DreamPi 1.6 Released!

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BLueSS
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Re: DreamPi 1.6 Released!

Post#31 » Sat Apr 22, 2017 3:41 pm

I believe TacT's modems are modified Dell NW147 modems.

If this amazon listing is to be believed, the usb modems do support 48kbps because they are listed as v.92 supported.

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-NW147-Exter ... B001L7IVCK
Transfer Protocol: V.92

So, circling back to my original question, how can I adjust the transfer / connection rate that the DreamPi creates, to try to support faster than 33.6k speeds? :D

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Re: DreamPi 1.6 Released!

Post#32 » Sat Apr 22, 2017 3:48 pm

In that case you're already getting the maximum speed. I've worked with Kazade on adjusting the modem communication speed and AFO never reports the connection speed at anything higher than 33k even if you adjust the speed to 56k in the DreamPi configuration. This is likely because most games are P2P with no server in between once the game starts. This means you're always communicating at 33k max because that's the max upload speed of the Dreamcast modem.
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BLueSS
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Re: DreamPi 1.6 Released!

Post#33 » Sat Apr 22, 2017 4:12 pm

My intent was to speed up Q3, a server based game...

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pcwzrd13
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Re: DreamPi 1.6 Released!

Post#34 » Sat Apr 22, 2017 4:17 pm

BLueSS wrote:My intent was to speed up Q3, a server based game...


I use a broadband adapter. :lol: But yeah, 33k is the max you're going to get with the modem. Even if you could somehow get the 48k, you would only get that speed half of the way (from the player to the server would be 33k and from the server to the other player would be 48k). The speed difference likely wouldn't be very noticeable.
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BLueSS
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Re: DreamPi 1.6 Released!

Post#35 » Sat Apr 22, 2017 5:41 pm

pcwzrd13 wrote:
BLueSS wrote:My intent was to speed up Q3, a server based game...


I use a broadband adapter. :lol: But yeah, 33k is the max you're going to get with the modem. Even if you could somehow get the 48k, you would only get that speed half of the way (from the player to the server would be 33k and from the server to the other player would be 48k). The speed difference likely wouldn't be very noticeable.


It's a 33% increase in the incoming transfer rate. That has the potential to be quite noticeable. As you would know, the broadband adapter makes a large difference in a game like Q3, and any increase of data transfer from the Q3 server to the DC would help.

My whole question wasn't "is this going to help" it was "can I edit the values and test this on my own to see if it makes a difference?"

Heck, otherwise why don't I just go play Q3 on my PC instead? It's my impression one of the main points of this site is to discuss and ponder getting the most fun out of the Dreamcast as possible. Don't just say "it's not worth trying"; that doesn't help anything. The hardware is capable of faster speeds, so how can this be tested/modified?

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HuntrRose
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Re: DreamPi 1.6 Released!

Post#36 » Sat Apr 22, 2017 5:59 pm

id use quakelive before installing the game on my laptop again...

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HuntrRose
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Re: DreamPi 1.6 Released!

Post#37 » Sat Apr 22, 2017 5:59 pm

also.. buy a BBA if it bothers you that much...

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pcwzrd13
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Re: DreamPi 1.6 Released!

Post#38 » Sat Apr 22, 2017 6:48 pm

BLueSS wrote:Don't just say "it's not worth trying"; that doesn't help anything. The hardware is capable of faster speeds, so how can this be tested/modified?


I didn't say that. I said I had already tried it and it maxed out at 33k. You can try it yourself if you want. I'd tell you where the setting is but I forget now.

Edit Found it! Run "pico ~/dreampi/dreampi.py" on the Pi to open the configuration file and look for BAUD_SPEED. It's already set to 57600 though which means it should be giving the max speed already. AFO reports the speed at 33k like I said but I don't know how it calculates it. It may very well be 48k download if it's just reporting the upload speed.
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BLueSS
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Re: DreamPi 1.6 Released!

Post#39 » Sun Apr 23, 2017 1:57 am

Thanks, pcqzrd13. Based on the dreampi.py code; I did some digging and the Dell NW147 modems are not recognized by the PI as a serial modem, so it falls back in the script to reading the device through the ttyACM0 port. I suspect that without proper drivers for the usb modem, it won't have v.92 support.

The Dell NW147 when plugged into my windows machine comes up as a Conexant usb cx93010 acf modem, which when searching gets to a page confirming it does have v.92 support. http://205.175.208.33/products/entry.jsp?id=539 These modems are known as "winmodems".

Running #lsusb on the PI shows these modems with a device id of 0572:1324, which matches the results for a DGC (softmodem) driver. https://www.linuxant.com/drivers/dgc/index.php Unfortunately the raspberry pi is ARM architecture, so these driver chipsets are useless.

In line 199 of dreampi.py the dreampi script tries to detect the modems present in the raspberry pi, which is using wvdialconf. Running that command with this modem results in "no modem was detected" so I'm assuming dreampi.py ends up at the exception in that command which is to use ttyACM0 at 640800 for the connection.

So I'm pretty much assuming that at this point since the PI doesn't have ARM drivers for winmodems (because winmodems and linux never played well together) it's falling back to the last compatible speed of 33.6kbps for the connection to the Dreamcast.

Yes, I spent a few hours learning all of this for fun...

It would seem perhaps a real usb modem (not winmodem) that's RPI compatible may result in a true faster speed? But man, that's not worth it now. This is no longer a DreamPi issue but an OS/driver and hardware issue from all I can tell.

It also looks like I found the beginnings of the Dreampi project in this thread: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... 2&p=348729

kazade
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Re: DreamPi 1.6 Released!

Post#40 » Sun Apr 23, 2017 4:09 am

That thread isn't anything to do with me or the Dreampi. I guess the good ideas come up again and again ;)

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