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Depch

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Depch last won the day on April 7 2018

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  1. If people can get RetroArch work and the long distance emulation is good as well as is suggested by Scribe "Netplay is intriguing because it supposedly uses a peer-to-peer setup with frame rollback similar to ggpo to reduce latency. " then I'd be willing to play some games again. As I've stated in the past my main problem is Gens and how I've perceived drastical changes to my online experience by using different version of the emulator and the latency settings provided by it (you cannot actually know is the opponent using it), I have been vocal and transparent about it since finding it. This is the main reason why I am abstaining from playing at the moment or getting involved in NHL'94 scene. I do not want to lower the level of the gaming I can offer by going down back to default but I also cannot demand anyone else to make the necessary adaptations as rerecording also comes with an occasional graphical glitch. Using the settings only to my advantage or it being just for the few would not make me feel good about winning either. A new emulator that has latency compensation built in and puts everyone to equal position would be ideal but as stated, problem would be the site and savestates.
  2. The online experience should be revamped in a new version of Gens that is a mixture of re-recording & newest Gens. #1 When players connect in Kaillera have the new Gens show that it's a new version. The version number of Gens has stayed the same for quite a while so you do not know which version the other one is using when they connect to Kaillera, I have tried this and made posts about it. This is a way to prove that the other one is using the same version and we have a way to have a rule to enforce it. #2 There is something a miss in the network code or how Gens is handling the information. I do not know is it Kaillera or is it Gens. This is evident because I can influence the experience the other one (in honesty both) is having on their screen just by changing my audiovisual settings on Gens. If it is not in the network code then it is somewhere how Gens handling the information with the data flow with Kaillera (perhaps to a degree in unison with the cpu power). This has to be fixed so that there is no varying effect over online play here. While I trust most of the people online here, there are a few where I question the intent to follow a 100% fair play following set rules as it is a competitive scene between some (and I also like to mostly play in a competitive environment I'd rather lose 10-0 frequently than own a recreational environment 100%). The experience is best for both and the feel for input having a light touch to them is best when both use the lowest possible settings but that cannot be enforced so it has to be done via modifying the code to modern standards so that you can have the best settings on and that does not add any input lag. #3 Implement the lag compensation settings from re-recording or the version prior to that to the Gens version we're currently using. Lock down the lag compensation settings to middle tier so no one can modify them to have a different experience than the opponent so that gives a sufficiently nice experience over online play cross Atlantic already (-1 or -2 frames of compensation). It is probably better to do it this way than the other way around as the rerecording version has a graphical glitch with NHL94 sometimes. The first problem is that majority of the recreational players and those who do not have a competitive gaming background have no clue what I'm talking about nor are their brains wired to notice the difference of such a tiny delays that can have effects that multiply over high latency environment. The second problem is that having experienced the benefits of lag compensation you do not want to go back to playing without it over high latency environment. I literally played 2 years of NHL'94 in NA leagues where I had to adapt to not use B-checks and my pass shots were totally off because of the delay. Lag compensation helped me overcome that and raise my level of gaming in the past 2 leagues (Plablegs & Et'Tu Brute) to what I was more used to from the old days, but if few people only know about it using it as an advantage for yourself is questionable. Thing is there is a way for high latency gaming to be enjoyable and very competitive and I plan on not going back after having a taste of it. I'm sorry but I can only be the messenger in this one, if I could I would help to do this but I do not know how to or do not have the patience to educate myself in how to work the code or program. My frustration on this case and trying to be vocal about to deliver the message and make it understandable lead to the situation that it is better to just not be part of. To explain the level of frustration experienced it it's like a spiritual parasite trying to feed on that frustration and doing everything in it's powers to keep that frustration going on to be able to feed on that energy or that in a holographic universe a group of players that have very little of their own going on would try to humour themselves on such a situation, but there was other stuff going on in my life as well so it all became stacked. I could just enjoy the benefits myself with a couple other understanding the benefits of it, but it's not fun as it's the antithesis to a competitive environment. Meanwhile for the good of my own self to avoid getting frustrated all over again I will just rather stay away from playing NHL'94 and just lurk these boards in case anything pops out that could solve the issue. Online experience over long distances Gens > Kega. Retroarch? Parsec? Ps. On the original topic the good thing about connecting to a shared cloud computer on Parsec would be that the game itself has the same experience for both, no need to worry about different settings having a different experience. Problem is that the latency to the host computer sending the inputs vary and it is not 100% even like in a P2P environment barring any extra codes creating artificial delay to match the other one. The worse part is that it costs money. Over a 50 game season and 2$/hour, not nice.
