PGA Tour Golf by Global VR & EA Sports Owners Thread

[ed12]

that is a easy answer..it start's: with NO
and it beg's u do it,ie U DO IT,i will post mine if u do it first ?
but as i know u can not...i have no FEAR'S of handing them out
REMBER THIS COMMENT

I really appreciate your willingness to help ed but i would like to approach this with a fresh set of eyes.  Also my angle is 180 degrees opposite of yours.  I mean no disrespect, just like to do things my way.  Thank you again though.

u @ post a picture of your unit hooked to a real "game live"
as u said u can do...
and i do not mean 2012/13/14 it's-gaming golf
but rather a pga complete and or pga golden tee final edition

now to SNAP this picture is not hard
just make sure u have your lan hooked
hook into the subset mask..
This take's typing,as u should know by now,as it is not :STATIC:,but rather
dchp,but u can get there..
now post them #'s
and the follower's will do the same
if they know how to go around..simple input..
like gain control of the network,admin,password,allow,auto,etc
then A-FIX this info to a .BAT file to make sure it stick's
from there send it out to the proper ppl

oh btw do not let me forget to say u must KNOW the EXACT machine ID???

ABOUT RIGHT ENOUGH FOR YOUR,: I CAN DO THIS IN 5 MIN'S FLAT WITH-OUT YOUR EDIT'S ?
right from your quote's ?

NO DOG..GO BACK TO THE POUND

ed

[boostinallovryou]

Ed, you are rambling and a complete waste of my time.  It's obvious you are all talk and your lack to post a screen shot like i did just confirms it.  This is the last time i will respond to you.  I'm too busy to argue with a fraud like you.  I'm done with you, go away.

[boostinallovryou]

Anybody up for a tournament??



Disregard the "During Text" strings.  Those were just for debugging.

[boostinallovryou]

Just dropping in to give a little more status.  This is my bone stock TC machine communicating with my server over ethernet.  No dial up needed.  Makes it 20% of the way through registration before it bails.  1/5 of the way there :-)

[stpcore]

So this is pretty interesting.  Thanks for posting screen shots as I've never seen anything like this before with these machines.

Does anyone know how the tournaments work?  I'm assuming we would all have to dial in to the same server and enter a tournament ID or would there be an option to start a tournament that would display to everyone in a lobby?  Do you play your normal round and your score updates on a leaderboard?  I'm also hoping that MULLIGANS are disabled during tournament play?

Again, very interesting and thanks for sharing with the community.

[boostinallovryou]

So here is how the whole thing works:

1) A machine has to have an operator and register with the server.  This was done with an operator card.  The company that owned the machine would get an operator card from GVR and it would contain all the information about the operator and have a unique operator number.  When they registered the game they would insert the card and it would setup the machine and make a connection to the server to register.  Now the server knows the machine exists.

2) The server starts a tournament.  The course is selected, the number of holes, the difficulty, promo advertising, etc were configured on the server.  This could be done ahead of time.  I.E. tournament "setup" on the 1st of a month but it has info that the client machine should not start advertising until the 5th of the month.  This info is given to the client machines when they call in which is normally each night.  Or immediately in the case of registration.

3) Tournament starts.  Now you walk up to your machine, put your money in, and select that you want to play a tournament.  All the machines know what course, difficulty, etc.  The machine will ask for your players card.  This is a card you got from GVR or the machine for ones that supported card dispensers.  This card will have your name, address, etc, etc.  Also it will have a unique player number.  You play your round using your card and the results are stored on the machine.

4) Machine connects to server and uploads your game play.  At the same time your machine downloads other people's game play that have been participating in the tournament.  The leaderboard for the tournament on your machine is updated.  So now after the update you see who is in the lead, what city state they are from, and other information.

That's pretty much how it works.  It's an asynchronous tournament.

