PSO Questions & Answers

Sylverant is a homebrew open source server for Phantasy Star Online. Dreamcast users still play PSO online with this server even today! This is the official forum for both the online game server as well as the open source project itself. Feel free to post and get a gathering started online! We can also show you how to get connected!

Moderators: BlueCrab, Aleron Ives

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Aleron Ives
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by Aleron Ives »

tueidj wrote:Maybe their QC never experienced that because they were using original copies of the game, on real physical gamecubes, on SEGA's official servers. Not some dodgy downloaded ISO, on a crappy emulator, on an unofficial server pieced together from packet captures.
Your dismissive and arrogant attitude is getting rather tiresome. You've already been told that EW happens on real hardware, and I dumped my original GC game disc, thank you very much. As for Dolphin being "crappy", you might be aware of all the improvements that the developers have made had you not ragequit the Dolphin forum when the staff finally called you out on your constant trolling.
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by BlueCrab »

Ahem... Let's... Not fight, mmkay? :wink:

PSO has always had its fair share of bugs. Some might well be unique to private servers, and there may well be some that are unique to running them in emulators (which is why I refuse to support people if they have bugs that happen in an emulator but can't be reproduced on real hardware). However, the latter of these doesn't describe most of the bugs that have been mentioned here.
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by Kayak »

Depending on your connection method, you can actually run around and kill many monsters in an area (or even more) before the game actually kicks you offline for disconnecting. I have experienced this many times on my gamecube, where everybody freezes due to you disconnecting, drops stopping etc.

Moral of the story:

Does PSO have problems?
Yes

Do people still play it over 15 years later due to said problems?
Yes
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by Aleron Ives »

Kayak wrote:Do people still play it over 15 years later due to said problems?
Yes
I hope you mean "despite" said problems. I don't think anybody keeps playing because of the problems. "I just love EW so much, I can't quit playing PSO! Let's do TTF so I can get lucky at Falz!" :lol:
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by BlueCrab »

Aleron Ives wrote:"I just love EW so much, I can't quit playing PSO! Let's do TTF so I can get lucky at Falz!" :lol:
But... But... I said that the last time I played PSOGC. :lol:
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by Nico0020 »

Aleron Ives wrote:
tueidj wrote:I'm sure somebody at some point thought to check how it handled a dropped connection - a non-responsive game requiring a reset would not have been acceptable.
...nor would a game that randomly crashed when loading certain areas, but that slipped past Nintendo's QC, too. :roll: PSO has shoddy coding and tons of random bugs. It's just part of the PSO "experience". :lol:

This is why I stopped play GC online back on the official servers. Both when I used 56K and BBA on Gamecube PSO the game would crash, hang, lag and a whole other mess which usually resulted in a black buzzing screen with my character getting corrupted. Happened to my other close friends who were playing too. Finally rage quit and stuck to offline play from then on 4 player split screen. Terrible draw distances, but a lot of fun.

PSO has always been messy on every version.
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by skyhawk71 »

Hello all, new Dreamcast v2 player here. I have a quick question regarding the Sylverant PSO Patcher.

Whenever burning the files to a disc, do I burn the bin folder itself, or just the files contained within it?
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by Aleron Ives »

If you don't know how to burn a DC disc from raw files, then you should download the CDI file and burn it with either DiscJuggler or IMGBurn using the Padus plugin (which is probably more likely to work on newer Windows versions). On Linux I think BootDreams may be able to burn the CDI.
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by skyhawk71 »

Aleron Ives wrote:If you don't know how to burn a DC disc from raw files, then you should download the CDI file and burn it with either DiscJuggler or IMGBurn using the Padus plugin (which is probably more likely to work on newer Windows versions). On Linux I think BootDreams may be able to burn the CDI.
I have ImgBurn, and (EDIT) just recently grabbed the Padus plugin. Also, it appears I downloaded the wrong version of the Patcher. I grabbed the pr_patcher-2.0-bin.zip instead of pso_patcher-2.0-cdi.zip.

Any idea what the pr_patcher-2.0-bin download is for, aside from the fact that it's a binary release?

