Melee Netplay - The Future is Now (New and improved!)

[nmn]

Our version is a fork. The version numbers do not really correlate.

That being said, it could take some time to get a Mac build of our fork going...

 

[Leviathan741]

We and Bksub just tried to play some and we synced one time but lagged horribley

 

[wangsterbaiter]

Thanks for making this possible guys. I wanna play but I want to use my gc controller!

 

[Furphy]

I'll try this out if anyone want to play, I have it set up, but i'm not certain on my version of the game, add my skype.

 

[Turnerfield77]

Thanks for making this possible guys. I wanna play but I want to use my gc controller!

I just ordered an adapter for my gamecube controller
http://www.raphnet-tech.com/products/gamecube_to_usb/index.php?category=Gamecube

 

[Makkun]

I'm going to make a group to keep online players organized.

If you're experiencing input lag on your monitor, this is strictly situational. Most CRT monitors should have no noticeable input lag. My LCD VGA monitor has no noticeable input lag.

And it's been said before, playing any game online will have small amounts of lag, and it's known that in super fast-paced games like Melee this is a problem. It's still possible to have high-level play between competitive players, but you need to remember not to take it too seriously. Playing any fighting game online will never be the same as playing local. We want the support of high-level players, and we want some more videos of high-level gameplay online. But just remember this can never replace local gameplay on the same Gamecube. As close as it might get, it will never be 100% lagless, and thus it will never be suited for serious tournament play. [/rant]

That being said, it still works great for casual play. Remember to have fun.

 

[Turnerfield77]

I'm going to make a group to keep online players organized.

If you're experiencing input lag on your monitor, this is strictly situational. Most CRT monitors should have no noticeable input lag. My LCD VGA monitor has no noticeable input lag.

And it's been said before, playing any game online will have small amounts of lag, and it's known that in super fast-paced games like Melee this is a problem. It's still possible to have high-level play between competitive players, but you need to remember not to take it too seriously. Playing any fighting game online will never be the same as playing local. We want the support of high-level players, and we want some more videos of high-level gameplay online. But just remember this can never replace local gameplay on the same Gamecube. As close as it might get, it will never be 100% lagless, and thus it will never be suited for serious tournament play. [/rant]


That being said, it still works great for casual play. Remember to have fun.

is there a way to reduce input lag? mine has just barely under the equivalent of playing on an HDTV

 

[JMC4789]

If you have a bad monitor/video card setup there's little we can do for you. Maybe it's your controller? I don't know, I know some people aren't having problems with latency and some people are.

Netplay will never be latency free, but if you're having latency on your computer in single player, that is likely a problem with the computer playing it.

...if other emulators with the same controller work fine, then I have absolutely no idea.

 

[Turnerfield77]

If you have a bad monitor/video card setup there's little we can do for you. Maybe it's your controller? I don't know, I know some people aren't having problems with latency and some people are.

Netplay will never be latency free, but if you're having latency on your computer in single player, that is likely a problem with the computer playing it.

...if other emulators with the same controller work fine, then I have absolutely no idea.

my graphics card is pretty high end, its not the best there is right now but its pretty high up there, im using an xbox controller at the moment so that might be an issue? idk

 

[JMC4789]

Honestly, I strongly doubt it's a graphics card issue. I'd say it was a monitor or controller before anything else, and then I might go as far to say that then there maybe some lag in dolphin on some computers.

Then again, I'm not a super competitive player; I'm merely comparing from my GC to my PC on the monitors I have at home.

 

[Makkun]

I was just messing around in single player for a minute, and even using a PlayStation -> USB converter I can confirm there is no input lag. If there's any, it would be a result of your controller adapter, monitor, and the emulator itself. But it should DEFINITELY be under 1 frame, between 5-10ms, so definitely nothing that would affect your gameplay.

 

[Turnerfield77]

well it is a wireless adapter so perhaps that could be the issue, i'm still waiting on my gamecube controller adapter so hopefully that fixes the problem

 

[fatman667]

well it is a wireless adapter so perhaps that could be the issue, i'm still waiting on my gamecube controller adapter so hopefully that fixes the problem

That's definitely the problem, wireless always have some input lag whether it's small or big. The controller adapter should fix the problem though as long as it's not a wavebird.

