Have ADSL? Take your playstation online!

[sybawoods]

Prolly more appropriate to the gaming forums... but I thought I'd post some positive news in here about local ADSL. If you have both ADSL and a Playstation 2 - you can take your Playstation 2 online for your kids (or yourself) to play against anyone in Europe :), with what - so far - is a fairly pleasant on-line gaming experience.

Below is a copy of my post to the Prophecy gaming forums

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Ok, may be old news for some... but thought I'd confirm that it's quite possible to play on-line with a PS2 from South Africa.

I ordered a network adapter via Xbox SA last week (R460 including shipping). Gotta thank them for a great service - goodies arrived within 6 days, with email updates everyday about the status of the delivery.

Anyway, it arrived at the Post Office on Tuesday, but I was only able to collect Wednesday (the day I went on leave ).

It seemed almost to good to be true... it comes with a Network access disk where you are able to configure your ADSL PPOE settings (username, password, dns etc). I punched everything in, it ran some automatic traceroutes and other diagnostic tests. Everything came back all clear. It connects via Ethernet Adapter to my network hub, which is cnnected to a simple "Telkom ADSL router pots".

Anyway... things started going a bit South from there. Firstly, after the network settings passed, it failed the some on-line hardware tests (read "chip" ). Try what may, the hardware test continued to fail. Spent the afternoon looking for a m8 to uninstall the chip. Finally got the chip removed by about 7pm. Great stuff - passed the hardware test - called " DNAS " by Sony.

The next step was to register an online username with Sony's online portal called "Central Station". An online connection is established via the PS2 where you have to enter details like a special access code that comes with the adapter, your PS2 serial #, your email address etc. Its about 6 pages of info, but it kept crashing or freezing at random points so that we could never get it completed. Without a registered username, you can see on-line games, but cannot log into any of them.

Anyway, finally went onto the Sony support forums - always a last resort! - and found a link to some guys who figured a way to register on-line via your PC ( Central Station access via a PC or Mac ). Completed the registration on-line, went to the PS2 afterwards, and was able to connect!!

So.. since about 11pm I've been on-line with lil_syba playing SOCOM 2. So far, we have experienced absolutely no lag whatsoever. It's hard to explain, or understand, but the gaming universe around us is silky smooth, with no perceptive lag that detracts from the gameplay. Obviously, will need to test during the day, but so far it's looking good. I'm using unshaped ADSL, which is pinging to the UK at about 250ms. Shaped pings are currently in the region of just over 320ms, so there shouldn't be much of a difference.

Will feed back some more tomorrow once I've tested during peak time.

Leave, glorious leave <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

[playkiller no.2]

I can just turn my chip off by holding the reset for 5 secs if I ever needed to go on line with my ps2.

Dumb Ster Kinekor bring some network adapters in for the adsl users.

[Chris]

Does it take some of your cap?
Maybe luckily for you Telkom never though of this novel idea and havn't 'capped' the traffic.
However I think Telkom always cap incoming and outgoing traffic whatever the case[}:)]

[Scandium]

Well, it is traffic, so yes your cap will effect it.

The network adapter is $59.95 canadian dollars, so converted to rands it is:

Currency conversion results
Date: 07 Jul 2004
59.95 in Canadian dollars equals: 276.27 South African rands
Exchange rate: 4.6083 (0.2170)

So, it's not really that expensive...

The site claims "free worldwide shipping" so thats a bonus.

http://www.dvdboxoffice.com/start.asp?class=gme&id=8BC82732-EFDB-409D-8419-D72D2838912E&wh=MAIN&s=gg&rate=CAD++%2D1%2E000++++ +

Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away
if your car could go straight upwards."
--Sir Fred Hoyle

[BlueICE]

Yup, been playing for a while since I got my network adaptor (mine seems to work fine with chip enabled).
I also have an XBox, but have to use XBConnect or Kai to play online as Microsoft Live will ban it.

So far games have been pretty good, no problems at all (touch wood) with lag or anything.

[Chris]

I just thought that's it quite ironic that you got a<b>ps2</b> adaptor from an <b>XBOX</b> site

[sybawoods]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Dominic Rooney</i>
<br />I just thought that's it quite ironic that you got a<b>ps2</b> adaptor from an <b>XBOX</b> site
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
http://www.xboxsa.co.za/store/produc...roducts_id=302

Yep, they mainly do Xbox, but will also do most anything else that is not available locally.

For anyone interested in what the gameplay looks like <b>despite</b> connecting to across the pond, I made a short (10 meg) video of my kid playing SOCOM2 online, and still displaying some ownage [:D]

http://home.telkomsa.net/myhome/images/double_frag.avi

To see a picture - http://home.telkomsa.net/myhome/imag...line_score.jpg

[sybawoods]

Have taken this one step further, and also got our X-box on-line. I posted a little bit about this over at Prophecy http://new.prophecy.co.za/showflat.p...=5&o=7&fpart=1. While my success was purely accidental, hopefully it sheds some light for anyone else interested in pursuing this.

A few people tried a while back (in the early days of ADSL), to get X-box on-line, but couldn't get it to work with Telkom's Ethernet ADSL modems. When switching to USB, for some reason, they got it to work. Somehow my Ethernet modem worked first time, and the only explanation I can offer is the firmware upgrade as described in that thread somewhere. That, or most of the people who initally tried simply did not follow the correct steps.

[Chris]

I read your post on the prophecy forums[:D]
Really nice I say