Melee Online: Progress Report

[Leviathan741]

I am super excited for this.

 

[Massive]

This is probably dumb, but could you guys make an AR code that delays input to match the average connection speed you would expect? Like if you expect 3 frames of lag on average, have every input delayed by that amount. For practice reasons, obviously. >.>

Already in place man.

Doesn't use an AR code though.

I guess I misread this before, so I'll clarify:

The input lag is added on online play to mask latency, it could be added for practice purposes on dolphin (for single player) relatively easily, but as an AR code it would be pretty difficult to implement.

 

[Cookiemonsta]

I'm only somewhat excited for this. But thats because my computer wouldn't be able to play/handle it right now even if this project finished. I'm still clueless as to what min system requirements my cpu would need.

 

[The Star King]

Yeah I doubt I can run it at 60 but the 30 fps thing gives me hope

 

[Goodin]

I wish you all so much luck on this project!!!

 

[Popopidopop]

If you guys who are more familiar with Emulators could say about what system requirements would you need to run this smoothly enough as to not make a big difference from gamecube?

Would be much appreciated really!

 

[rawrimamonster]

If you guys who are more familiar with Emulators could say about what system requirements would you need to run this smoothly enough as to not make a big difference from gamecube?

Would be much appreciated really!

Quad core processor running at about 3.2GHz, I believe dolphin like most if not all emulation all runs entirely on CPU. You could probably run it on something less since dolphin is more optimized nowadays but honestly for purpose of smoothing everything out you want at least a quad core nowadays. Really in general nowadays its good to have at least a quad.

Now that you mentioned this, I cant help but realize I'm not looking forward to playing with tards with **** PCs thinking they can play melee smoothly and then have it it chop down to 40 fps or something. It'll be early 64 days all over again...fffffffffffffffffff

To further this specific subject...did you guys mess with dolphin at all so you dont have to disable dualcore in dolphins options now? or will the editing of how it handles sending data between emulators smooth things out so we wont have to now?

 

[odinNJ]

unfortunetly even though i am excited for this, i feel like if there is even 1 frame of lag it will be akward to play.

see project M

 

[Jolteon]

the 30fps minimum requirements shouldn't be high honestly

 

[Massive]

Quad core processor running at about 3.2GHz, I believe dolphin like most if not all emulation all runs entirely on CPU. You could probably run it on something less since dolphin is more optimized nowadays but honestly for purpose of smoothing everything out you want at least a quad core nowadays. Really in general nowadays its good to have at least a quad.

I used to run melee on dolphin (unmodded) on my old 2.8GHz P4 a few years back at nearly full speed (50-60fps). I'd wager it would run flawlessly on 30fps mode.

I use my laptop for testing as well, and it's only 2.3GHz dual core. Runs fullspeed on 60fps mode, no slowdown.

You're not going to be able to play on a netbook, but any remotely decent hardware from the past 5-6 years or so should be fine for our purposes.

Now that you mentioned this, I cant help but realize I'm not looking forward to playing with tards with **** PCs thinking they can play melee smoothly and then have it it chop down to 40 fps or something. It'll be early 64 days all over again...fffffffffffffffffff

It'd be pretty easy to run a benchmark or something and set people's graphics mode automatically from the release version. As long as their packet sending isn't delayed by the video thread, the host (and other people connected to the host) should not notice any delay from client machines.

To further this specific subject...did you guys mess with dolphin at all so you dont have to disable dualcore in dolphins options now? or will the editing of how it handles sending data between emulators smooth things out so we wont have to now?

That was never actually enforced to begin with. But we don't really need it either way, actually.

 

[Luigigoshard91]

So im a little confused on all the tech talk going on. Is there going to be a lag?

 

[Dan Salvato]

So im a little confused on all the tech talk going on. Is there going to be a lag?

Yes, lag is unavoidable for any online game. But, it's going to be very minimal.

 

[Chaos_Blasta]

I apologize if what i'm going to ask if stupid or very ignorant, but is there any way that one will be able to play SSBM online through your Wii, in a similar manner to how this is being built? I'm fascinated by this project, although i don't have the resources to get a gaming PC (And i assume a good amount of people don't, either). Either way, I wish you guys the best of luck, this is a great idea.

