Difficult To Code Mulit-player Emus?

[second exodous]

I've been on the forums for a while and just assumed that this could be done, so I figured that is why I never have seen this posted before. But I've done my research and I can't find a SNES or Genesis emu that can do mulit-player over the net or lan. I was just wondering if it would be possible to code a SNES/NES/megadrive/Genesis/insert-any-console-here emu so with two pandoras you can link them up with wifi and play together. As far as I can tell its rare for the console emulators on computers to have this functionality.

I'm sorry if this has already been asked, I know how much people on here hate to have re-posts, but I did a search on multiplayer, multi-player, and a few other things and nothing related turned up. Also, I think this is a legit question, I'm not just asking it to ask a question.

 

[Exophase]

SNES - ZSNES! But that's not portable. Then again, there's SNES9k too.
Genesis - I know I've used Kalliera with one at some point. It didn't run well though.

A few emulators for PSP have this capability so I'm sure Pandora ones will get it too.

 

[Balzac2m]

That would be just great. Even without a central server (which would be just kick-ass) playing Fifa RTWC oder ad-hoc wifi would be sooo cool.

 

[Kyo]

is ZSNES open source?

 

[plopperz]

is ZSNES open source?

Yes, but I believe it's written in x86 assembly so it's not easily portable. Exophase, you can probably confirm.

 

[Exophase]

is ZSNES open source?

Yes, but I believe it's written in x86 assembly so it's not easily portable. Exophase, you can probably confirm.


Yeah...

And SNES9k uses Kalliera (and a modified SNES9x, so that part would probably be friendly with the existing SNES emulator ports which are derived from SNES9x). I don't know if it'd be possible to port whatever Kalliera code these things use, but if they could then that should mean it'd be possible to play against people on PCs.

 

[Balzac2m]

Isn't Kalliera more a VPN for dummies?
IIRC the Multiplayerpart was included in snes9x, as I used it many years ago to play Mario Kart over network.

 

[peteredge]

I would love this for gbc or gba sooooo much... to trade and battle pokemon obviously how feasible would this be, exophase? would it be possible to implement this functionality into something like a gpsp port?

 

[second exodous]

I would love this for gbc or gba sooooo much... to trade and battle pokemon obviously how feasible would this be, exophase? would it be possible to implement this functionality into something like a gpsp port?

Well, the Handhelds all have mulit-player versions, mainly because this is one of the main reasons for having a handheld is being able to link-up a few with cords and have your own screen, so the other players didn't have to be crowding you. The DS and the PSP make this an even more attractive feature with wireless, so all the emus for them have multi-player, but also GBA emus have it also. I think it's safe to say Gameboy beat PCs to this. I'm talking about the consoles, I'd like to play the SNES TMNT games with my kids without needing to hook it up to a TV.

 

[fusion_power]

Because the Pandora will have a Wlan Module included, I'm sure, the most Programs where you can play with at least one other person will support Wifi. I mean it would be a waste of Pandora-Skills if we have perfect SNES, GBA or Megadrive or PSX or whatever Emulators without Wifi Support. :lol:
So I hope the Documentation of all the Wifi-Hardware will be good enough for including the module quick and easy in every Pandora Game/Emu that could benefit from.

 

[Kimundi]

I'd also like to see a Multiplayer Connection between a Pandora emulator and the corresponding original System, for Example to Play a Multiplayer GBA Game with someone else who owns a real GBA. I think it should be possible to build a adapter for Pandoras rs-232 port to connect a GBA link cable with it.

 

[rokdcasbah]

I would love this for gbc or gba sooooo much... to trade and battle pokemon obviously how feasible would this be, exophase? would it be possible to implement this functionality into something like a gpsp port?

I think the original poster was asking about using a LAN to send other player's controls. So you could play a game 2P, which would be different than hooking up two 1P games of Pokemon or something similar.

How do both copies stay in sync? Or do they?

 

[yosh64]

hey

I don't think it would be that hard to add such support for emulators, all ya have todo is get the two emulators in sync and send/recv controller input.

cyas

 

[kanzlr]

all you have to do? doesn't sound that trivial to me.

 

[Balzac2m]

To me neither.

What should be possible is to emulate eg the linkcable for playstation. I never owned a playstation myself, but there a few games supporting it:
Here is a list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Link_Cable

I'm especially thrilled about Red Alert! Are there comparable products for other consoles we might see emulators for?

 

[Javacat]

Out of interest I just had a quick search for some info of Kaillera to see whats been going on with it recently, and apparently it's closed source (I always thought it was open ) and after the rights were sold to some company a couple of years ago it's become a bit of a mess.
Whilst searching I did however find an open source version of Kaillera which looks interesting. It claims to be fully compatible with the original version of Kaillera, whilst adding new features. Apparently there is also linux support available in the WIP version. Might be worth looking into maybe?

 

[yosh64]

hey

Actually the easy part would be sending/receiving controller input, I think the hard part would be keeping in sync, hehe. Hmm, well I don't think it would be that hard to keep in sync, the hard part would be keeping them in sync and still be fast without any lag.

I mean, providing controller input should be no probs.

BTW, I have made an original gameboy and nes emulator before , although my nes emu is far from complete (I think ppu timing and such is tricky to figure out, but can't remember exactly) and my gameboy emu has some vblank timing bug that I gotta fix oneday, but most roms I tried worked. Ohh, my gameboy emu don't have sound either, but nm. Hmm, been ages since I worked on em.

edit
BTW, I'd be looking to see how they done it with zsnes, it was great. I mean when I used to play roms (don't anymore ) it worked well even on my 56Kbit dialup internet connection , where as kaillera was darn slow. But yea, with zsnes both players were directly connected . But yea, even if the network code and such is in X86 assembly, there is no stopping someone from reading it and porting it to another language.

another
I just took a quick look at the zsnes sourcecode, and the net code ain't in assembly. Hmm, might be the same for alot of other things also, but I am yet to check. edit: Well the use of the received data and keeping in sync and such doesn't look to be in C though (well I couldn't even find the code), so dunno.

cyas

 

[Gilrad]

To me neither.

What should be possible is to emulate eg the linkcable for playstation. I never owned a playstation myself, but there a few games supporting it:
Here is a list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Link_Cable

I'm especially thrilled about Red Alert! Are there comparable products for other consoles we might see emulators for?



The problem is you can't just set it up so that the data that would be transferred over the link cable is transferred over the internet. The lag involved would make it impossible to match gamestate. Same goes for the GBA emulation.

The only way to do it is to run two instances of the game, emulate their connection to the link cable, and then send the controller inputs, Kaillera style, over the 'net. That was barely possible for GBA emulation when the feature was implemented, and I imagine it would be difficult/impossible to get PSX link cable emulation to work on the P with a decent framerate.