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The Kega Emulator is Amazing


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I just finished playing my first online game of 94 with the emulator called Kega. Angryjay93 and I tested it out tonight and played a couple games.

It's nearly as good as playing against someone on a console. It even allows online save states to be made and it is played through a direct connection -- which is one of the reasons why it runs so flawlessly.

First of all, the control online was so fluid and precise that it takes a moment to get used to after playing gens online. I've posted before about the gens internet settings and how it limits the amount of input you have with the controller ... With Kega, it's like a huge weight is lifted off of the control of players. It's not even like playing gens offline, I would say it's even better. That's because the Kega emulator is purportedly a more perfect emulation of the genesis than gens.

In our couple of online games, we maintained a steady frame rate and fluidity. It never stuttered or lagged. Just endless amounts of silky smooth precise control, the way the game was meant to be played. You'll probably need to try it out before you believe me, but it is a jaw-dropping experience.

One thing that is readily apparent is the clarity of the sound. Pucks off the glass make a crazy sound, and the checks and horn sound more "full-bodied".

We need more people to jump on and try this emulator out online and respond to this thread. If you need someone to play against, I'm usually available during the day or kind of late at night.

This is the download page:

http://www.emulator-zone.com/doc.php/genesis/fusion.html

Yes, you need to setup your internet connection to play this because it is a direct connection between you and the other player. It's not that hard to do guys, it really isn't. You set it up once and you are done with it, and its exactly the same setup you go through to play SNES online. I helped AngryJay with his connection and we were up and playing within minutes. I won't post all the details of how to setup your connection here, but if there is interest I can help.

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I must say once we got things set up, playing on the KEGA was a very enjoyable experience to say the least. Never having to worry abotu a game lagging or stuttering or skipping was very relaxing.

Also the sound was much better than on a GENS, everything sounded like it had a little more "thud" to it.

The only problem i had intitally with the emulator was the screen size, it took a little fidgeting in between games to make sure i had everything set up the way it needed to be in order to see the game in a resolution that i'm used to.

I would absolutely reccomend this emulator for the league since it runs so smooth, it can be saved online, and there is also a typing feature during the game so that people can talk to each other without the risk of lagging and losing contact in a game which is somethign i experience often with GENS.

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this is great news man!!!so i just start a rom then start netplay and other guy enters ip in server name and away we go?and does he open rom 1st as well or just join ?

Yep that's it. Your IP address can be found by going to www.ipchicken.com -- that site shows your public ip address, which is what you give to someone to connect to you or vice versa.

If you have a firewall running you need to either allow Kega to access the internet, or just turn it off. If you connect through a router, you need to also set up your router to allow Kega to communicate. I can help with this step, and there are a ton of tutorials on how to do this. If you have a router you need to forward port 5394 for Kega. IF you don't know how to do that or what that is, I can provide more info or help you on on AIM. Scribe99

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Does the 'host' player have a ping advantage over the other guy who connected to the host?

I know that with Kaillera, the game is always played at the higher ping to keep the game in sync. I assume it is the same with KEGA. When I played, I connected to Angryjay93 and showed up with about an 80 ping. I didn't noticed any slowdown at all. It was really so smooth it felt like 0 ping to me.

BTW, if anyone wants to try this out just to see, I can host the game and you can connect to me without setting up your connection. Then if you like it I can show you how to set up your connection so you can host.

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Played a couple more games tonight with IamFleury'sHipCheck and CamNeely ... Went pretty smoothy and I'd be interested to hear their impressions. Wboy, haven't tested out a Sega CD game yet.

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I know that with Kaillera, the game is always played at the higher ping to keep the game in sync. I assume it is the same with KEGA. When I played, I connected to Angryjay93 and showed up with about an 80 ping. I didn't noticed any slowdown at all. It was really so smooth it felt like 0 ping to me.

BTW, if anyone wants to try this out just to see, I can host the game and you can connect to me without setting up your connection. Then if you like it I can show you how to set up your connection so you can host.

Are you sure that's how it works, Scribe? Has anyone here actually figured out 100% how it works? Here's how I always thought it worked (and why it could handle two players of disparate pings):

When you're running Gens with Kaillera going, your inputs get intercepted by Kaillera before they ever get to the emulation. Instead, your inputs go to the Kaillera server, which keeps track of all the inputs it's been getting from you and your opponent. It synchronizes those inputs and sends them back to both players simultaneously, and once each player receives the inputs the player's emulator processes them. That way the two players don't have to have the same exact ping. The player with the faster connection gets better response time because the round-trip time between when he pushes a button and when the Kaillera server sends that button push back to him is faster. The slower player can still play but is farther behind.

In other words, your "ping" is a measure of how far in time behind the stream of synchronized inputs your perception of the game is. I think that if you had two computers side-by-side, one with 20ms ping and one with 200ms ping, and had them play each other, you'd see the same action on both screens, just with the second computer being about 180ms behind.