[Spitfire]

Hi Boost your screen shots are a breath of fresh air around here as this thread has become so stale. As STP said I have been trying for years to get ED to add us Aussie boys to his so called server with no luck! There is always something that's not right for some reason or another and as you have said talk is cheap but unfortunately I don't have the expertise to make this happen but if you could we would greatly appreciate this Downubder in Australia.
Any assistance I can offer please let me know and I am happy to test anything for you from this end on the world. Keep up the good work and eagerly awaiting your next post. Thx Joe

[stpcore]

So do you think we would need operator cards or is there a workaround for that?  I have a few operator cards and about 30 player cards so I can help some people out if need be.

[boostinallovryou]

Hey Spitfire,

Thank you very much for the post.  It's great to know there are people ready and waiting to connect and challenge each other.  There is absolutely NO reason why US, Canada, UK, AU, etc cannot play against each other.  While setting up the tournament that you saw my screen shot of I see where entries have to be made for each country code that is allowed to participate.  All the server has to have is a single entry with the same tournament number for each country.  So no problem getting you boys and girls from down under connected.  I'm actually very excited to play against people from around the world.  Keep your eyes open for a new screen shot this weekend.  Last night was a MAJOR breakthrough.  If I went into details nobody would understand, or really even care because it all was related to the server and backend.  Let me just say that I am now 100% confident we will have a server.


Stp,

Here is what I am thinking.  The operator cards are only needed one time.  Just to configure the machine.  In reality because this is a private server that doesn't care about billing the operator, collections, cuts, etc the operator configuration is just a formality that needs to be there to satisfy a data requirement.  If all the machines had the same dummy operator info in it that wouldn't hurt a thing.  So I have two possible solutions.  Two because I am not sure which one will work the best, or which one is easier for you guys.  But here are the two solutions:

1) I supply an ISO image that you download and burn to a CD.  You put it in your machine and reboot the game.  The game will boot off the CD, run a program that I have on there that removes all previous operator information and creates a new dummy operator.

2) I supply another image that you flash onto a USB thumb stick.  Again you reboot the game and it boots off the thumb stick, executes a program of mine that will generate a blob of data on the thumb stick.  You then upload that blob to the server.  The server then automatically makes the corrections to the blob and supplies you with a new blob.  Put that blob back onto the thumb driver, reboot the game again, and this time to pushes the modified blob onto your machine giving you the dummy operator configuration.

Let me just say that these modifications do NOT make changes to the game binaries.  The game is not changed in anyway.  This modification is just changing configuration parameters by us instead of the game's code.  This is a very important fact.

As for player cards.  This is something that people need to have.  For a couple of reasons.  It allows multiple people to play a tournament on the same game at the same time.  It allows people to play a tournament on your machine as themselves and not playing as you.  Also this gives each player a unique ID.  That is the most important part as the server needs this info.  I think cards are still available though.  Need For Speed is another game by GVR that had tournament ability, uses the same server logic, and same card.  It just has a different logo.  I will have to confirm this but I think people can go to their local arcade that has a need for speed, buy a player card for it, put their info in, the NFS game will program it, and then you can use it on your PGA.  Just as long as everybody has the new style card reader.  I will start to address this next week.

What I want is to make this extremely easy for people, keep the game code unmodified, and I use myself as the guinea pig.  So there really shouldn't be any reason why what I do on my machine doesn't work for everybody else.

[boostinallovryou]

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a server.....



There is a LOT more work to be done.  I cannot start a tournament for you guys yet, but I can get it so you can connect, register, and get your cabinets tournament enabled.  More to come soon.

[ed12]

so as i stated a tad more then your point eh....gee
no u need not need the operater's card,nor the player's card..
yes u need to tell hercules to listen for the lan >wake-up if u will<
and be very careful with usa..as ea sport's get very hissie
the rest is wide open..
and a smart fellow will have a tira byte set aside for player/course tweak's..
and btw enable led-bright for your over head winner's display..but also u can code in
a small lcd to do the same thing...good work ,btw with-out a major server, vpn
limt's u to 10..yes 10 tcip hook in's,u must over-ride some fuction's there..



ed

[boostinallovryou]

Ed just stop.   You have no idea how the system works.  Your posts prove that.  Just stop blabbering.  I told you i don't have time for your bs posts.