 

[angel_without_heart]

you guys are idiot. Most of people here will ruin their live and play smash online 24/7.
If it works fine without any lag. People dream's will become true
you guys are awesome great work

 

[Leviathan741]

Does having a huge disparity between the raw power of two machines (mainly processor) cause large amounts of lag? I am trying to figure out why me and bktsub were lagging so hard last night.

 

[JMC4789]

It depends. If both processors are able to run the game full speed separately, then they shouldn't lag.

The padbuffer can be the problem... if you're getting lag in the menus and such, try upping the padbuffer to see if it makes the game run better.

 

[Bstuk]

It depends. If both processors are able to run the game full speed separately, then they shouldn't lag.

The padbuffer can be the problem... if you're getting lag in the menus and such, try upping the padbuffer to see if it makes the game run better.

Yeah, even with padbuffer at 60 it was lagging. I'm pretty sure it was my processor not being able to run the game.

Weird because it was working fine earlier that day.

 

[JMC4789]

You should try it with dualcore on and off, and also make sure you're using HLE audio in the newer build, as its faster.

If you can't run it well outside of netplay, it won't work well in netplay.

 

[oukd]

how much input lag/latency/etc would, say, a laptop monitor cause?

getting pretty excited for this + ssbmo planning on getting a gc to usb thing soon

 

[JMC4789]

Average Monitor is between 4 and 11ms latency... less than a frame even in most worst case scenarios. Some monitors might have problems though, from what I've been seeing in the thread.

 

[Fuzzyness]

for some reason I have to play higher buffer with leffen altho I get the same ping to sweden as to Denmark

I have no lag with king funk, on 8 buffer
leffen has no lag with king funk, on 8 buffer

but when we play eachother it lags and we have to play on 13? wtf

funks pc is worse, leffen's pc is good + has a pretty good connection too

I dont understand, is UK to Sweden unstable or something?

 

[JMC4789]

Different service providers have different speeds; it's not about internet speed as much as internet latency. Someone on fiber will have lower latency than someone on broadband, who will have lower latency than DSL, who will have lower latency than satellite. That's pretty much all I can say.

In the case you posted though, I'm going to guess that maybe it's distance? More distance is more lag.

 

[Fuzzyness]

King funk lives further, but i lag more with leffen? LOL

 

[Fizzi]

You could try doing traceroutes to both people and see where the jumps take you. It's possible that even though one is closer, the hops go a roundabout way to get there.

 

[rustediron]

Dolphin seems to be detecting my L & R triggers as sliders; this means that my fully undepressed L trigger is being set to some value between -1 and -8192, and my fully depressed L trigger is being given a value between +1 and +8192. When I try mapping the trigger on Dolphin, however, it maps either 'Slider 1 +' or 'Slider 1 -'. This means that my fully undepressed L trigger is firing -8192 on Slider 1, activating my L trigger in the emulator, when in fact it is completely undepressed.

Is this a Dolphin bug?

// get up to 6 axes and 2 sliders
DIPROPRANGE range;
range.diph.dwSize = sizeof(range);
range.diph.dwHeaderSize = sizeof(range.diph);
range.diph.dwHow = DIPH_BYOFFSET;
// screw EnumObjects, just go through all the axis offsets and try to GetProperty
// this should be more foolproof, less code, and probably faster
for (unsigned int offset = 0; offset < DIJOFS_BUTTON(0) / sizeof(LONG); ++offset)
{
range.diph.dwObj = offset * sizeof(LONG);
// try to set some nice power of 2 values (8192)
range.lMin = -(1 << 13);
range.lMax = (1 << 13);
m_device->SetProperty(DIPROP_RANGE, &range.diph);
// but i guess not all devices support setting range
// so i getproperty right afterward incase it didn't set
// this also checks that the axis is present
if (SUCCEEDED(m_device->GetProperty(DIPROP_RANGE, &range.diph)))
{
const LONG base = (range.lMin + range.lMax) / 2;
const LONG& ax = (&m_state_in.lX)[offset];

// each axis gets a negative and a positive input instance associated with it
AddInput(new Axis(offset, ax, base, range.lMin-base));
AddInput(new Axis(offset, ax, base, range.lMax-base));
}
}

This seems to be the offending code - surely a slider should be counted as a single input, on account of being a slider!
Would be nice to have this code changed in the next build posted in the OP of this thread.

