Menneisyys
02-15-2006, 04:22 PM
Working together with the creators, HeroCraft Hitech, of the nice multiplayer game Battle Cakes (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=519&more=1), I've finally managed to find out why some of the native Bluetooth multiplayer games refuse to work with the Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox 720!
The affected games previously unable to work in multiplayer mode on the Pocket Loox 720 (PL720 for short) are as follows:
Battle Cakes (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=519&more=1)
Infinite Dreams's Super Miners (http://idreams.pl/product.php?idProduct=2)
Infinite Dreams's Explode Arena (http://idreams.pl/product.php?idProduct=4)
All you need to do is updating the Bluetooth stack of your device by copying two updated Widcomm DLL files to the \Windows diretory of your Loox, "shadowing" the previous ones there:
10/08/2004 03:21 PM 113,152 BtCoreIf.dll
10/08/2004 03:21 PM 196,096 BtSdkCE30.dll
They update the system to version 1.5.0.1800 as can be seen here (http://www.winmobiletech.com/kuvat/PL720_multiplayergameBTUpdate-build1800.bmp.png).
Note that the only Pocket Loox ROM upgrade (http://www.winmobiletech.com/pl720restore/) doesn't have these files.
With this, the two Infinite Dreams games work perfect in both configurations (the PL720 hosts the server/joins a server). The PL720, on the other hand, should not host Battle Cakes games because
1. it will only sense other Widcom-based Pocket PC's, not Microsoft-based ones
2. if there're more than one Microsoft-based Pocket PC's in the neighbourhood, the PL720 will crash.
Therefore, it's better to host Battle Cakes games on other Pocket PC's.
As I'm not sure about the licensing conditions of the two DLL's, I don't make them online myself. The HeroCraft Hitech people will most probably distribute them with their game (they have purchased the SDK and, according to the licensing conditions, can also distribute the DLL's with their game(s)). I also contact Infinite Dreams to tell them about this acute problem (generating a lot of posts in both the Pocket Loox and the Infinite Dreams discussion boards) having been finally solved. They may also decide to make the DLL's available, bundled together with their games.
I've thoroughly tested the updated Bluetooth via BT PAN, BT DUN and other BT services; haven't run into any problems.
Also note that this doesn't fix the Bluetooth incompatibility of Quartz 2 (another multiplayer game).
Recommended reading:
Everything you need to know about multiplayer games on the Pocket PC (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/menneisyys/102005MPPPCGames.asp)
The affected games previously unable to work in multiplayer mode on the Pocket Loox 720 (PL720 for short) are as follows:
Battle Cakes (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=519&more=1)
Infinite Dreams's Super Miners (http://idreams.pl/product.php?idProduct=2)
Infinite Dreams's Explode Arena (http://idreams.pl/product.php?idProduct=4)
All you need to do is updating the Bluetooth stack of your device by copying two updated Widcomm DLL files to the \Windows diretory of your Loox, "shadowing" the previous ones there:
10/08/2004 03:21 PM 113,152 BtCoreIf.dll
10/08/2004 03:21 PM 196,096 BtSdkCE30.dll
They update the system to version 1.5.0.1800 as can be seen here (http://www.winmobiletech.com/kuvat/PL720_multiplayergameBTUpdate-build1800.bmp.png).
Note that the only Pocket Loox ROM upgrade (http://www.winmobiletech.com/pl720restore/) doesn't have these files.
With this, the two Infinite Dreams games work perfect in both configurations (the PL720 hosts the server/joins a server). The PL720, on the other hand, should not host Battle Cakes games because
1. it will only sense other Widcom-based Pocket PC's, not Microsoft-based ones
2. if there're more than one Microsoft-based Pocket PC's in the neighbourhood, the PL720 will crash.
Therefore, it's better to host Battle Cakes games on other Pocket PC's.
As I'm not sure about the licensing conditions of the two DLL's, I don't make them online myself. The HeroCraft Hitech people will most probably distribute them with their game (they have purchased the SDK and, according to the licensing conditions, can also distribute the DLL's with their game(s)). I also contact Infinite Dreams to tell them about this acute problem (generating a lot of posts in both the Pocket Loox and the Infinite Dreams discussion boards) having been finally solved. They may also decide to make the DLL's available, bundled together with their games.
I've thoroughly tested the updated Bluetooth via BT PAN, BT DUN and other BT services; haven't run into any problems.
Also note that this doesn't fix the Bluetooth incompatibility of Quartz 2 (another multiplayer game).
Recommended reading:
Everything you need to know about multiplayer games on the Pocket PC (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/menneisyys/102005MPPPCGames.asp)