How to get a Supermodel Network running tutorial

[MrThunderwing]

I've put together a little tutorial on how to get a multiplayer network running for anyone who's not sure about what to do.
https://youtu.be/CXzI4AfqrEQ

[nikescar]

Thanks for posting that video. I'm gonna have to finally try this.

Great video content on your channel btw!

[TheOldDragon]

Great video, and the other videos on your channel look great too. I'm definitely going to have to try get networked Virtua Racing and Outrunners working...

I'll also take you up on the challenge on 16 instances of Daytona 2 running on a single machine... may even have a go at that later today...

Dumb question. After getting Scud Race Plus and Daytona 2 working on the network [albeit a half speed/30 fps], I can't find any settings on Sega Rally 2 [normal or DX] to set up the networking.
Any idea if I am missing something obvious, or do I have the wrong ROMs, or is it network option not available?

[Bart]

IIRC, Sega Rally 2 networking does not work for some reason. There is a lot that is not understood about the network board.

[TheOldDragon]

IIRC, Sega Rally 2 networking does not work for some reason. There is a lot that is not understood about the network board.

It's not even an option in the service menu; I can't find it, anyway. That's what was puzzling me...

[MrThunderwing]

IIRC, the network option for Sega Rally 2 appears through changing one of the other options. But, as Bart says, it doesn't actually work at present.

[TheOldDragon]

IIRC, the network option for Sega Rally 2 appears through changing one of the other options. But, as Bart says, it doesn't actually work at present.

Thanks. I searched for a while, changing all the options i could think of, and still couldn't find it. Guess it doesn't matter if networking is non-functional anyway.

[TheOldDragon]

@MrThunderwing

Based on the challenge in your YouTube video, the answer to how many Daytona 2 instances you can run on a single machine; in this case, a Ryzen 9 3950X / X570 mboard with 32GiB RAM and a GeForce RTX 2070:

no network: [flags: -no-threads -wide-screen -res=960,540]
- 7 @ 60 fps [the 8th, and beyond, instance fail to start due to ALSA sound issues - see attached image]

no network - no sound: [flags: -no-threads -wide-screen -res=960,540 -no-sound -no-dsb]
- 16 @ ~56-59 fps
With 16 instances, CPU usage was not totally pegged, and GPU was at about ~85% workload, and ~40% memory usage.

with network, no sound [flags: -no-threads -wide-screen -res=960,540 -no-sound -no-dsb -net]
- 12 @ ~25 fps

[Bart]

Wow... the thought of a 16-player Daytona USA 2 has me drooling. The tight coupling between the machines is problematic for true online play. I wonder if something like roll-back net play could help with lag once the low level protocol is fully understood. Given that the CPU state is 8MB, it seems highly unlikely though, unless a diff between the RAM of multiple running versions indicates that the actual game state is smaller.

Maybe some day an enterprising soul could try to disassemble and de-compile the game to code and create a native PC version of it. These games were written in C++ and the graphics could easily be handled using Supermodel's emulation engine while the actual game logic could be translated to human-readable source code and then altered to our hearts' content.

[Ian]

The current network code is waiting a full frame to receive data. Either the data is being received in the wrong place or it's missing some irq. It should be quite possible to run 16 players on a Lan with minimal latency.