 

[Zankoku]

I imagine that implementing Dolphin's netcode and implementing netcode for whatever odd solution you might come up with for the Wii would be very different, so it's very doubtful.

 

[Massive]

I imagine that implementing Dolphin's netcode and implementing netcode for whatever odd solution you might come up with for the Wii would be very different, so it's very doubtful.

Yep. Any netcode done for the wii would be a completely different project and would likely be able to use almost none of our code (maybe the sync object... maybe).

I'm also of the opinion that playing melee on the PC has a lower entry barrier than hacking your wii and installing several different interrelated iOS updates and HBC hacks.

 

[RaphaelRobo]

My new laptop can run Melee in 1080p at 60fps. Due to this, I am now way more hyped for this project than it was before.

And before we get Melee online for the Wii, we should have it for the gamecube. Then those of us with broadband adapters could laugh at you guys who don't have them. Then you'd challenge us to a game, and destroy us, and then we wouldn't be laughing anymore. Unless one of us is actually the Joker, in which case he'd still be laughing.

 

[Zoler]

I wonder how 1-3 frames lag will feel to play with. :/ I mean stuff like jump+attacks OOS to stop shieldpressure? They require quite the timing... Even more frame lags??

Ehh whatever keep up the work guys I'm sure it'll turn out awesome :D

 

[rawrimamonster]

You'll definitely feel a difference since you're used to console play, but after a while you'll get used to it. 64 may be a slower game but its definitely playable with slight delay, I played on kaillera under 3-4 frame delay for years before Kaillera (or comcast) went completely **** with my ping paths. With Melee I would imagine you'll want to stay within your region otherwise you'll go nuts from the delay since Melee is a much faster game.

For reference (I'm not sure how well coded this melee project will be)

East coast to west coast is usually between 90-117 Ping if your net doesnt suck or your ping path is good (which applies to all of these). If I remember right that usually translated to about -7 to 8 frame delay or so? Someone can confirm since theres more than a few west coast players who played in newyork servers for years.

midwest/north to south can range from 27-70 depending on where its reaching, 4-7 frames depending... So you can basically stretch and shrink and re-line using this train of thought to determine your POSSIBLE delay you'll have with regions/people.

 

[RaphaelRobo]

Is there going to be a demo for this at FC?

If so, is there any chance I could get in on testing in order to participate in the Ganon round robin? Almost every other Ganon main is going to be there, and they're going to have a round robin. My laptop can run Melee in 1080p without lag, so it shouldn't have any trouble.

 

[Dan Salvato]

Is there going to be a demo for this at FC?

At this point, unlikely.

 

[linaly]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F03NN64qTqg
Japan

 

[Cia]

My trio linker plus II just got here.

lookin forward to this

 

[Leviathan741]

My trio linker plus II just got here.

lookin forward to this

I wouldnt get your hopes up. This thing probably wont come out for another 5 to 6 months or so.

 

[flantasticflan]

What are y'all working on at this point, from the screen shots its looking pretty in order. The matchmaking idea seems like a must have though, p:m kinda sucks in that aspect of online playing

 

[Dan Salvato]

We're still working on game sync issues being caused by dual-core processing.

 

[flantasticflan]

Good luck, I'm mad excited for this

 

[rawrimamonster]

I'm curious, what exactly causes the instability using dual core that causes synching issues between clients? Variances in processors? Or do I not know what I'm talking about. xD

 

[Massive]

Dual-Core mode is a misnomer, selecting that actually splits the CPU thread from the Video thread.

The issue is that throttling messages from the video thread do not work correctly on the CPU thread, so when the video thread says it needs to slow down a frame, the CPU thread ignores it and keeps going full speed.

This works fine for offline play where the game keeps playing even if the video lags for a split-second, but in online play large video desyncs are unacceptable.

That being said, syncing the actual data is effectively done, (except for random syncing, which is a symptom of video desyncs) getting the two online setups to smoothly match one another is the major hurdle now.

 

[rawrimamonster]

Ouch...well good luck with that, it's gonna be painstaking.