  3. Interesting and raises questions. The app is free so that's all good. From the looks of it you can host / join directly or you can rent a cloud gaming server where you connect to. A "cloud" gaming server is something that has been discussed here as well at times that it would be nice to have one on the western coast of France for cross Atlantic connections. The guy was using Steam on the cloud server to install Fifa so I can't see why you could not install a Gens / Kega and run a server there where people then connect. But there is also a false claim on that video. He says that the client sees everything that goes on the host screen and because of that the client only needs to send the data for the keyboard input and it allows for lower latency. It does make for smaller packets to be sent, but that has nothing to do with latency except for the case where your bandwidth is really really poor. In the physical world latency has to do with the distance the information has to travel and not with the packet size in most cases. Ask yourself also this: For the client to see what goes on in the host screen the DATA for that has to come back, not only they keyboard input data unless there is some sort of a magical projection happening? The only ways to make latency better is with a wormhole technology / dreamworld / magic or emulate it with a lag compensation. And of course also hoping that the programs and tech used don't add any of their own. Now the good part is that he does also say later on in the video that "we have done a really good job on optimizing the latency that allows for a really low input lag" so they have some sort of a lag compensation technology implemented. But does that exist in both direct connect/host and the cloud server? How good is it? Would it be as good as Gens rerecording when both parties use the optimal configurations? There was a cloud gaming server in Ireland and if you watch the image below for the sub Atlantic cables there might be a direct link there between eastern coast of USA and Ireland. It would not be 100% even anyways for the connection barring how good the lag compensation tech is. http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/international/Screen Shot 2013-07-16 at 11.17.56 AM.png My conclusion: Client-server is not fun in arcade games over long distance, let's say thousands of miles. For lower distance it's a much smaller problem. That was experienced already in the late 90's and early 00's. The lag comp code would have to be _really_ _really_ good, like revolutionary good. ps. I'm abstaining from playing until / if community can overcome the problem caused by the foundation of the lag compensation I was experimenting in Plablegs onwards. I know it has been used before and it could cause problems for uneven playing ground. I also plan on not going back on that so better just abstain from playing until / if something is figured out. I have no skills to work on code to modify the emulators features and have written everything I can on the issue. Take care all.
  4. The only NHL jersey I got. It's a Starter one bought from the US and I got no name / number on it, but was planning to have #10 Bure put on it. Might still do it at a later date. Started to gain interest towards the NHL more after seeing Bure skate around the Blackhawks D and slap the shot from back from the blueline to the goal 91-92 in a clip on Finnish TV.