The most important thing about a connection for good Kaillera play, therefore, isn't so much low ping as much as it is low packet loss (i.e. lack of dropped packets between player and Kaillera server.) A desync occurs when one or both clients time out to the server and one or both players have a gap in the stream of inputs and therefore are no longer playing the same game.

But yeah, maybe it's Kega ftw from now on.

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Are you sure that's how it works, Scribe? Has anyone here actually figured out 100% how it works? Here's how I always thought it worked (and why it could handle two players of disparate pings):

When you're running Gens with Kaillera going, your inputs get intercepted by Kaillera before they ever get to the emulation. Instead, your inputs go to the Kaillera server, which keeps track of all the inputs it's been getting from you and your opponent. It synchronizes those inputs and sends them back to both players simultaneously, and once each player receives the inputs the player's emulator processes them. That way the two players don't have to have the same exact ping. The player with the faster connection gets better response time because the round-trip time between when he pushes a button and when the Kaillera server sends that button push back to him is faster. The slower player can still play but is farther behind.

In other words, your "ping" is a measure of how far in time behind the stream of synchronized inputs your perception of the game is. I think that if you had two computers side-by-side, one with 20ms ping and one with 200ms ping, and had them play each other, you'd see the same action on both screens, just with the second computer being about 180ms behind.

The most important thing about a connection for good Kaillera play, therefore, isn't so much low ping as much as it is low packet loss (i.e. lack of dropped packets between player and Kaillera server.) A desync occurs when one or both clients time out to the server and one or both players have a gap in the stream of inputs and therefore are no longer playing the same game.

But yeah, maybe it's Kega ftw from now on.

Here's part of the Kaillera faq from anti3d.com:

Lag and delay are not the same thing.

Lag occurs when one player experiences Internet congestion or computer problems, and stops transmitting Kaillera network packets. This causes the other player's games to freeze momentairly until the lagged person recovers. If the lagged person does not recover promtly, desynch will occur.

Delay occurs when one or more players are using a slow or busy Internet connection, or they are too far from the server physically. Delay does not cause freezing, but the game will seem slow and jittery for all players. Delay is directly related to ping time. Desynch is more likely when playing a severly delayed person.

There is ALWAYS delay In Kaillera, but most people can not notice it when all player's ping times are below 60ms. However, it is important to realize in Kaillera that all players in a game will slow down to the delay of the slowest player. So in a 3 player game with two 10ms pings, and one 90ms ping, all players will experience 90ms delay.

I think what happens is that the game plays at a certain level of choppiness or smoothness based on the higher ping. Within that context, the player with the lower ping probably won't have to worry about dropping keystrokes, but will still have to deal with the general lagginess of the game just as the higher ping does.

It reminds me of when I've played 2k football against people on Xbox Live who had a bad connection. If their connection sucked, the game would lag heavily for both players so there really wasn't much of an advantage to be had even though your connection was fine.

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Here's part of the Kaillera faq from anti3d.com:

I think what happens is that the game plays at a certain level of choppiness or smoothness based on the higher ping. Within that context, the player with the lower ping probably won't have to worry about dropping keystrokes, but will still have to deal with the general lagginess of the game just as the higher ping does.

It reminds me of when I've played 2k football against people on Xbox Live who had a bad connection. If their connection sucked, the game would lag heavily for both players so there really wasn't much of an advantage to be had even though your connection was fine.

I don't think they're right, honestly. I've played many, many games on a Finland server with ping at about 140 ms, and that was definitely what I was getting, but they never said that they were slowed down. I've also played them occasionally on a US server, and I've definitely had much better response time.

I think the anti3d.com guys actually have it wrong, which is possible because they didn't make Kaillera. So I don't think that a player with a slow connection messes up the player with the fast connection, but I think that the player with the choppy connection messes everyone up. In other words, a smooth but slow connection makes the slow player lag but doesn't mess anyone else up. A choppy connection, regardless of lag, messes everyone up. It's just that typically, the slow connection *is* the choppy connection, so I don't think people distinguish the two as much as they should.

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OMG. THAT EMU IS AMAZING. I JUST PLAYED A FREIND ONLINE AND IT WAS SOOOOOOO SMOOTH. WITH GENS WE ALWAYS LAG.

Could you plz send me a PM on how to confiq my router. I had to unplug my router to play. I have a wireless Linksys router.

I'll put this up for others too.

When you configure your router, you need to open up port 5394 for KEGA. That is the channel that KEGA communicates on. But most people have IP addresses that renew themselves and change from day-to-day. When you tell your router to open up port 5394, you have to give it a specific IP address that stays the same, otherwise it won't work next time your IP address is renewed and changed to something else.

So the first step is setting up an IP address that doesn't change. Here's the walkthrough for it (pick your version of windows, and go through the steps one by one, should take a few minutes): http://www.portforward.com/networking/staticip.htm

The last step is opening up the port on your router for your new IP address. The basic idea is that you go into your router, go to its port forwarding menu, and you make a new entry with the port # to be opened and your new IP address. You also checkmark both udp and tcp boxes under the same entry, or if you can only do one, pick udp.

