Multiple Dreamcasts Online Via One Router?

[PatrickW]

Hi all, I've been doing some research and trying to get up to speed before I get my DreamPi and get online. One concern I have is the DMZ function of the router. I am somewhat tech savy and understand that this opens up all port traffic to a specified IP on the network, which is fine for one Dreamcast, but I can see this will not work for two or more on the same network.

Is there a way to use port triggering or port forwarding to achieve the same effect as putting the DC's IP address in the DMZ? And if so / if not, what other considerations or configurations would have to take place for two Dreamcasts using DreamPI to work online through one internet connection / router?

[hawkzer0]

you cant have more than one dreampi through the same router. one dreampi and one bba works though.

[Nz17]

Disclaimer: I have never used a DreamPi.

I imagine that if you use some network monitoring software, you can discover the ports which any particular game uses and then just map those using port forwarding.

[mrneo240]

Vlans are your friend

[Chael]

Was thinking about doing a pseudo lan setup with 4-8 dreamcast/pi connected at events.
The limit of one dreampi per router makes it complicated...

[kazade]

It's not one DreamPi per router, it's one per external IP address. This is a consequence of the dreamcast originally being plugged directly into the phoneline, the games just aren't written to deal with anything else. There are options though...

1. Run game servers yourself inside your network. That way each DreamPi has a direct connection to the server without any NAT, but this will mean editing the DNS server setup on each DreamPi to point to the server (except Q3 as you can enter the IP directly).
2. Use a bunch of 4G dongles. I haven't tried this but theoretically you could connect a USB dongle to each DreamPi and connect through that, each would get it's own IP. But this would need some configuration on the Dreampis.

[Aleron Ives]

one dreampi and one bba works though.

Multiple BBAs will also work, assuming you've got lots of spare cash.

[hawkzer0]

It's not one DreamPi per router, it's one per external IP address. This is a consequence of the dreamcast originally being plugged directly into the phoneline, the games just aren't written to deal with anything else. There are options though...

1. Run game servers yourself inside your network. That way each DreamPi has a direct connection to the server without any NAT, but this will mean editing the DNS server setup on each DreamPi to point to the server (except Q3 as you can enter the IP directly).
2. Use a bunch of 4G dongles. I haven't tried this but theoretically you could connect a USB dongle to each DreamPi and connect through that, each would get it's own IP. But this would need some configuration on the Dreampis.

Interesting!

one dreampi and one bba works though.

Multiple BBAs will also work, assuming you've got lots of spare cash.

Well yea, but we dont all have lots of spare cash haha. Although prices on them seemed to have dropped a bit since dreampi came out.

[Chael]

Thanks kazade, I had thought of the 4G solution, even with wifi tethering from phones, but the ping might be too high.
I'll dig into the first solution.

[itsthinkingstill]

Vlans are your friend

Vlans are always the answer Make it Vlan99 for giggles or better yet make it Vlan 0 to really screw with your router and break it