[Spitfire]

@Boost starting to get excited mate, please let us know if there is anything you need us to do in preparation for these tournaments here in OZ. I have an operators card and some players cards so ready to go I guess.

@Ed mate we have been waiting for years for you to deliver something but you have given us a big fat zero. Time to let someone else have there turn!! And as Boost said please don't side track things with anymore posts as you need to be some kind of wizard to understand anything that you ramble on about!!

[Dalejustin96]

I recently hooked up my team challenge to a flat screen and the boot up process seems fine but when the game starts to load I get a screen that reads.........

This TV does not support the output format, video resolution and/or refresh rate being sent by the connected device. Please refer to the user manual of this TV for a list of supported input formats, resolutions and refresh rates and modify the settings on your connected device

Then it goes to a screen that says.....

Resolution mismatch!  Change resolution

What's the easiest way to fix?   THANKS

[boostinallovryou]

Just dropping a quick status update.  Server has been deployed and is connected to Internet.   Now putting together the bootable iso that will automatically point your machine to the server.  Hopefully will have time to test it tonight.  As soon as it is tested i will release it, you can burn it to a cd, run it one time on your machine, and your machines can connect from anywhere around the world.

[rspark]

Man this will be awesome.
Finally have something going on in this thread that I can understand.

[Spitfire]

@boost that's great mate can't wait for it to happen. Hope it all tests well and we are compeating against each other soon.

@Dale make sure that your VGA cable is connected to the VGA port on the video card at the back of the PGA golf pc and then connected to the VGA port on your tv. The tv should automatically change resolutions to match the resolution being sent from the pc video card which should be 800 x 600. If this is the case and ur still having trouble try to change to and from the VGA AV selection on ur TV or adjust some sort of setting on ur tv. Also
Make sure that a normal computer monitor will display a signal if all else fails to make sure ur video card is not going bad. I hope that helps

[Dalejustin96]

I'm thinking my card must be the issue.  I have the challenge edition hooked up to this tv and the resolution settings are the same on both computers.  The challenge tower that i'm having the problem with works fine on the tube tv it just has issues on the flatscreen but i know its not the tv since it works with the other.   I'll try a new card next.....thanks for your help!

Dale

[stpcore]

Make sure you grab a compatible video card. Cheapest option would probably be the TI-4200.

[boostinallovryou]

You guys ready to point your machines to the new private server?  I have finished the automagic pointer and tested it on my machine with success.  Here is what you do:

1) Download the iso from here: http://www.filedropper.com/pgaserverptr
2) Burn the iso to a CD using any tool you want.  Nero, WinISO, ISO Recorder, Windows Image Burner, etc
3) Put the CD into your machine's cdrom drive and reboot the game
4) You do not need to touch anything.  No keyboard, no mouse, nothing, the cd will do everything for you
5) You will see a boot menu, countdown, lots of verbose output while booting, etc.  At the end of booting you should see a line that states that the machine was updated to point to the new server and you should eject the cd and reboot your machine.  Then you will get a "#" command prompt.
6) Because the linux kernel has the cdrom mounted you will not be able to eject it so just turn your machine off, turn it back on, and eject the disk before it boots off of it again.  There is no harm in running the cd over and over.
7) That's it

Here are a few important notes about this ISO image:
1) I am not responsible for any damage it might cause.  You use at your own risk.  (Had to put that disclaimer)
2) This was created as a derivative work of Trinity Rescue.  Trinity Rescue is licensed under GPL v2 thus this derivative is licensed under GPL v2.  Basically just saying that Trinity Rescue gave permission for me to modify and distribute this under the GPL v2 license.
3) This was tested on my bone stock Team Challenge machine.  There is no reason this shouldn't work on other versions but just saying I could only test it on TC.
4) This ISO in no way changes any of the game code.  There is only one change and that is to a windows config file.
5) This ISO assumes you are using the stock GVR computer that has its hard drive connected to the Primary Master IDE bus.  If your hard drive is set to slave or you have it on the secondary IDE bus this ISO will not work for you.  Just change your hard drive to Master and make sure it is connected to the Primary bus.
6) Make sure you set your connection method to "Broadband, DSL, Cable"
7) If you are not using the stock computer and have your own windows installation rolled out then PM me and I can give you directions on what to do manually as you already have access to the box.  You will still need to download the ISO.

