Simulated netboard - future of linked play in Supermodel?

[gm_matthew]

That is indeed weird. Both the emulated and the simulated netboard use TCP which blocks until it receives data; as far as the emulator is concerned data always arrives on time regardless of the actual latency. If the network latency is too high then the game will not run at full speed, but other than that it should theoretically work the same.

There is a check for connection to localhost but this is only to detect when one emulated machine is linked to itself; it should have no effect with multiple linked machines.

Tomorrow I'll put together a 4-player network across 2 PCs myself and see what happens.

[MrThunderwing]

There is one thing that's different about the Barcade PC, in that it's running a 32bit version of Supermodel that works with the new network (because the PC inside it is ancient and running a 32 bit version of Windows 7), but that shouldn't make a difference to how the actual games though, should it?

[Bart]

There is one thing that's different about the Barcade PC, in that it's running a 32bit version of Supermodel that works with the new network (because the PC inside it is ancient and running a 32 bit version of Windows 7), but that shouldn't make a difference to how the actual games though, should it?

It shouldn't... unless the 64- and 32-bit versions transmit some piece of data differently. This can happen but it's odd that everything else works. Do you have another 64-bit machine to test with?

[MrThunderwing]

Sadly not. I used to have an additional dual core PC that was 64 bit I used to use for a 3 way LAN with Model 2 Emulator and MAME, but it died quite a few years back. In fact, it was the death of that PC that actually allowed me to get Supermodel running on my Barcade in the first place, after I salvaged it's video card (and then had to use a PCI slot extension cable to plug it into the GPU slot on the Barcade, which was only designed for special DELL small form factor video cards).

[Bart]

On your 64-bit PC, have you tried running a 32- and 64-bit version simultaneously to see if this issue also crops up on a single machine?

[MrThunderwing]

Ah, good thinking. I had not. I'll copy across the old 32 bit version on my barcade to my main PC and add it in as one of the machines in a 4 Player network and see what happens.

[MrThunderwing]

OK, I just gave it a try. Using the exact same 32bit version that's on my barcade (roms and NVRAM copied across wholesale to my main PC) the panoramic attract mode worked exactly as it should in conjunction with the other 3 64bit versions. How utterly bizarre. I wonder is the game itself has got some sort on inbuilt way of detecting if the network the latency's a tiny bit off or something, which makes it's default to the single screen attract mode?

[gm_matthew]

I just tried running a 4-player linked network myself with 3 machines running on my main PC and 1 machine running on a laptop, and Scud Race's panoramic attract mode was working normally. I don't know what's causing it to not work for Alex but it's almost certainly not because the game is detecting network latency. My best guess would be that some of the data is not being transmitted correctly for some reason but I have no ideas what could be causing this currently. To be honest the simulated netboard code could do with a rewrite as it's not very robust and doesn't like reconnecting after a link is broken.

Sega Rally 2 also has a panoramic attract mode, perhaps you could give that a try.

[MrThunderwing]

Yeah, might have a bit of a play around with at the weekend again. I've never actually done Sega Rally 2 link-up greater than 2 players before, so it'd be interesting to see if the panorama you get in the 2P mode gets bigger with 4 screens. Someone uploaded a video not that long ago of a 16 player single system Daytona 2 network. Pretty impressive. I'd seen a few screenshots of people doing that before, but this is the first video footage.

[Bart]

I just tried running a 4-player linked network myself with 3 machines running on my main PC and 1 machine running on a laptop, and Scud Race's panoramic attract mode was working normally. I don't know what's causing it to not work for Alex but it's almost certainly not because the game is detecting network latency. My best guess would be that some of the data is not being transmitted correctly for some reason but I have no ideas what could be causing this currently. To be honest the simulated netboard code could do with a rewrite as it's not very robust and doesn't like reconnecting after a link is broken.

Sega Rally 2 also has a panoramic attract mode, perhaps you could give that a try.

I wish I had some time to help with that. Been writing a lot of network code over the last year (albeit in C# and Python mostly). If the link is broken and down for several frames, is it even possible to resume in a playable state or would the machine have to be rebooted on reconnect?