Half-Life for Dreamcast has some functional multiplayer components

RAS files for HTMLSAMP.EXE and HALFLIFE_DC.EXE

Under that screenshot I posted it says this to use the .ras files

So access to the command line without a dev box still needs to be figured out anyway

 

wait... so if this works, then ESTK becomes useless and we have the half life engine with multiplayer support for DC? holy crap the possibilitys, if my mind is making the right connections at 2AM

 

I'm not sure what ESTK is, but if a mod/expansion hl.dll can be loaded and if internet can be established that is visible to the GoldSRC engine; Then microphone, modem and BBA support can probably be added, we can port a few hundred PC mods as long as they're opensource, obviously play them online, as well as having a completely malleable GoldSRC engine capable of some crazy awesome homebrews

Here is a game called Earth's Special Forces using a heavily modified GoldSRC engine http://esforces.com/content/picture-week-potw

 

basically game maker studio for the Dreamcast, coming out later this year, it MIGHT have multiplayer support, but this trumps ESTK tenfold, here's a video though:

 

Well I do not think ESTK will be useless, it will still be a great development tool. GoldSRC has been an option for a long time minus the expansion ability. So it's just another option for someone to use if they want

 

I e-mailed that guy a few months ago telling him to port Xash3D to Dreamcast. Considering he wrote tech demos floating around the net of a working physics engine on Dreamcast before ES

 

I'm not sure why I thought of this now, that mod 'chicken fortress 3' has it's own .exe. Here is the full string list

Code:

!This program cannot be run in DOS mode.
dRich
.text
`.rdata
@.data
.rsrc
L$(QP
_^][Y
_^][Y
]_^[Y
|$PWh
VhD4@
B(ht6@
RTVjD
@(SVWj
vXG=,
f;^Hv
D$$Ph
jphP1@
>"u:F
XPVSS
Parameter file '%s' not found, skipping...
CCommandLine::AddArgument: exceeded %d parameters
CreateInterface
filesystem_stdio.dll
Fatal Error
Could not load filesystem dll.
FileSystem crashed during construction.
hw.dll
EngineDLL
-soft
-software
sw.dll
ScreenWidth
ScreenHeight
ScreenBPP
Video mode change failure
The specified video mode is not supported.
The game will now run in software mode.
-steam
IsDebuggerPresent
kernel32.dll
-nomutex
-restart
ValveHalfLifeLauncherMutex
Error
Could not launch game.
Only one instance of this game can be run at a time.
hl.exe
-game
czero
-forcevalve
CrashInitializingVideoMode
EngineD3D
The game has detected that the previous attempt to start in D3D video mode failed.
The game will now run attempt to run in openGL mode.
The game has detected that the previous attempt to start in openGL video mode failed.
The game will now run in software mode.
%s/metahook.dll
VFileSystem009
Could not load %s.
Please try again at a later time.
VENGINE_LAUNCHER_API_VERSION002
-startwindowed
-windowed
-window
-full
-fullscreen
-width
-height
-novid
+load
MH_Setup
MH_Init
MH_SetBlobHeader
MH_LoadClient
MH_LoadEngine
MH_ExitGame
MH_Shutdown
Half-Life
Software\Valve\%s\Settings\
SetProcessDEPPolicy
NtSetInformationProcess
ntdll.dll
g:\CKF3Alpha\src\Launcher\Release\Launcher.pdb
FreeLibrary
GetProcAddress
LoadLibraryA
GetCurrentProcess
WaitForSingleObject
GetCommandLineA
TerminateProcess
GetModuleHandleA
CreateMutexA
ReleaseMutex
CloseHandle
GetLongPathNameA
GetModuleFileNameA
KERNEL32.dll
MessageBoxA
wsprintfA
USER32.dll
RegSetValueExA
RegQueryValueExA
RegCreateKeyExA
RegCloseKey
ADVAPI32.dll
_stricmp
strncat
isspace
_snprintf
fgetc
tolower
printf
fopen
??3@YAXPAX@Z
fclose
??2@YAPAXI@Z
sprintf
strstr
strrchr
_except_handler3
malloc
msvcrt.dll
__dllonexit
_onexit
??1type_info@@UAE@XZ
_c_exit
_exit
_XcptFilter
_cexit
_acmdln
__getmainargs
_initterm
__setusermatherr
_adjust_fdiv
__p__commode
__p__fmode
__set_app_type
?terminate@@YAXXZ
_controlfp
WS2_32.dll
GetStartupInfoA
_strnicmp
memcpy
memset
Launcher.exe
CreateInterface
MH_ExitGame
MH_Init
MH_LoadClient
MH_LoadEngine
MH_SetBlobHeader
MH_Setup
MH_Shutdown
.?AVCCommandLine@@
.?AVICommandLine@@
.?AVCRegistry@@
.?AVIRegistry@@

