Metropolis Street Racer in-game Browser

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Wombat
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Re: Metropolis Street Racer in-game Browser

Post#41 » Wed May 16, 2018 4:31 am

@Roareye, perhaps you can buy a USB floppy drive and make it accessible in your VM? Once on the floppy you can read it out again in a more modern environment trough the same USB floppy drive :)

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Roareye
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Re: Metropolis Street Racer in-game Browser

Post#42 » Wed May 16, 2018 7:57 am

I did try that but didn't have a spare USB, and 95 wanted to format it, so I didn't do that.
I did finally manage to get internet working, installed Opera 9 as the browser and it gave me a slow HTML gmail access. Good enough. I sent the file to myself, retrieved it in Windows 10 and fixed up the code.

I will make a video of it working, but I need a server to upload to atm to test it on DC hardware. I make my sites on Wix, so you don't get a server to upload to. And obviously the site needs to be online for DC to read it on its browser.

Slowly but surely stepping forwards on this lol

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Roareye
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Re: Metropolis Street Racer in-game Browser

Post#43 » Thu May 17, 2018 5:41 pm

Special treat for now, guys.
Here's a video showing the MSR website operating on a real DC! My Dreamcast is a PAL unit, unmodified, outputting via VGA. The only browser that my VGA to HDMI converter doesn't ruin (By shifting the image partly off-screen) is Dreamkey. This version is Dreamkey 3.0.



If you want to check out the site for yourself, then simply head on over to http://www.seganet.co.uk - it will be removed from this URL when it is complete to be hosted properly by Dreampipe so the MSR in-game browser actually links to it. At the moment MSR itself doesn't link to it, but you can input the URL manually.

So what's the status so far?
WORKING;
- Web pages all load, background art shows up (Anything under 40kb JPEG or GIF works, compressed JPEG is best but keep it nearer 30kb otherwise it remains very blocky). Pages are 580 pixels wide to accommodate DC (20 pixels are taken up with borders and the navigation bars of the browser, so full 600 pixels is too wide).
- Artwork is all complete, with all the button images for the site fully implemented.
- VMU Animation displays on the homepage.

NOT WORKING;
- Leaderboards. A database needs to be built and tested, then implemented in the site layout.
- Uploads. There's no database yet, so the upload system has yet to be constructed. These are actually the only missing pages.
- Downloads. I fixed the bug seen in this video, however ran into another problem. The VMU/VMI files are now found, but Dreamkey tries to open them like a webpage rather than trying to download them. Once I've figured out the bug, these will be operational.
- Chat. This (and Message Board) likely linked to a Dreamarena system that no longer exists. I may cut this button, or try to find a way to utilise it. Any ideas are welcome.

Hope you guys enjoy the video and the update. Feel free to check out the site on PC or (preferably) your Dreamcast.

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Sega1Dream
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Re: Metropolis Street Racer in-game Browser

Post#44 » Thu May 17, 2018 11:08 pm

This is looking really good. Great job on all the work you have done so far!

rjay63
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Re: Metropolis Street Racer in-game Browser

Post#45 » Fri May 18, 2018 5:17 am

Roareye wrote:- Downloads. I fixed the bug seen in this video, however ran into another problem. The VMU/VMI files are now found, but Dreamkey tries to open them like a webpage rather than trying to download them. Once I've figured out the bug, these will be operational.


I'm not sure if this will help. It's taken from an old MSR guide I wrote back in 2010 (hosted on GameFAQS)

Some webpages do not automatically allow Dreamkey users to download the file. In this case you will need to create an .htaccess file containing the following code:

addtype application/x-dreamcast-vms-info vmi
addtype application/x-dreamcast-vms vms

See http://rvmu.maushammer.com/faqindex.html (no longer online or archived) for more info. Some webpages (like Angelfire) do not allow you to change the .htaccess settings especially on free accounts.


Source: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/dreamcast ... faqs/60758
My Metropolis Street Racer Blog: http://www.msrdreamcast.blogspot.com
MSR ghosts/time trials and official DLC: https://www.dreamcastlive.net/metropoli ... r-dlc.html

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Roareye
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Re: Metropolis Street Racer in-game Browser

Post#46 » Fri May 18, 2018 5:43 am

Bloody hell, that was almost too easy a fix :lol: Thanks rjay! :D

Downloads are now fully functional (Just downloaded an MSR Speed Challenge).
Next step is figuring out the Upload and Leaderboard systems.

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pcwzrd13
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Re: Metropolis Street Racer in-game Browser

Post#47 » Tue May 29, 2018 9:30 am

No guarantees but I'm in contact with someone from Sega Europe who's looking for a backup of the website. I'll let you know if he finds anything.
PSO Characters:
Teal'c - lvl 119 HUcast - GC# 11666
Alto - lvl 39 FOnewm - GC# 12964

YouTube Channel : Dreamcast Live

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Xiden
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Re: Metropolis Street Racer in-game Browser

Post#48 » Tue May 29, 2018 9:45 am

pcwzrd13 wrote:No guarantees but I'm in contact with someone from Sega Europe who's looking for a backup of the website. I'll let you know if he finds anything.


:o :) Exciting :) If not, Roareye has a pretty good remade copy if that falls through :)

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Xiden
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Re: Metropolis Street Racer in-game Browser

Post#49 » Tue May 29, 2018 9:46 am

pcwzrd13 wrote:No guarantees but I'm in contact with someone from Sega Europe who's looking for a backup of the website. I'll let you know if he finds anything.


Do you think he'll have other Dreamarena sites? I found some high res screens of other dreamarena games. Having the original assets would be nice though.

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pcwzrd13
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Re: Metropolis Street Racer in-game Browser

Post#50 » Tue May 29, 2018 10:18 am

Xiden wrote:Do you think he'll have other Dreamarena sites? I found some high res screens of other dreamarena games. Having the original assets would be nice though.


Baby steps. :lol: I'll see if he can track down the MSR site for now. He's not sure himself if any sort of backups exist but he's reaching out to colleagues about it. He's worked at Sega since 2004 so I'm sure he has a lot of connections.
PSO Characters:
Teal'c - lvl 119 HUcast - GC# 11666
Alto - lvl 39 FOnewm - GC# 12964

YouTube Channel : Dreamcast Live

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