I think that about covers it.  I have the server "half way" up for the next day or two as I make some changes.  The server is still up for you to test connect to but you will not get a "Successfully connected to GVR servers" message.  This will be fixed in a day or two like I said.  To tell if your connection is working just do a test call from the service menu, if you get a 50001 error you did not see the server.  If you get a 40001 error you did connect to the server but it did not authenticate you (because I am making changes).

Let me know how it goes.

[Spitfire]

Hey Boost this is awesome mate will try this first thing tomorrow Oz time. Need to run a Ethernet cable to my machine I guess it has anyone linked these machines wireless?? Ummm can't wait. If this works and runs well let's get together and organise some prizes for the winners of these tournaments each month or so would be great ha ha

[boostinallovryou]

I have a couple topics to mention:

Wireless connectivity:
I actually connect my machine wirelessly (I know that isn't a word) right now and have plans in the next day or so to connect it to the internet via my cell phone for further testing.  To connect to my home network I have taken an old Linksys WRT54G router and flashed it with DD-WRT.  This allows me to set the router up to be a wireless bridge.  A wireless bridge is just what it sounds like, it bridges two physical networks using your current home wireless network.  I put the router on top of my machine and connect it to the PC with an ethernet cable.  Then anything sent from the machine gets forwarded to my home wireless router and vise versa anything needing to be sent to the machine goes to the wireless bridge and then to the PC.  There are plenty of step by step write ups on the internet about how to do this.

Cellular connectivity:
To test from a different network and with tighter firewalls (cell networks do not allow initial traffic to come to the cell phone, all communication must be initiated by the phone) I plan to use my cell phone to connect my machine to the internet.  To do this I use the same wireless bridge as I do for my home but instead of bridging my home wireless network I turn the hot spot feature on in my phone and bridge that.  So my phone has now created an ad-hoc network and the wireless bridge can bridge to that.  Just another way of testing.

Another note on server pointer ISO:
The ISO I put together was done as quickly as possible.  I did not make it robust with error handling, or even looking at the return values from calls I make.  This means you can get a message that says the redirect was successful even though about that line are error messages.  If you see any errors just let me know what they say.  If you see anything that says "Disk is dirty and was not cleanly unmounted during last windows session.....fixing...."  That is ok.  That is expected.  Just wanted to make everyone aware that the success message will always appear.

Course unlocking:
During my investigations I came across an area that had course names like "Tigerized <Course Name>", or "Fantasy <Course Name>".  Are these the unlockable courses you guys are talking about when you were referring to server course unlocking and the All Access Pass version of the game?  I am not familiar with what courses were unlockable and what was new in AAP.  But if I stumbled onto something let me know.

Course additions:
So......I think all of what I am doing is just the tip of the iceberg.  I think the game has a great software base and it appears it was written so courses could be added by the server.  With that said what if it was possible to not just play the current courses, but make new courses!!  I think it is completely possible and another thing that is rattling around in the back of my head.  But first things first, got to get a solid server underneath us and get some tournaments going :-)

[stpcore]

With the All Access Pass dongle and upgrade CD you have access to all 27 courses that were available when the servers where online.  Some of them are fantasy courses and some of them are actual course recreations. 

PGA Tour Golf (arcade) is close to the PC versions that were released around 2006.  I see several files (audio, file folders, etc.) that are within the arcade game file structure but don't seem to be used.  I think they were cut out of the final arcade game when it was ported over from the PC version perhaps?  For instance when you say "Tigerized" that is something that you can do in the PC or console versions of the game which allows you to modify a course (larger bunkers, smaller greens, etc.) to make it more difficult for Tiger Woods to compete on.  This was never an option on the arcade port.