  5. I am using a basic Microsoft keyboard at the moment with USB connection to my laptop. Probably a cost of 10$. No adjusted USB polling rates to registry. In 2000's while playing Quake etc. I've played the game also with adjusted polling rates and they can make a tiny difference. Aka negate the effects on low agility a bit. I think I had that with my last keyboard 2014 in Ducky Shine 4 mechanical keyboard, probably the best keyboard I've ever used for gaming. Clearly as I'm not using that now I can say that lag compensation has much more effect playing online in NHL94. Changing polling rates in registry is common in other games to get away from the Windows default limitations and the benefits of that are not restricted to keyboard but to all usb devices like gamepads. That might seem cheat like for players who have no history from competitive online gaming environments, but there is the clash. It is not so in competitive environments, more like endorsed. This is the future topic of NHL94 online gaming, where to go. What is allowed. To take competitive route or stay casual. I'm sure there have been players who have used some/all of these to their advantage, but to keep the game interesting and even leveled to everyone it needs to be known for all. Old era, Plabax era as the renaissance era and new era where all this is defined and playground is even?-) Overall keyboard vs gamepad conversation is that: -Butter fingers make less mistakes with keyboard, but good and precise fingers are as good with both. -For me smooth deking is harder with keyboard and my skating looks "bulky", so that is harder for me to perform on keyboard than gamepad. -There is a theoretical tiny advantage to keyboard in direct left - right without going diagonal, but the difference is so tiny that it hardly plays any part in the game. -Because of the above in theory keyboard is better for gimmicks and gamepad for skating, that is my take.
  6. I think this is a troll attempt, but in case it is not it needs a clarification at least for not so familiar players with the game. -Dallas has won Gens A as well and has the same home/away as Detroit. Your claim still stands that no one else could win with Detroit, but it is not because of advantages as Dallas proves that point wrong. -In ETB home/away was changed to minimum effect and more teams ended up having better road record than home record than ever before, so it looks like advantages do play a part even in static rom. Their effect is probably closer to what Smoz already proved in his thread earlier. (I'm still guessing it affects the crowd, just a hunch) -Having 0 disadvantage at away is better than having 1 (average) disadvantage. So Detroit & Dallas are better away teams than Montreal & Boston. To the WBF teams. Basically the teams with heavy skilled offence increaes value and the low weight offence loses a bit value. For defence light defence loses value but heavy skilled defence is as effective due to CB in Classic and I evaluate mainly the defensive skills there (just few d-men that become a bit more valuable). -Nyr was a monster with Raph even in Classic, just steamrolled everyone, it is a top 10 team in Classic. And it will become even better in WBF. -Boston is iffy. It loses out in Sweeney, so I think Boston becomes worse defensively. Sweeney-Bourque is gold in classic, but not so good in WBF. Wesley or G.Murphy does not compensate that with their check rating. Bourque is as effective defensively in Classic & WBF due to CB in Classic. I would probably not use Ruzicka & Neely both, would be too heavy for my taste. I would however use Neely this time in offence, so it becomes more skilled than in Classic for me. -Pens become a monster team with Lemieux & Jagr on offence. -Tor I think they're still quite the same, perhaps a notch better. Clark is still not good as he's only weight 8, but Andreychuk is good. I like him in Classic as well, that fatty onetimer is juicy. -Vancouver loses out, but speed is still top 10 good.
  7. By default most connections should be steady nowadays. For overseas by default do not use smoothing. The +1 frame adds to input lag that is already high from the latency alone. Problems with specific connections should be more rare by default, if you experience problems with someone then consider using smoothing, but do not use it pre-emptively (it would be silly). What was meant is that Discord eats a lot of resources for a chat/voIP program. So especially for older computers it's good to turn off while gaming. Some of the players who play Overwatch for example with more powerfull computers turn it also off and use something like Mumble for VoIP, which is more lighter.
  8. Discord is very heavy to use. Some of the guys who play Overwatch competitively told me this and that they shut it down while playing with more powerfull desktop computers. For VoIP there are more lighter options during gameplay. But I like discord for how it connects people, it's good for chat and PM for me.