 

[JMC4789]

It may just be your controller, and may break it for everyone else? I'm not super familiar with controller input stuff.

 

[Fuzzyness]

ok

we're using 45 fps code and we can play 4 player, leffen is using 2 gamecube controllers (him and jack) and it works LOL

inbetween the first and second match we did random stuff, had 4 peaches spamming turnips and we all got the same turnips

same with luigi misfire

we had 2 matches before it desynched

im gonna stream it in a min

this proves teams is playable online, and with 2 people on one computer

 

[JMC4789]

We're currently researching desyncs, and may have more luck later on. Hopefully luck will sync up between builds

 

[rustediron]

It may just be your controller, and may break it for everyone else? I'm not super familiar with controller input stuff.

It might be; is the 'dirty' build posted in the op on google code?

 

[JMC4789]

http://code.google.com/r/johnwchadwick-dolphin-ssbm/

We'll add this to the main post.

 

[rustediron]

Thanks! I'll have a play with it.

 

[JMC4789]

A lot of the total desyncs (Single core, LLE managing to desync) are caused by large lag bursts when you already have high latency.

HLE Audio is confirmed to desync, Dualcore is confirmed to desync. You can lessen the number of desyncs dramatically by NOT adding extra inputs during loadtimes. This does not guaranty the faster modes to sync, but it will at least let you play for longer without desyncs. HLE and Dualcore do not cause desyncs once you're in a match.

Fuzziness: Be sure to save the video! We'll put it in the first post!

 

[Fuzzyness]

www.twitch.tv/kingfunk

4 player online

leffen and jack on one pc Sweden
fuzzyness on one pc UK
king funk on one pc Denmark

 

[JMC4789]

Melee Netplay: The future works when it feels like it. Or maybe it doesn't want anyone else to see it.

My thoughts from the stream while it lasted.

Stability is our goal, we'll keep working on it!

 

[rawrimamonster]

How did the testing go with the version I was using?

 

[Fuzzyness]

stream + 4 player teams + 15 pad buffer = works
stream + 4 player teams + 10 pad buffer = works but desynchs a lot more

2 player team (3 players connected) + 3rd player streaming + 10 pad buffer = works for a bit, 2/3 games
3 people in a room + 1v1 rotation + 10 pad buffer = works for 3 games usually

random stuff stays in sync



we just played for 45 mins on rotation, no desynch

 

[JMC4789]

Thanks for the information. We will work on fixing the desync. This is actually a bit harder because we don't have a good way of stress testing internet where we can monitor both computers.

Your information is extremely valuable to us; the fact our build didn't random desync is actually the best news I've heard... especially after the shaky launch. We thought we had desync entirely fixed, but, we have a long way to go still.

When random numbers sync at the start of a match, but then you desync in middle of a match, we have to assume it's something to do with the way input is sent. I'm not entirely sure what to think about streaming causing it; whether it was the internet strain or the CPU strain...

 

[Fuzzyness]

the desynchs might be natural dude

 

[JMC4789]

Natural? Don't get me wrong, but, our goal is to entirely eliminate desyncs. If your random numbers are syncing (and thusly, emulators are in harmony) then that cuts out a lot of possibilities.

We also know that LLE on Thread can cause desyncs on dualcore.

Over very good internet connections, Dualcore plus HLE and no backend has never yielded a desync. Dualcore + LLE with LLE on thread UNchecked has the same result.
We'll build some kind of logging if we have to to get closer to the solution. I don't know what you mean by natural exactly, but, we plan on fixing all the desyncs until people can play without fear. And I understand your internet connections were above par, I just think the stress of 4 players freaked it out. It could be fixable, at least on one level. If that unveils a new desync, so be it.

 

[Jonny Westside]

Has a melee online HQ for multiplayer been established already? You know, like a chatroom.