Simulated netboard - future of linked play in Supermodel?

[gm_matthew]

The SVN has been updated; hopefully Spikeout: Final Edition will now run at full speed with 3-4 players.

Does it make Daytona USA and Scud Race 8 player linked ran at full speed?

At the moment you'd probably only manage this running all eight machines on a very powerful PC, or perhaps four machines on each PC connected via Ethernet. My next planned update will allow the simulated netboard to run in its own thread which should greatly increase performance, especially with a high number of connected PCs.

[segaduck]

The SVN has been updated; hopefully Spikeout: Final Edition will now run at full speed with 3-4 players.

Does it make Daytona USA and Scud Race 8 player linked ran at full speed?

At the moment you'd probably only manage this running all eight machines on a very powerful PC, or perhaps four machines on each PC connected via Ethernet. My next planned update will allow the simulated netboard to run in its own thread which should greatly increase performance, especially with a high number of connected PCs.

Thank you so much.
I will test and report the result again.

[segaduck]

I have tested on my PC for 4 players linked-play of Spikeout Final Edtion, and it works like a charm in 60fps full speed !!!

What a great job !!!
Thank your so much gm_matthew.

I will tested remote linked play of 4 players this evening (Taiwan time) and report the result.

[buttersoft]

Thanks gm_matthew! Amazing work as usual. I find it interesting that if you don't run SR2 with all the net options enabled, the options to link the cabs just aren't there. Completely threw me at first. Like the cabs need to be able to find each other in order to find each other.

[gm_matthew]

Thanks gm_matthew! Amazing work as usual. I find it interesting that if you don't run SR2 with all the net options enabled, the options to link the cabs just aren't there. Completely threw me at first. Like the cabs need to be able to find each other in order to find each other.

Sega Rally 2 needs to detect that a netboard is attached (Network=1) before it offers link options; the machines themselves don't have to be linked. (Though obviously they have to be linked for the game to actually start up in linked mode.)

[segaduck]

Updating the latest testing result:

I've tested a 2+2 remote 4 players linked play of SpikeoutFE, with the following setup:

(1) 1st PC:
CPU: AMD 5600X
GPU: Nvidia 3080
running Player 1(master) and Player 2 (slave) on it.

(2) 2nd PC:
CPU: AMD 5800X
GPU: Nvidia 3080
running Player 3(slave) and Player 4 (slave) on it.

The two PC's location are 50 km away.

We used the internet connection to setup links,
and It ran perfectly just as good as running on LAN connection with fully 60fps !!!!

To gm_matthew,
Thanks for your excellent codes of simulated netboard.

We will test the real 4 players link play through internet in few days, and I will report the result.

[segaduck]

The latest result:

Full speed 60pfs of 3 players linked play through internet !!!
Amazing !!!

[gm_matthew]

The latest result:

Full speed 60pfs of 3 players linked play through internet !!!
Amazing !!!

I'm actually impressed that you have it running at 60fps with three players over the internet! Glad to hear it's working so well for you

[the_maq]

The latest result:

Full speed 60pfs of 3 players linked play through internet !!!
Amazing !!!

I'm actually impressed that you have it running at 60fps with three players over the internet! Glad to hear it's working so well for you

Excellent work

[segaduck]

The latest result:

Full speed 60pfs of 3 players linked play through internet !!!
Amazing !!!

I'm actually impressed that you have it running at 60fps with three players over the internet! Glad to hear it's working so well for you

Thank you so much to make the dream come true.

We've tested it more deeply last night.
I found that if you scale up the resolution, no matter how fast your PC's CPU and GPU is, the fps will gradually decrease.
Following is the number we got:
640 x 480 --> 60fps
1366 x 768 --> 60fps

If you setup the resolution higher than 1366x768, the fps will not get 60fps anymore.
For example, if you scale up to 3840x2160 in widescreen mode, you will get around 45~50fps.

And more interestingly, every players linked through internet can setup with different resolution and get different fps but all players still link well.
For example,
1st PC: 1366x768: 60fps all the time
2nd PC: 1920x1080: 50~55fps
3rd PC: 3840x2160: 45~50fps

The fps-dropping of 2nd and 3rd PC will not slow down the 1st PC's game play at all.
My best guess is that the network process still finish its job in every 1/60 second but the graphic process cannot handle it when you scale the resolution up.