Pretty much it looks like ckf3.exe just adds all the parameters and settings to hl.exe. I've spoken to the main dev of cfk3, I messaged him a few minutes ago asking how he compiled that .exe and what sources he used. If it is not HLSDK, then I'll ask him to share the exe source (if it's not in the alpha source on moddb)

Edit: Attached source from moddb. Maybe someone can take a look and see if it includes the ckf3.exe source

 

Nice discussion over here. Looks like you are learning a lot more new info. Still keeping my eye on this, there has to be a way to get those dll's to load. I have wanted HL Rally on Dreamcast for the past 5 years or so lol. XD

Btw, kinda off topic, but I was messing around with Half-Life again emulating it in Demul to help a friend of mine that runs the combine wiki for half-Life and he wanted me to test some stuff for him. Well long story short my Dreamcast is still fuxxord, tore it back down again tonight still the gdrom drive is dead. Anyways I was needing to bring up the console in game with the tilde key like you normally do. Well some reason with the kb and mouse plugins used on the emu I just can;t get tilde to bring the console up at all.

Obviously moving about in game with WASD works fine, just I can never see the dev console. Used to work fine for me on real hardware with my official sega mouse and keyboard, as I would no clip out of the map and check stuff out.

 

Yes this has been the cause of my stack of like 200 CD-Rs

What kind of stuff does he need for the wiki?

As far as the topic of this thread, at this point it's more or less if someone skilled in programming wanted to help test further we could find a lot more out. For one a command line shell could be coded to pass commands to the WinCE shell (which we now know is loaded into memory). Then those .ras config files can be tested to see how they behave, and test those command line parameters

Either that or I get a coders cable. But if anything works a programmer would be needed anyway

 

Well I mean, he doesn't need anything in particular at a consistent time, just asking about little things here and there and to check if there is a difference with this or that. The console screen he was wanting to make sure he had listed on the wiki would be the true unused one he found in the game files. I guess I missed the part about the console not working via emulation, It should have clicked in my head since you kept having to burn discs to test. XD

Well if this is true we could be seeing homemade coders cables produced in limited quantities.

http://www.thedreamcastjunkyard.co.uk/2016/02/guest-article-great-serial-connector.html

 

Well my BBA is here so I am a step closer, but still a few months away from having time to work on this.

I don't have any experience with the emulation setup, but it should be pretty trivial to find the tilde key mapping in the executable and change it to another key if that is the problem you guys are having.

 

Well, perhaps it was just something not implemented on demul, a small oversight. Not sure. I need to test other games with it to see if I can bring up the dev console. Does anybody know of other Dreamcast games that also have official keyboard support which happen to utilize a dev console?

 

There was no obvious way in demul. I tired binding toggleconsole to another key in valve.rc and it did not work

I'm not sure if that WinCE kernel image thing from the dev kit will work on an emulator. It crashed demul on startup

 

Out of curiosity, have you guys tried typing commands there anyway? It is possible that the console is open after you press the tilde key, but the emulator is not rendering the overlay for it correctly.

 

I'm pretty sure that is not the case. But if it did still work, we need to see the output of the console anyhow

I got to the console a few times using that VMU auto load file however

 

Well for sure the orange loading bar does not render properly when transitioning between levels. So I mean there is a chance it could actually be the case after thinking about it.

 

Well sizious's screenshot when he did the patch to enable the connect commands was at console in an emulator. But he hacked the binary to do that so maybe he bound the console toggle to another key

So you can use it from an emu it's just kind of a pain to get to

 

You could try summoning him for a quick tip: @SiZiOUS.

 

You might try typing some blind commands that you know will have a direct visual result (load level, noclip, whatever) just to check. It will help you determine what direction you need to work in anyway.

 

I'd like to know what Sizous thinks of that WinCE kernel that can be manipulated more than how to access console from an emulator