's even possible to make it work in all cases (especially for people whose ISP uses NAT routing).

Actually with UDP hole punching it's actually easier to establish a direct connection via UDP than TCP. Only the most paranoid of corporate sysadmins totally firewall off UDP, and due to the way it's a stateless protocol, it's possible to punch holes in firewalls and NAT tables to provide direct connections even when both sides are firewalled.

[LinkoVitch]

Zerosquare, on Wed May 18, 2011 3:59 PM, said:

LinkoVitch, on Wed May 18, 2011 8:59 AM, said:

To make a best effort of this, it would be best if the converter from JagLink to IP understood the games protocol, so it could better transmit the data, and also possibly emulate the sender for padding out the quiet bits.

Absolutely. Anyways, at a minimum, you need to know the baudrate and comm parameters the game uses (and cross your fingers the baudrate is close enough to one that is supported by the serial port/adapter... the Jaguar clock frequency is completely different from the standard PC one, so you may end up with "weird" numbers).

Perhaps need some line driver hardware to sit between the Jag and the PC to 'translate' clocks.. although I'd assume they follow fairly similar baud rates, if they were designed to go via a modem originally back in the day then having a really wacky baud rate would not do you any favours… I'd imagine they would stick to 9600/4800/2400 or some such… well I'd hope it is the jag after-all so who knows

[Jag_Slave]

Im betting on 1400 or 2400 lol

[rush6432]

Jag_Slave, on Thu May 19, 2011 12:56 PM, said:

Im betting on 1400 or 2400 lol

from what i remember when i had a jag modem it was about 14.4 to 19200 for the jag modem but depending on
line quality and such and other factors i believe it could connect as low as 9600.


Anyway guys back on topic... Jaglink over TCP/IP idea.... it can be done, just need a good programmer that knows how to write network code and create a program with a nice GUI to allow simple connection between two computers and tunneling serial data back and fourth.

Edited by rush6432, Thu May 19, 2011 1:20 PM.

[remowilliams]

LinkoVitch, on Thu May 19, 2011 12:40 AM, said:

I'd imagine they would stick to 9600/4800/2400 or some such… well I'd hope it is the jag after-all so who knows

Exactly 2639.72 would be par for the course.

[Jag_Slave]

Oh it can, and will be done Im sure

[TXG/MNX]

hmm to be more correct I meant JVM as Jaguar Voice Modem so a Jaguar Voice Modem emulator on PC and then route over the internet.

[Skarrj]

rush6432, on Thu May 19, 2011 1:17 PM, said:

Jag_Slave, on Thu May 19, 2011 12:56 PM, said:

Im betting on 1400 or 2400 lol

from what i remember when i had a jag modem it was about 14.4 to 19200 for the jag modem but depending on
line quality and such and other factors i believe it could connect as low as 9600.


Anyway guys back on topic... Jaglink over TCP/IP idea.... it can be done, just need a good programmer that knows how to write network code and create a program with a nice GUI to allow simple connection between two computers and tunneling serial data back and fourth.

I think somehting like the old xbox connect would work, the interface with the jaglink itself would be the problem.

[rush6432]

Skarrj, on Fri May 20, 2011 11:19 AM, said:

rush6432, on Thu May 19, 2011 1:17 PM, said:

Jag_Slave, on Thu May 19, 2011 12:56 PM, said:

Im betting on 1400 or 2400 lol

from what i remember when i had a jag modem it was about 14.4 to 19200 for the jag modem but depending on
line quality and such and other factors i believe it could connect as low as 9600.


Anyway guys back on topic... Jaglink over TCP/IP idea.... it can be done, just need a good programmer that knows how to write network code and create a program with a nice GUI to allow simple connection between two computers and tunneling serial data back and fourth.

I think somehting like the old xbox connect would work, the interface with the jaglink itself would be the problem.

What makes you say that the jaglink itself is the problem???

[Zerosquare]

The JagLink itself is just a TTL-RS232 level converter. It's fine.

TXG/MNX : ah, didn't think of that
But IIRC the only game that supports the JagModem is Ultra Vortek ?

[Skarrj]

rush6432, on Fri May 20, 2011 5:52 PM, said:

Skarrj, on Fri May 20, 2011 11:19 AM, said:

rush6432, on Thu May 19, 2011 1:17 PM, said:

Jag_Slave, on Thu May 19, 2011 12:56 PM, said:

Im betting on 1400 or 2400 lol

from what i remember when i had a jag modem it was about 14.4 to 19200 for the jag modem but depending on
line quality and such and other factors i believe it could connect as low as 9600.


Anyway guys back on topic... Jaglink over TCP/IP idea.... it can be done, just need a good programmer that knows how to write network code and create a program with a nice GUI to allow simple connection between two computers and tunneling serial data back and fourth.

I think somehting like the old xbox connect would work, the interface with the jaglink itself would be the problem.

What makes you say that the jaglink itself is the problem???

I didnt say the jaglink "is" a problem, I said interfacing with something like xbconnect would be. If anyone can figure out how to get the jaglink to convert to rj45 and talk to xbconnect, id love to see it. The software is there.

[TXG/MNX]

When doing rs232c to ethernet just buy a Lantronix Uds-10 it works great I did use it in the past to connect my Atari 8-bit with a terminal package and then after connecting to my ISP I did start with telnet PYNE email .... did look pretty cool. I am still busy unpacking all my boxes I have such thing somewhere.

On the 8-bit they are used to connect BBS systems with telnet to internet, real cool such old BBS on internet.
So a new Jaguar 64-bit can do more :-)

[minux]

Such possibilities are more than feasible. However, such feasibility would require a game to be written from the ground up to compensate for various factors. Additionally, a dedicated server would suffice for the latency.

Various companies have given their old IPs to the community. I think of Wulfenstein. If someone were willing to put the work in, then creating such an adapter would be the easy part.

I would rather see the creation of an adapter to allow for HDMI output of the Jaguar.

[rush6432]

Well ive had some sucess here. i was able to tunnel jag doom data from one pc to another over the internet. HOWEVER i could not get a game to link up just yet. i was able to tunnel serial data from one jag to another pc over a LAN through a router with a terminal program sitting on the other end and i was able to see all the characters being spit out from the jag on to the screen (doom looking for another player)

However when i have the jaglink and adaptor setup connected to my pc directly and use the terminal program the character dumped out looks diffrent and does not match the one im receiving when tunneling. im not sure what the deal is. if anyone has any suggestions or would like ot help out with this project let me know.


Edit:

Another update. managed to use Zerosquares Uart example program and get it working over a tunneled connection on the internet.

I sent the jaguar character A and it sent me back B

This should work! Just needs more testing!

Edited by rush6432, Tue May 24, 2011 10:35 PM.

[Zerosquare]

Interesting !

Did you use a program on the PC for tunneling, or a standalone Ethernet/RS-232 bridge ?
Did you check that the baudrate was set properly for Doom ?

[rush6432]

Zerosquare, on Wed May 25, 2011 4:36 PM, said:

Interesting !

Did you use a program on the PC for tunneling, or a standalone Ethernet/RS-232 bridge ?
Did you check that the baudrate was set properly for Doom ?

I used a program on the pc using the same settings you had described in your readme file with the UART example.
I tried doom but i dont know exactly what settings to use..... i tried 115200 baud rate which is listed in the jagdoom source code as the default speed that it will initially try to connect at.

However thougt i was not sucessfull in getting doom to connect for some reason. i was using TCP/IP btw and not UDP which should have probably been used to begin with.