Something i've been thinking about recently is teaming up with a few people to create a packet capture library using Xlink Kai (system link) to aid in the development of the open source Xbox Live project that started here But what I'm unsure of is if it will actually help. I'm friends with the engineer that reverse engineered and restored a large portion of the Dreamcast library with multiplayer, and he says in almost every case it's just a lobby to negotiate the game, then its basically Peer-to-Peer after that once the lobby is reverse engineered So that said, my thinking is Xbox Live is probably similar, once the core service is restored(i'm not ignorant to the level of effort required for that), then the games are probably Peer-to-Peer as well once the players are assembled by the Xbox Live "lobby" If my presumption is true, i'd be more than happy to create a packet capture library with the help of others slowly over time. I'm very interested in and would really like to see original Xbox live working again Hopefully some of the guys involved or close to the project can give me a straight detailed answer, i'm very interested in this ---- Edit: another idea i had just now: Perhaps packet capturing the attempt to sign into Xbox Live on random titles between different regions etc would have enough nuanced differences between each other that might even reveal some stuff to help solve some of the puzzles you guys face?
First of all, Awesome you want to work on this. Go for it But.... as far as most people should know, not all games where just peer to peer like the dreamcast* im not gonna ramble on here just now for this, and I truly hope your tool or whatever we all can cobble together would make a live like system to be born. But Xlink Kai works basicly because the games are hosted on xboxes, without any servers needed. But are maps always stored on the xbox (possibly true)? are object states only shared amoung xboxes, or are they also or exclusively managed/tracked and/or updated by a server, a "title server"? ow well, you know... enough negative feelings for my dreams. Lets do this, just cause we can but basicly, I still hope you read what docs are out there there must have been some leaks aswell. *im not saying DC has only p2p games
yes i did generalize and paraphrase quite a bit. i wasn't saying it's 'just a lobby', i understand it's a super complex system interdependent on other complex systems before it works my main question is will having packet captures of system link games have any value to the engineers here when trying to get a game(s) working on their new 'xbox live"? or do they have no value because it's over kai? will capturing the attempt to sign-in or use other defunct features of many titles possibly reveal some kind of 'secret' because of bad coding or lack of optimization? ye stuff like unreal tournament is nearly impossible without source code for reasons you mentioned. again i did generalize\paraphrase a bit too much my thinking is, because usually when someone is hosting a game, the host has to send certain packets or commands to the other non-hosts before their clients know to launch the game, worms world party on dreamcast for example, the biggest issue was always figuring out this\these commands for the non-hosts to launch the game. now for xbox, i couldn't see the host\client interaction being all that different, if at all, when the xbox live service is removed from the equation, we have system link so we'd be able to 'just capture' these commands. and probably even more so for the lobbies, scanning for games, joining a lobby, creating a lobby and the packets broadcast so its visible to the other clients "masterlist" on the LAN. voice chat. etc. the 'only difference'(paraphrasing a bit) when xbox live is in the equation is these packets and datas are going out through the internet rather than on your "local network". the ability to view all(most) host\client interactions for a complete game would allow the engineers to just focus on making those interactions happen over the internet, and i think as the new 'xbox live' as the 'middle-man', rather than having to reverse the entire gameserver using disassembly\docs while also the 'xbox live' aspects though i am aware of title servers, encryptions, and bootstraps as you mentioned am i wrong is mainly what i'm asking