  9. I don't know what UB exactly means but I guess it is to do with connection on a breakdown / desync. It tries to help it with adding rope to the connection with extra latency, but 4ms is not really much so I'm not even using that. I think Hamachi pays no difference here. It's just a tool to give you a virtual IP-address and fake a LAN connection with guys in the same network via those IP-addresses. The connection itself should be direct between the players so that the data does not go through any hamachi server or so. Of course in theory it's better the less programs are running in the background, especially online ones. Client-server is very bad for gaming nowadays, especially arcade games, doesn't matter for turn based etc. Let's say there is a server in east coast NY where you have 2on2 servers for example. Guys close by get 10-20ms to it, which equals a P2P connection of 20-40ms so 1 to 2 frames. If I would connect there I would play with 7 frames. This is the reason I do not play 2on2. I have yet to try it with lag compensation, perhaps it would make it playable. The other side usually gets to play with a huge advantage, but advantages can be overcome of course. A server in iceland could work good, but there are still advantages to the other side, it's impossible to get a 100% even connection there. P2P Gens/Kaillera offers is pretty good.
  10. That is A type lag. High latency -> delay in your controls. If the game on Pearate end is all smooth then it's probably not the connection causing it but something on his computer rather or the rare compatibility issue. On P2P connection if the other connection has packetloss/high fluctuation in ping then both experience it.
  11. Oh, great news. Why not ditch Gens and play with Kega. The emulation is smoother and closer to real Genesis as well. The last time I tested Kega online was probably somewhere in the last decade, perhaps it's netcode has also been updated. It also eliminates the problem of someone gaining advantage of rerecording and it's lag compensation over someone who does not. If Kega does not however have a updated netplay and it's like I recall it to be then it's still a bad option (for me). Kega also has default linux version that run 100% smooth on Linux, just tried the 3.63x version from the site. Gens has to be emulated by wine. http://www.segaretro.org/Kega_Fusion#Downloads
  12. Yes Kega is much smoother but you guys should be below/around 100ms in ping to still make it playable. When it gets to 140ms+ it should be too slow and unbearable to me at least. Also how would you send a savestate to the site to have that game show up there? Only option would be to do it manually in a gens afterwards, sounds like awfully a lot to do.
  13. To answer your first question. Yes, do not use smoothing. It is only good against jumpy screen problem. Otherwise you only ADD to latency, which makes A type of lag worse aka long distance connections. Like the word smoothing says it is to smoothen down an edgy / jumpy connection by adding artificial latency to the connection to not react to jumpiness in ping, which is worse for response. In kaillera Ping = Frames = Latency = A type Lag. The more frames, the more delay in your controls, that is bad for competitive gaming. To the second question. So when you say I have a better connection to you than the french, it should be defined better to get to the root of that. There are many types of lag like I explained. My connection is low speed but very stable. Speed has very little difference in connections when it comes to NHL94. I have a DSL, which is probably 10/1 at the moment. I've been with this connection since last fall. Before this one I had a 24/3 DSL, which allowed a 10ms lower ping to eastern coast US as I was working then with a ISP/ICT company and I was able to adjust the settings for the DSL myself. Ping is dictated by distance traveled, it is a measure of time between two points. When Seth says he now has a faster internet and how everone should update, he is wrong. It does not matter. Changing ISP can help with B type of lag, but not A and that has nothing to do with the connection speed usually. "Faster" internet only allows to send more packets sent with the same actual speed than a "slower" internet. There you can think of the term "bandwidth". Slower have less width for fewer data packages, but the speed is actually the same. The actual single data does not move faster, it just has more bandwidth and allows to move more data at the same time. Speed only matters in shared connections like old cable, shared households or if you run other stuff background when playing. Your ping should be lower vs the french, so the response should be better for controls. I had a relatively high ping vs the other french guy, probably pearate if I recall it right and it was somewhere around 80ms when it should have been in the 50ms-60ms range to France in general. Your problems vs them should by theory be in the B lag category, with jumping screen / dropping fps. If that is not the case even with lower ping, then something else is causing the problem than the distance / network, perhaps something on pearate's end.
  14. Yes, very good topics Aqua. I modified my long post and it should be easier to read now. It's still a wall of text but should cover majority of the issues. This has been an issue for me in the past as well and now that there are possible tools to help in it it is for the community to decide what direction all this goes. There is nothing much else I can provide. I'd prefer the competitive way and reverting back would probably make me look at other games. Probably frustration shining through here as I've tried to be vocal about it.
