Melee Online: Progress Report

[Massive]

^with pokeballs on high?

th... THE MADNESS.

 

[Morin0]

You completely missed the point of everything that was posted above you.

but it's okay.

What is said point? I think it's the fact that FoD is resourse intensive, IC's have a high tendency to desync the game, and Pokeballs for the most part are random and can cause desync. If you've played any Smash 64 online, you'd know that choosing random is an auto desync from the game.


If it's not any of the aforementioned, then okay.jpg

 

[Bones0]

It wasn't about desync, it was about FoD's ****ty frame rate issues. Causes include multiple players in the form of teams/FFA, multiple ICs for double the effect of teams, and PokeBalls for further **** that has to get processed or w/e.

 

[Morin0]

Oh. In that case, let's add in a bit of this.

 

[Dan Salvato]

Thanks to Massive's hard work, we've hit Alpha 1.1. :D

 

[Strong Badam]

Forget FoD, the real men test framerate on Big Blue.

 

[Fuzzyness]

keep it up guys, cant wait to see videos or anything of the work =)

 

[GOTM]

Can the guys that are working on it (if you haven't already), give like a very brief description of just like, how good it looks and plays right now? I think everyone would want to know if this can be something we can actually judge play around, as opposed to just being something to pass the time with.

If you've already discussed this, just link me Also, instead of just giving numbers, could you describe it in layman's terms? I'm dumb.

 

[Dan Salvato]

Can the guys that are working on it (if you haven't already), give like a very brief description of just like, how good it looks and plays right now? I think everyone would want to know if this can be something we can actually judge play around, as opposed to just being something to pass the time with.

If you've already discussed this, just link me Also, instead of just giving numbers, could you describe it in layman's terms? I'm dumb.

RIGHT now? It's kinda janky.

By the time we have a release? It will be Melee, with a couple frames of lag.

Are people going to run online tournaments with monetary prizes? I hope not.

 

[GOTM]

I can deal with a couple of frames of lag in order to practice with whoever I want whenever I want

 

[Veetaak]

I don't understand how people can consider themselves PC gamers if they don't build their own rigs... it boggles my mind.

It's like a car guy who doesn't pump his own gas.

Except that one of those require more skill and more effort

 

[Fuzzyness]

online bedroom warriors pride tournaments?~ lol

 

[Grape Ape]

Except that one of those require more skill and more effort

you only need to build a rig once every 3 years at the very minimum (my rig is 5 years old)

 

[Dan Salvato]

online bedroom warriors pride tournaments?~ lol

Alright, it's official, I'm holding monthly online tournaments called Bedroom Warriors. ;D

 

[007-jake]

If Melee Online runs smooth, I will not have a life.

 

[Dan Salvato]

Hey, can anyone think of ANY in-game character animation that is at some point initiated midway through instead of on frame 1?

 

[Pikaville]

Once you get this working my life is literally over.

Or maybe my life will have just begun.

 

[Massive]

All of these "MY LIFE WILL DISAPPEAR" posts are making me feel like an aspiring serial killer.

 

[GOTM]

Hey, can anyone think of ANY in-game character animation that is at some point initiated midway through instead of on frame 1?

Any frame questions, really ANY questions, at all, should be asked of Magus.

Guys knows more about Melee than anyone else on the planet.

 

[Twin_A]

Wow incredible to hear! I need to invest in a better comp now lol.

 

[Bones0]

Hey, can anyone think of ANY in-game character animation that is at some point initiated midway through instead of on frame 1?

I doubt it. Are you asking so that you could cut that frame out to make it feel normal? I might actually prefer having the first frame cut from each move's startup anyway. It'd make it slightly easier to react to stuff I guess, but it seems like a small price to pay if it makes the whole game feel more like the offline version. How noticeable is 1-2 frames anyway? Like how much do most HDTVs lag?

 

[Massive]

I doubt it. Are you asking so that you could cut that frame out to make it feel normal? I might actually prefer having the first frame cut from each move's startup anyway. It'd make it slightly easier to react to stuff I guess, but it seems like a small price to pay if it makes the whole game feel more like the offline version. How noticeable is 1-2 frames anyway? Like how much do most HDTVs lag?

He's actually looking for a handle to exploit to find the action state data.

Everything we've located pertaining to action states is outputted data. You can edit it all you want, but it doesn't have any effect on the game at all. It's just a display of what state just went off. It's either an odd function with no triggering variable (which is a distinct possibility, we've been lucky so far, lol) or there's a pointer to it all somewhere deep in the arcane depths of game memory.

If we find that pointer, action states become sync-able and we get very close to actual playtesting.

The vast majority of HDTVs have lag between 16ms (~1 frame) an 48ms (~3 frames) at native resolution (1080p or 720p, usually) in game mode. If the TV forces noise correction, has judder reduction on, or needs to deinterlace and scale the image input lag can vary by as much as 50-100ms (3-6 frames).