 

[R2_GP]

Quad core processor running at about 3.2GHz


Thats just too much for me what kind of GPU will it need?

 

[Dan Salvato]

Quad core processor running at about 3.2GHz


Thats just too much for me what kind of GPU will it need?

GPU is less important, so anything better than integrated graphics will likely be fine. We still don't have a very good idea of this, though, so that's a rough estimate.

 

[Massive]

Quad core processor running at about 3.2GHz

Thats just too much for me what kind of GPU will it need?

Whoever said this didn't know what they were talking about.
I've had melee running at full speed in our low-end mode on my old P4 (2.8Ghz single core) before with no issues.

Keep in mind that any more than 2 cores will not increase your speed in any noticeable way for Dolphin emulation to begin with. There are still only a maximum of 2 threads regardless of how many cores you have.

 

[KnitePhox]

I recently put together a budget build for an aunt of mine with one of Amd's APU's (the triple core one) and the total cost for the system was like 280$,that was with case and all. If such a setup works well for this, it might be the cheapest and simplest solution for most ppl to upgrade that have a brain and very common Philips#2 screwdriver

I suppose the test for that system will have to wait till this is released :/

 

[ShiroiKen]

Hi guys,

To get this working in NeoGamma (with an original NTSC copy of course), which kind of hook shall we use? Anybody got it working on the Wii with no AR?

 

[Dan Salvato]

Hi guys,

To get this working in NeoGamma (with an original NTSC copy of course), which kind of hook shall we use? Anybody got it working on the Wii with no AR?

SSBMO is for PC and has not yet been released.

 

[rawrimamonster]

Whoever said this didn't know what they were talking about.
I've had melee running at full speed in our low-end mode on my old P4 (2.8Ghz single core) before with no issues.

Keep in mind that any more than 2 cores will not increase your speed in any noticeable way for Dolphin emulation to begin with. There are still only a maximum of 2 threads regardless of how many cores you have.

I said that as a rule of thumb for dolphin emulation in general. Some wii games like galaxy will definitely require a stronger processor regardless. Melee's compatibility in dolphin is good enough now to run it on even storebought pc's now. Though it's more recommended to have bought it at least within a year or two ago as the standard of storebought PC's has risen according to price/performance ratio. There's that and...even with the final release of this I expect online to still be taxing on lower end processors and I don't feel like suggesting lower end PC's to people as it'll be mean more lag for me playing them. Thats the reason I dont play 64 online anymore.

 

[Turnerfield77]

This might be a tad in depth; however, will there be a ranking system so as to put players of equal skill lvl together? I imagine it would just be random, but I thought it might be a cool addition. Anyways, good luck! Can't wait to hear more about this!

 

[Morin0]

I believe either Massive or IE have calculated how fast your internet should be to ensure non-laggy games. Hopefully when SSBMO is out they will have a page that lists the recommended PC specs and internet speed.

You won't believe how many people's computers still can't run a 64 emulator nor have a fast enough connection to play online. With that said, I am afraid the same people will plague Melee.

 

[Dan Salvato]

I believe either Massive or IE have calculated how fast your internet should be to ensure non-laggy games. Hopefully when SSBMO is out they will have a page that lists the recommended PC specs and internet speed.

You won't believe how many people's computers still can't run a 64 emulator nor have a fast enough connection to play online. With that said, I am afraid the same people will plague Melee.

Ideally you'll be able to view the player's ping before playing with them. Also, it's not about a fast speed, but more about ping. You can test your ping to different servers across the US at http://pingtest.net

We're only sending a few bytes of data per frame, really, so that's hardly anything as far as connection speed. A few kb per second. The ping is what causes input lag, and most people have a good ping at least within their region.

This might be a tad in depth; however, will there be a ranking system so as to put players of equal skill lvl together? I imagine it would just be random, but I thought it might be a cool addition. Anyways, good luck! Can't wait to hear more about this!

Depending on the future of SSBPD, we might use their servers for ranked matches. This, however, is entering the realm of hopes and dreams as we haven't gotten even as far as to plan out a lobby system yet.

 

[Eggm]

I had 21 ms ping with philly and 22 with brooklyn NY and i'm in central jersey, is that good?