Here's the walkthrough for accessing your router. You won't need any software or anything, just look at your router and get its make and model. Scroll down and pick your specific router and then select default guide at the very top of the screen: http://www.portforward.com/english/routers...routerindex.htm

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When you configure your router, you need to open up port 5394 for KEGA. That is the channel that KEGA communicates on. But most people have IP addresses that renew themselves and change from day-to-day. When you tell your router to open up port 5394, you have to give it a specific IP address that stays the same, otherwise it won't work next time your IP address is renewed and changed to something else.

So the first step is setting up an IP address that doesn't change. Here's the walkthrough for it (pick your version of windows, and go through the steps one by one, should take a few minutes): http://www.portforward.com/networking/staticip.htm

There is a slightly easier/better way. Within your router go to your DHCP settings (the service that allocates out the IPs) and create a reserved/permanent entry for your PC. This is done by specifying the Physical Address (aka MAC Address) of your network card (NIC) as seen when you do an 'ipconfig /all' (as shown in the tut you posted). This means that whenever your IP expires and requests another, it'll alway guarantees you get the same IP... that being the same IP that you use configure your port forwards etc...

This mean you can keep your OS network settings to dynamic and you don't have to worry about knowing/entering your DNS settings manually... which even your provider can occasionally change on you without letting you know.

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There is a slightly easier/better way. Within your router go to your DHCP settings (the service that allocates out the IPs) and create a reserved/permanent entry for your PC. This is done by specifying the Physical Address (aka MAC Address) of your network card (NIC) as seen when you do an 'ipconfig /all' (as shown in the tut you posted). This means that whenever your IP expires and requests another, it'll alway guarantees you get the same IP... that being the same IP that you use configure your port forwards etc...

This mean you can keep your OS network settings to dynamic and you don't have to worry about knowing/entering your DNS settings manually... which even your provider can occasionally change on you without letting you know.

Cool, thanks for the info. I was hoping that there was another way to do that. Although, I'm not sure that there are tuturials for how to do that on the port forwarding site, which might make it a bit more confusing for some. But it is nice to have another option too.

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Ive played a few games against AngryJay on it and it seemed like the the controls arent as sharp as GENS. Has this happened to anyone else? I'm using a PS2 controller, its calibrated, and i have the buttons set up on Kega.

Its very hard/borderline impossible to deke, and controlled player movement in general isnt crisp. I'll try to backhand to forward deke, and when i go to the forehand, instead of a smooth transition, the player will go at a 90 degree angle away from the goalie. (almost as if the diagonals arent fully responsive). On defense, its hard to position your guy as well.

I agree its nicer to connect directly to the other player for a smoother game, but the controls issue sucks. Hopefully, there is an easy solution.B)

Has anyone else noticed a difference between the two Emus?

Is there a setting or an option in Kega that will help?

Maybe a recalibration?

Any ideas, or similar experiences??

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The controls have always worked fine for me, but I use a logitech controller.

Quick question though. I haven't played a netplay game with Kega Fusion yet, but I want to because I don't like the slowdown on Gens. I set up my router for port forwarding just as this thread outlined and created a static IP. Now is that all that has to be done before I create a game? I know the player that joins the game has to know the static IP that I set up. Does the joining player, also using a router, have to set up a static IP and port forwarding too?

AIM is Terrordome7 for anyone that wants to give Kega a try.

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  • 2 weeks later...
The controls have always worked fine for me, but I use a logitech controller.

Quick question though. I haven't played a netplay game with Kega Fusion yet, but I want to because I don't like the slowdown on Gens. I set up my router for port forwarding just as this thread outlined and created a static IP. Now is that all that has to be done before I create a game? I know the player that joins the game has to know the static IP that I set up. Does the joining player, also using a router, have to set up a static IP and port forwarding too?

AIM is Terrordome7 for anyone that wants to give Kega a try.

In Kega, you load the rom and then click netplay - create game - then start game after your opponent joins your game. The static IP part is only for your router setup. The IP that your opponent enters when you create a game is your public IP address, different from your internal static IP address. Go to a site like www.ipchicken.com and it shows you your public IP that the opponent enters.

To join a game you don't need to setup any IP addresses or port forwarding, only the host of the game needs to do that.

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Someone needs to help me set this up. The only way I can get it too work is if I unplug my router. I did everything that said to to do. I set up a static ip, and opened the port. I think I did it all right but it doesent work.

Make sure that the port you opened on your router has your correct static IP address in the entry. Also make sure that you checked UDP in that same entry. If it still doesn't work, you could be running a personal firewall on your computer, like windows firewall, that is blocking the program. In that case, either turn off all of your pc's firewalls, or go into your firewall setup and add kega and port number 5394 with UDP under the firewall's exceptions or allowed programs. I would try first turning off your firewall to see if that is the problem before you set it up to allow Kega.

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