PSOv2 (Dreamcast) Runtime Patching

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BlueCrab
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PSOv2 (Dreamcast) Runtime Patching

Post#1 » Sat Jul 28, 2018 1:30 pm

I've pushed out a new feature today to the Login Server to allow the server to patch various things in the game at runtime -- that is to say without having to use a CodeBreaker (or any other cheat device to do so). Patches are applied to the game in memory and should persist until you turn off the console. This feature should work relatively well, but as only I've tested it so far, it may well have some bugs still...

Here's the patches that are available today on the Login Server in the new "Patches" menu:
  • PSOGC Names: Patches the color of all players on PSOGC to display as cyan instead of gold. This way, you can easily pick out who is on PSOGC while you're in the lobby. This also has the side effect of patching the color for NPCs spawned with the /npc command.
  • Battle Music: This is the same patch that is available on the Sylverant PSO Patcher disc to make the music accessible in battle stages when used in quests outside of battle mode. If you've applied this by the Sylverant PSO Patcher disc, there's no reason to apply it this way too (it won't hurt anything, though).
  • Widescreen: Relatively self-explanatory -- patches the game to make it look better on a 16:9 display.

All of these patches are available on all three regional discs, although they've only been tested thus far on US and European discs. If you try them out on a Japanese copy of PSOv2, please let me know if they work right! :wink:

Feel free to report any issues or anything else here.

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KFAQ
shadow
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Re: PSOv2 (Dreamcast) Runtime Patching

Post#2 » Sat Jul 28, 2018 4:36 pm

Really cool BlueCrab! I tried Widescreen but on a 4:3 Commodore 1702 monitor doesn't look too good. still neat though.

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DR TEAMCAST
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Re: PSOv2 (Dreamcast) Runtime Patching

Post#3 » Sat Jul 28, 2018 8:10 pm

so does this mean we don't need a patch disc anymore? or this is just optional enhancements?
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Xiden
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Re: PSOv2 (Dreamcast) Runtime Patching

Post#4 » Sat Jul 28, 2018 8:15 pm

Wow great work dude!

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BlueCrab
Developer
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Re: PSOv2 (Dreamcast) Runtime Patching

Post#5 » Sat Jul 28, 2018 8:18 pm

DR TEAMCAST wrote:so does this mean we don't need a patch disc anymore? or this is just optional enhancements?
This does not replace the PSO Patcher disc, since there's no way for this to patch the hunter's license check or the server address until they would have already needed to have been patched.

Also, this doesn't contain the mapfix patch either, since that'll require a bit more work to implement.

That said, this can make it a lot easier to add new patches in the future, without having to make a new patcher disc. ;)

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anti
lithium
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Re: PSOv2 (Dreamcast) Runtime Patching

Post#6 » Sun Jul 29, 2018 4:50 pm

Good to see you still working on PSO BlueCrab!
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Nico0020
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Re: PSOv2 (Dreamcast) Runtime Patching

Post#7 » Tue Jul 31, 2018 1:49 am

Is it possible to patch the broken droprates for ULT mode in v2? Aleron made a disc years ago that fixed/redid the droprates in ULT mode. Would be really nice if we could have working droprates for ultimate mode available this way.

Thanks for all your hard work.

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Aleron Ives
Outrun
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Re: PSOv2 (Dreamcast) Runtime Patching

Post#8 » Tue Jul 31, 2018 4:02 am

You can't change the drop rates this way, as they are stored in an archive that contains the drops for every difficulty, and the game only loads whichever table is needed based on the current difficulty and Section ID. You need to either replace the drop tables on the disc (as with the EP) or let the server generate the drops using its own tables in order to alter the drop rates.

Server-side patching is for modifying the game binary, because it's always in memory and always in the same place, so we can store the patch data and where it needs to go for each V2 release (US, EU, JP), and that information will never change. We only need to send the patch one time when you log in, and then it'll stick until you power off (or load the web browser).

Drop tables change whenever you have a new leader or change difficulties, and it's likely the drop tables don't have a dedicated location in memory, so we wouldn't know where to put the patch data.
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