Also, about using ImgBurn, is 1x the slowest speed? I'm well aware that discs burnt for the Dreamcast have to be done at the slowest speeds to achieve the best results.
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by BlueCrab »

pr_patcher is for patching the game Planet Ring to connect to the Earthcall server.

And, the conventional wisdom is that you want to burn at the slowest speed that your burner supports. If that's 1x, go with that, if it's 8x, go with that. That said, I used to burn discs at 48x and had no troubles with them -- it's more the disc that you use than the speed, in my experience.
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by skyhawk71 »

BlueCrab wrote:pr_patcher is for patching the game Planet Ring to connect to the Earthcall server.

And, the conventional wisdom is that you want to burn at the slowest speed that your burner supports. If that's 1x, go with that, if it's 8x, go with that. That said, I used to burn discs at 48x and had no troubles with them -- it's more the disc that you use than the speed, in my experience.
I see now, thanks for the reply, Bluecrab!

My disc drive can go up to 56x write speed, but I'm trying to play it safe and not mess things up or end up having to reburn the disc all over again.

EDIT: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007R ... UTF8&psc=1 If it helps, these are the discs I'm using for the Patcher, which I went with because it was suggested on /r/Dreamcast.
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by BlueCrab »

skyhawk71 wrote:EDIT: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007R ... UTF8&psc=1 If it helps, these are the discs I'm using for the Patcher, which I went with because it was suggested on /r/Dreamcast.
Those are pretty much the "gold standard" of best discs to use, or so I'm told. I've never used them personally, as I've always had pretty good luck with plain ol' store brand ones.
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by skyhawk71 »

I appreciate all of the help, BlueCrab and Aleron Ives. I was able to get the Patcher on the CD-R successfully and was able to connect my Dreamcast to the server. Thank you!
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by BlueCrab »

skyhawk71 wrote:I appreciate all of the help, BlueCrab and Aleron Ives. I was able to get the Patcher on the CD-R successfully and was able to connect my Dreamcast to the server. Thank you!
Glad to hear it. Enjoy your time on the server. :)
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by Tymek »

Does anyone have a full list of the online Sylverant commands for all versions (or just GC)?
In my possesion:
PHANTASY STAR ONLINE EPISODE I & II (Gamecube)

PHANTASY STAR ONLINE EPISODE III:
C.A.R.D. Revolution (Gamecube)

PHANTASY STAR ONLINE
NETWORK TRIAL EDITION (Dreamcast)
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by BlueCrab »

Tymek wrote:Does anyone have a full list of the online Sylverant commands for all versions (or just GC)?
Follow the link in this thread, which will lead you to http://sf.net/p/sylverant/wiki/FAQs . :wink:
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by Tymek »

BlueCrab wrote:
Tymek wrote:Does anyone have a full list of the online Sylverant commands for all versions (or just GC)?
Follow the link in this thread, which will lead you to http://sf.net/p/sylverant/wiki/FAQs . :wink:
Already thanked you for it yesterday in said thread :wink: :P
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PHANTASY STAR ONLINE EPISODE I & II (Gamecube)

PHANTASY STAR ONLINE EPISODE III:
C.A.R.D. Revolution (Gamecube)

PHANTASY STAR ONLINE
NETWORK TRIAL EDITION (Dreamcast)
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by Tymek »

Sorry for the double post, but:

Are GC players not supposed to be able to connect to Vega?
In my possesion:
PHANTASY STAR ONLINE EPISODE I & II (Gamecube)

PHANTASY STAR ONLINE EPISODE III:
C.A.R.D. Revolution (Gamecube)

PHANTASY STAR ONLINE
NETWORK TRIAL EDITION (Dreamcast)
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by Aleron Ives »

They used to be able to connect, but it's been broken for a while now. You'd have to ask at Dreamcast-Talk to find out why it's broken, since we don't have any control over their ship.
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by Tymek »

Thank you for clarifying that.
In my possesion:
PHANTASY STAR ONLINE EPISODE I & II (Gamecube)

PHANTASY STAR ONLINE EPISODE III:
C.A.R.D. Revolution (Gamecube)

PHANTASY STAR ONLINE
NETWORK TRIAL EDITION (Dreamcast)
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