  15. Know the lag you are facing. Lag is commonly defined to having problems in online gaming but not especially defined what it is. For TLDR type guys I recommend to read at least A & B. A ) Over long distance there will always be delay with how modern physics work unless something new is found. So even with the speed of light there will be a harsh input delay between the continents on p2p or client side connection. This is what I usually call lagging, it's a high ping aka high latency. It makes your controller inputs work in delay, so that it's much harder to react to the opponent in real time and this results in a very poor defence and horrendous manual goaltending, it makes pass shots etc. much more difficult. In Kaillera lag is defined by frames. 20ms ping = 1 frame 30ms ping = 2 frame 60ms ping = 3 frame 90ms ping = 4 frame 110ms ping = 5 frame 140ms ping = 6 frame 180ms ping = 7 frame At least it's something along those lines. Intercontinental connections tend to be between 1-3. At best I get 4 frame games to eastern coast and they are great to play and it's really not much of a problem. Even 5 frame games up to 135 ms ping are still relatively good and responsive. I get 5 frame games up to the area of Buffalo / Toronto / Montreal. When you play overseas games _DO NOT USE ADDED FRAMES_ as it adds to the input delay, only do it if B is the case. B ) Lag spikes or jumpy screen. Now this is the type of lag that is most commonly caused by a bad network on the other side. Modern networks everywhere should be good and fast enough for games like nhl94 that don't require much speed at all to play it good. You're completely fine with a 10/1 and those should be available everywhere nowadays. But spikes / jumpy screen are a different case. This is most commonly caused by one of the following: -Someone else using your bandwidth for downloading / streaming -Using wi-fi instead of cable. Wi-fi can have problems with it's signal to your computer from other electrical devices, yes even outside your house. So having a wi-fi in your room even might not solve the case. -3G forget about it and also 4G might cause problems. -Bad connection from your house to the ISP and you should contact them to fix it -Bad routing between ISP and the servers beyond, contact ISP -Check for malicious programs on your computer / do a clean install for OS etc. It takes some problemsolving skills to figure out which one is causing the spiky connection. This is usually commonly figured out by the community who has it or not. Habs for example has been nominated for having a spiky connection quite a few times. You can also self diagnose it a bit by using ping in command prompt. Just type "ping 8.8.8.8 -t" in command prompt without the " marks. If the ping is stable, something else is causing it. If there are massive jumps by even 30+ ms then your connection is the cause. ONLY USE ADDED FRAMES IF YOU ARE FACING OPPONENT WHO YOU HAVE PROBLEMS WITH JUMPY SCREEN / CONNECTION WITH SPIKES. And to be honest, I prefer the faster response much more over some FPS lags or occasional spikes. C) There is the rare case that goes behind the case B with some hardware issues like Raph said. I also had this problem with a desktop computer having i7-2600K against Seths old laptop. They would get somehow off sync and it would be smooth on Seths end but jumpy screen for me. For some vs Seth it would be completely fine and the issue might happen against some other guys, but always the same guys between specific setups, this is very rare though. With an old 8 year old Laptop this would not happen, not vs Seths new laptop or his old. It's a problem I have no fix for, try runnning different OS or setups the only one other than getting a new computer. As a quick fix I used to do ALT-ALT during the game to quickly visit the Gens menu and reset the low FPS back to 60 for a moment to get it back smooth, but this was annoying and distracting during the games. It also could cause a problem to leave it smooth for me but severely handicapping you with a huge delay compared to Seth where the other can skate circles around you and you are a pylon. It kind of like increased the delay visiting the menu to make it more like a server-client connection. D) Dropping FPS is usually happening between one of or all of these combinations, it should be more rare on the A case where the connections are stable even with high ping. I have some of that against quite a few players here with the old laptop, so that might be hardware related as well. But we have to remember Gens is a very old program and we used to play with it in the early 2000's already so it's made to run with very bad computers for modern standards. Hardware seldomly should be the problem with this. Any Core2Duo for example should be 100% fine with Gens already. Possible solutions: I've played many