surfing the web using a DC w/ BBA question

M

megadrive0088

Regular
Hopefully within a few weeks I'll have a U.S. Dreamcast Broadband Adaptor for my U.S. DC. (ebay is my friend! :p)

For those of you that have one, what is it like surfing the web, using
the PlanetWeb 3.0 browser? I already have the PW 3.0 browser, but obviously I'm using it with 56k dial-up. this browser is very buggy and freezes / locks up every few min while surfing w/ dialup. It is worse in that aspect than the 2.0 and 2.1 browsers.

Does using BBA and broadband connection improve the situation at all or is it the same? Certainly one could surf faster using the BBA in conjuntion with Cable/DSL, but I wonder how often it locks up /freezes using the BBA and a broadband connection, and overall what its like.

many thanks in advance.
 
You're getting a broadband adapter because you want to surf the web with your dreamcast? It's not of use anymore, because you can't play any games online anymore :(
 
Evil_Cloud said:
You're getting a broadband adapter because you want to surf the web with your dreamcast? It's not of use anymore, because you can't play any games online anymore :(
Click to expand...

Quake3 lets you choose your own servers, and is compatible with the PC version if the PC has the DC map pack.

And PSO's servers are still up.
 
I'd rather be accessing the internet through a game console. I have a PC, and the fact that I use it only for searching the internet feels so inelegant to me. The PC is way too overblown for my simple, precision task of internet usage to which I'd find a console should be well suited.

For years there was a helpful site called Net Link World, started for support of the Saturn modem and its online community with later coverage of Dreamcast/PS2/GC/Xbox online functionality. I just tried searching for it, but it appears to have disappeared. A shame, too, since it was an especially great resource for using the PlanetWeb browsers properly and to their fullest (had lots of interviews with PlanetWeb and message board contributions from their employees.)

I wish I could put you in touch with an existing information source like that, megadrive0088, where you could get lots of impressions on the latest US 3.0 browser. I'm sure a lot of the knowledgeable users are floating around, but I don't know quite where they went right now. One contact you might try is PlanetWeb directly; they were always friendly when answering my questions. Only now, I can't seem to access their site either for some reason...

I've only been using a PC relatively recently as I've been able to accomplish everything I needed on the modern web through my Net Link and later my Dreamcast. The Net Link browser is a true marvel - so much functionality (considering PC browsers of the day) and with only a 500k footprint on a system with only 2 MB of RAM. I was very disappointed in PlanetWeb when they managed to make a buggier and barely improved version for Dreamcast, a system with 13 times more memory.

When I move over to broadband soon here, I'm planning on getting a BBA and PW 3.0 software for my Dreamcast as well to switch over to that. So, please tell me how it works for you... I know the browser crashed a lot and had memory management issues on image-filled pages, so I hope it handles it all better in broadband mode. I've also heard that you can improve speed and performance by messing around with the modem initialization string codes (some alterations to the error checking actually make downloading and displaying pages twice as fast!)
 
back in early 2000, I switched from using a Webtv for internet access to Dreamcast using 56K dialup. it made a huge difference in being able to surf MUCH faster than with Webtv. 2-3x faster, at least, and that was before I put in a different initial string codes, which speeds up web page loading by 50% or even 2x


I have since got a PC and DSL ( early 2002) which is vastly better, obviously, but I am still wanting to see how Dreamcast does with broadband so I am acquiring a BBA. I'll let you know how that goes.


every once in awhile I find people on the internet who are experinced with all the console browsers and ways of connecting. there is a Yahoo group called VGSOnlone ==> groups.yahoo.com/group/VGSOnline
that deal specifically with browsers for consoles.

I also recently got a Netlink for Saturn with version 2 of its browser. I was been surprised at how clean the brower is, especially if you download the latest version from Planetweb, right into your Saturn. as you said, its pretty good for a system with only 2 MB system ram.
try that on a 33 Mhz PC with 4 MB memory :)
 
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