Current State of Netplay

[Lover]

I've spent all morning trying to find the best way to play N64 online with friends, without too much luck. With Mupen, using the Kaillera client and P2P, I can play with one other player without lag, but only on Smash and Super Mario 64 Multiplayer(Other games quickly desync or don't work at all). I tried using the Kaillera server, but it seemed to be terribly outdated, there was little to no documentation, I couldn't get a game with more than two players made, and it crashed quickly. I tried Project64 2.2 with the AQZ netplay plugin. It only worked for about three minutes without desyncing while playing with one other player, and when we tried three, it was very laggy and desynced almost immediately.

What I'd really like to do is be able to host a server on a linux machine and play with four players(Mainly Smash, Mario Kart and Mario Party 3). Am I doing something wrong, or missing something? Is there any way I can do this successfully?

Thanks in advance for any information.

[HatCat]

Originally Posted by Lover

What I'd really like to do is be able to host a server on a linux machine and play with four players(Mainly Smash, Mario Kart and Mario Party 3). Am I doing something wrong, or missing something? Is there any way I can do this successfully?

Thanks in advance for any information.

I might be under-informed on this, but I can only tell that I've never seen any indication of N64 NetPlay available over Linux. Most people just used Kaillera which AFAIK is a Windows-only closed-source thing.

The AQZ plugin you tried is also Windows-only last I checked, but you could use it more reliably on Mupen64 probably than for Project64 2.0+. It was designed particularly for the type of timing routines that Project64 1.7 did, so if you try to use it with current versions of Project64 with "Fixed Audio Timing" switched in the RDB settings, it will probably turn out worse than using the plugin with other emulators.

[Lover]

Kaillera does actually have a server for linux, you can download it on their website which I am not allowed to link yet. Unfortunately it's pretty dated and I think not well maintained. I couldn't find any indication of documentation for anything like admin commands to control the server.

Mupen is what I used when doing P2P and trying out the server mentioned above. I'll definitely give it a shot with AQZ and see how it goes. Thanks for the tip.

[HatCat]

Originally Posted by Lover

Kaillera does actually have a server for linux, you can download it on their website which I am not allowed to link yet.

I did forget about that.
Yeah, I found some of their stuff for Linux at here: http://www.kaillera.com/download.php

The thing that I don't remember finding is if the client itself can be run on Linux. I know there's the kailleraclient.dll for Windows-based emulators, but is there a kailleraclient.so or other for other platforms? If so, I imagine it's 32-bit only with no source code to get a native 64-bit build of it for those of us running a 64-bit operating system.

So in that regard, Kaillera is dead to me. zilmar still is looking at NetPlay as part of a list of features to add to Project64, maybe on Android, based on what that might attract. It's one of the reasons the "Fixed Audio Timing" RDB option exists in the CPU emulator's settings, which is to prepare the emulator for a consistent audio-CPU timing reactivity loop to help make online play more predictable and desync-free. Don't know if he will use Kaillera...hopefully not since it's a closed-source old little thing.

[Lover]

That's where I pulled it from. I did get it started on a 64 bit system and players using windows clients could connect, but we couldn't change the number of players in a game or even start the game.

I just tried using Mupen64+ with a custom core including netplay compatibility but that was... a mess.

It would be nice if they added netplay to Project64.

Oh well, it seems I'll have to wait a while to make my dreams of reliving old times with my pals over the internet. *sigh*

*Waits patiently*

[HatCat]

Agreed. I'm one of those occasional contributors to Project64's open-source development, but network protocols and connectivity were never my field of expertise. Whether it is made into a point to stabilize reliable, working NetPlay into Project64 I think will depend largely on how the Android port pans out in the market. If I was good at network programming and it were up to me, I would have already started some pull requests to look at adding it.

Originally Posted by Lover

That's where I pulled it from. I did get it started on a 64 bit system and players using windows clients could connect, but we couldn't change the number of players in a game or even start the game.

I just tried using Mupen64+ with a custom core including netplay compatibility but that was... a mess.

Mupen64++/Mupen64k I cannot vouch for. Mupen64Plus I have no idea whether they have NetPlay.
I was mostly thinking of using AQZ's plugin on Mupen64 0.5.

Changing the number of players in a game can't be done while the game is in session (unless they quit themselves), but starting the game has a number of undocumented strings attached on what can go wrong.