[Spitfire]

Hi Boost, Just about to download the ISO and try on my all access pass team challenge machine will report back soon.  Would love to be able to unlock all the items in the Game face side of the game do add these items to your own player.  This was done in the original online Arcade version by playing the world tour challenge of the game.  Once the Tournaments are stable and up and running opening the world tour side of the game would be great so we can unlock all these new player items. thx Joe

[stpcore]

Hey Spitfire...did PGA ever have equipment upgrades (clubs, balls, tees, etc.) when the game was online?  I've worked with this game for years but never played it in the arcade so I don't really no what I'm missing.

[boostinallovryou]

Not a problem, I saw all of the world tour components while investigating tournaments.  I don't think there will be a problem at all unlocking those customizations.  Looks like we have a nice list of features starting to get compiled.  I like it.  Like you said, tournaments first.  Nervous and excited to see how the ISO works on your setup.  Should be just like mine but you never know right.  I finished the changes I wanted to make to the server and will upload it tonight.  So this evening you should be able to make a test call and it will work 100% for you and enable tournament in the bottom left of your screen.  Will let you know when those changes have been promoted.

[Spitfire]

is it worth me holding of with the cd install till then or should I go ahead and try to boot from the cd now?

[Spitfire]

I also didn't play it much when it was online but for what I can tell it was more cosmetic with clothing items and I think different balls also not sure about different clubs.

[boostinallovryou]

Boot from cd.  Go for it!!

[Spitfire]

so booted up from cd and got to the end successfully and then rebooted machine and game loaded up as normal. Did all this without connected an Ethernet cable to the machine as I forgot ha ha is this a problem? looking for a cable now to connect to the internet and see if I can contact server through settings page? please advise if I have done something wrong. took photos also if you would like me to post some screen shots of the process?

[boostinallovryou]

Sounds like everything worked as it should.  You do not need to have cable connected to run cd.  If you would like to post screen shots so people can see what it should look like that would be great.  Yes you are ready to connect to server through service menu.  Make sure you change your connection method to broadband instead of dial up in service mode also.  Im going to upload new software to server in ten minutes.   Feel free to connect anytime.

[Spitfire]

Hi there is nowhere to change from dial up to broad pans that I can see in the settings so it's always try to dial up hen connected. Where do I do this?

[boostinallovryou]

Booting my machine to get exact location.  Just a second.

[boostinallovryou]

Go into service mode, scroll down to "Register | Connect", Select sub menu "Actions", Then on right side scroll to and select "Configure Connection" button.  Configure connection menu will appear.  Highlight and select "Connection Type", change to Broadband and select done button.  Then in Actions menu select Force Call (Manual).

[Spitfire]

Hi mate yes I have seen those options in my earlier versions of PGA golf but this all access version of team challenge doesn't have those options anymore urghhhh disaster. Anyway to get them back up ha ha or any other way to make it use LAN instead of dial up. I also enabled LAN in the bios but nothing changed??

[boostinallovryou]

I wonder if GVR killed off the menu or even all of the server stuff because AAP was to replace the server.  Yes there is a way around the menu and physically make the settings "under the hood" but it is something only i can do with tools i wrote.  Best thing is for me to get AAP, test, and make you another bootable cd that does everything for you.  Sending you PM.

[Spitfire]

That option was ever there on this version from day one.  But it is there on the normal version of team challange

[boostinallovryou]

Is there even a force call option in AAP?

[Spitfire]

No there is only a test in diagnostics to let you connect to server but it uses dial up. I have looked in the back end of my pc and all the options are there but somehow they have stopped them
From showing up in the config menus.

[boostinallovryou]

On the attract screen does it say tournament deactivated?  From what you guys said AAP was the answer to the server shutdown.  They might have stripped it of tournament play completely.  Ill buy an AAP kit off ebay and see what it looks like.