Edit: I forgot to mention that since this is emulated at whatever resolution we want, this means you could locally play melee on your fancy HDTV with no noticeable lag at 1080p.

 

[Dan Salvato]

I added a Like button, everybody go to http://ssbmo.com and like the **** out of it.

 

[The Star King]

The HDTV's I've played must be like 5 frames at least

1 and 2 frames is barely noticeable honestly (though some people would disagree). 4 frames+ is when it really starts feeling different from console.

Source: Smash 64 Online

 

[Fuzzyness]

you wont really notice it hardly, especially if you have a low ms monitor

basically it will never be as bad as connection from a console to a LCD T.V since that process has so much converting going on that it adds stupid amount of input lag

whereas a computer specifically tells a monitor what resolution and settings etc, there isnt too correction going on and the monitors are made to handle these images without modification. This is why they use monitors for huge video game tournaments (marvel for example)


why not ask in the project m or modding brawl section if theres anything you're unsure of? These guys have already hacked deep into melee + brawl code and stuff so im sure they might know something you dont =)

 

[M@d-F!ghter]

that project sounds awesome. im waiting for online melee pretty since it released on console. is there a trailer, screenshots... any material that confirms the facts ?

 

[Dan Salvato]

that project sounds awesome. im waiting for online melee pretty since it released on console. is there a trailer, screenshots... any material that confirms the facts ?

http://i.imgur.com/oyRTs.png

 

[Mastermooseman]

Hey, can anyone think of ANY in-game character animation that is at some point initiated midway through instead of on frame 1?

Here's random guesses. Indeed Magus could help.

Charging an attack (Smash attacks, Shield breaker)

Grab release after no input (Bowser's side-b, normal grabs)

CF's/Ganondorf's side-b upon contact or no contact, or bowser's side-b either being a grab or a slash

Fox/Falco's shine upon hitting a projectile goes into reflection lag, or GnW's bucket catching an item

and lastly, Possibly analyzing a CPU's actions could help in someway(?)

 

[Strong Badam]

Are you looking for a pointer that is current action?

 

[Massive]

Are you looking for a pointer that is current action?

We can easily read current action state, the issue is finding a pointer that allows us to change the current action to something else.

Every memloc/pointer that we have located does not alter game state on write.

 

[M@d-F!ghter]

http://i.imgur.com/oyRTs.png

http://tf2chan.net/dis/src/132415233153.jpg

 

[Dan Salvato]

FUN FACT: Link's arrow takes 1 less frame to charge every time you switch from ground to air or air to ground! So, if you short hop, start charging, land on the platform, slide off the platform (ledge cancel), and land on the ground, the arrow will take 3 less frames to charge! Totally worth the tech skill!

In other news, turns out there IS an animation that starts midway through. If you start charging an arrow midair with Link and then land, the "grounded arrow charge" animation initiates where the air one left off (plus one frame).

 

[Strong Badam]

dk's punch charge might do that too

 

[Dan Salvato]

dk's punch charge might do that too

I believe virtually every charging special move has both air and ground animations that are interchanged as the character's state changes. This means a function may exist to initiate an animation at frame X instead of frame 1, making our lives much easier.

 

[Strong Badam]

If it's anything like Brawl, it could easily store current frame of action (which is an IC-Basic) into an LA-Float, then add 1, then start the next action at frame=LA-Float.

But Melee memory might be different

 

[Fuzzyness]

ah so you found one? awesome =)

 

[Dan Salvato]

I've been disassembling Melee to figure out how action states are loaded, changed, etc. Here's a sample AR code that forces upsmash to IASA (cancel into anything) by changing only one conditional:

Upsmash Cancel
0408CAEC 41820004

 

[SypherPhoenix]

As a bonus, I also recently discovered the location of Melee's random seed, the value which is used in calculating random events including Peach's turnips and Luigi's misfires. Our plan in a future alpha is to hijack this seed and replace it with a custom one designed to remain synchronized between both clients.

Hey, give me the lowdown! Where is it?

Also, is it appropriate to assume you (or Massive) are familiar with Dolphin's debug mode?

 

[Dan Salvato]

Hey, give me the lowdown! Where is it?

Also, is it appropriate to assume you (or Massive) are familiar with Dolphin's debug mode?

0x4D5F90

Yes, I spent probably a good 4-5 hours today digging through Melee's disassembly in Dolphin debug. Had some major successes. I'm mapping out the initiation function for every action state so we can call them at will with a custom assembly function.

If you're interested in the technical side, keep up to date with our dev blog. http://ssbmo.com

 

[M@d-F!ghter]

i dont wanna disturb the hard work but i doupt this will really work playable at the end