Tutorial on Connecting your Dreamcast to the Internet in 2022 (and beyond)
If you’re like me and you’ve tried to set up a DreamPi before to connect a Dreamcast to the internet in the modern era, you’ve probably realized there’s a dearth of reliable tutorials that are up to date. dreamcastlive.net will still link you to a six year old blog post for their “Written Tutorial” to set one up. Let me guide you through what you need to set one up. Note that this tutorial is the for the NTSC Dreamcast only.
The easiest method
The Dreamcast live shop sells DreamPi kits containing both a Raspberry Pi with the DreamPi image on its micro SD card, a power supply, an ethernet cable, a phone cable, and a customized USB RJ-11 modem. These are reasonably priced, and make it the easiest to set up DreamPi; so if you don’t plan on using a Raspberry Pi for any other purpose, it’s not a bad option to go with.
- Plug the USB power supply into the USB C port of the Raspberry Pi:
2. Plug one end of the ethernet cable into the Raspberry Pi’s ethernet port, while the other end goes into your router.
3. Next, plug the USB modem into the USB port of the Raspberry Pi.
3. Plug one end of the phone cable into the modem of the Dreamcast, and the other end into the USB modem.
And that’s all for the hardware side. For actually getting online afterwards, go to “Establishing a connection”.
Creating your own DreamPi method
If you already own a Raspberry Pi, or want to use one faster than the Pi 3 (the newest version Dreamcastlive sells as of June 2021), you can buy the majority of this equipment needed at a number of retailers except the custom USB modem. In total you will need:
- A Raspberry Pi (I recommend the Pi 4)
- A micro SD card
- A USB C power supply
- An RJ-45 ethernet cable
- An RJ-11 phone cable
- A USB modem with a line voltage inducer
If you choose to buy a Raspberry Pi from elsewhere, you’ll have to flash an image onto a micro SD card described in the steps below:
- Download the newest version of the DreamPi from the Dreamcastlive downloads page.
2. In order to flash the DreamPi image onto the micro SD card, we will need to download Win32DiskImager. Note that this only works for Windows. Alternatives for Mac and Linux include BalenaEtcher.
3. Run it, and use the blue folder icon to select the DreamPi image. Select the micro SD in your PC from the menu under Device:
4. Eject your SD card, and insert it into your Raspberry Pi:
5. To obtain a modem with a line voltage inducer, you can either purchase one from the Dreamcast live shop, or build one yourself.
(From here on the instructions are the same as the easiest method)
Establishing A Connection
Now that everything’s plugged in, just turn on the Raspberry Pi and you’ll need to boot up a supported game or a browser disc to connect online for the first time. I personally recommend 4x4 Evolution, which is what I’ll be showing for this tutorial. Some other options include Dreamkey Version 1 thru 3.1, and Quake 3 Arena (do NOT use the Replayers .cdi version).
- Select “Network” from the main menu:
2. Select “Configure Internet Connection”:
3. Leave the first two fields blank, 1111111 for the Dialup number, dream for the Dialup login, dreamcast for the Dialup password, and 0.0.0.0 for the Primary and Secondary DNS:
4. Select “Connect to the Internet” and you’re done! The settings will be saved the Dreamcast’s internal memory, and can be used to connect online to any of the supported games.