games competitively from FPS to more modern NHL games etc. and it is a custom to tweak your configurations in FPS games for example. It's never considered a cheat and those that are, are pre-defined by the community. Games like Quake and Team Fortress 2 use lag compensation and tbh if you don't use it it's almost impossible to play overseas as they are even more hectic than nhl94. In FPS games people even modify the polling rates of USB devices from registry so that they respond over 125hz and give a faster response and it's a custom, not a cheat. It is a possible advantage over the casual gamers but also help to competitive gameplay. If I play FPS games with such setups I would not do registry changes just to revert back to play NHL94. Back to the lag case in lag compensation. What lag compensation intends to do is to reduce the discrepancy in the time of response to offer smoother gameplay. If you want to read more you can find about client side lag compensation from here http://www.gamedonia.com/blog/lag-compensation-techniques-for-multiplayer-games-in-realtime. The problem with this is that it only exists in Gens rerecording that also has a small graphical glitch at times with nhl94. We would have to have programmer to take a look at it and implement lag compensation from rerecording to the current version people are using in Gens or fix the graphical glitch issue in rerecording and make rerecording the default version to play with. The default packages on nhl94online.com should be updated anyways with new kaillera and record plugins etc, why not have rerecording in it as well. To those who say it is a cheat I say you do now know what it does. There is a chance for using it to create an unadvantageous situation and cause delay on the other end and I know for 99% I have experienced this before figuring this out in the NA games, if creating the delay is done deliberately then it is a malicious act and it could only be countered by using it yourself. At best making this available for everyone could possibly help with the lag type A and make games much more enjoyable on all sides. Lag compensation offers a compensation in frames from 0 to 4 for a faster input response. Embracing all the tools to make games more competitive is a good sign of a community and shutting yourself from it is like being run by the medieval church and trying to keep the people uninformed, as like it's a heresy! After figuring this out in 2017 I am finally able to play to the level I used to play in Finnish leagues aka emulate short distance latency. And can honestly say that if the competitive side of NHL94 does not make an effort to look at this issue or solve it, it will probably make me ditch out NHL94 from my games to play list. It is a game I enjoy playing competitively and I will not go back from this to play NA games where I cannot use B-checks anymore, I had to bear that for 2 years already. My conscience is clean and I've been very open about this and trying to make it available for everyone. There is just very little response or I get the casual gamer response to it. Gens settings might have effect for online gaming as well. It's an old emulator and it's code might be still derived from the early 2000's in some part. Many old games had codes written that their network emulation somehow was in link with the settings, perhaps it was part of the poor hardware at the time as well, but it existed. We in Finland had a gentlemans code to run games with low sound settings to make things smoother for everyone, at least I was part of it. The problem is that if not everyone uses the same settings, then it's possibly a different kind of response for everyone as the theory is that it effects the opponent as well. Those who want to run everything at highest are at an advantage. Now there is no way to prove this as we can only experience it on our own end. Only in LAN environment or so you could fully test it out and see the difference or perhaps starting several gens on your unit and trying it out connecting between those. Gens in general has a very bulky and heavy feel to it and to me it helps me to lower the sound settings or even graphical renderer to have a smoother experience. You can try RetroArch and just be overwhelmed how smooth that is, even Kega and Snes are much more smooth. But what Gens has in advantage to other tested emulators vs Kega for example is that it's much better for long distance connections somehow. A type of lag in Kega or even SNES becomes unbearable if I recall it right overseas. RetroArch has not been tested. Plus what the other emulators lack are the netplaysave option in the form nhl94online.com supports to really be able to use them without any modifications to site/emulators themselves. Another possible job for programmers.
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