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Thread: Playing Genesis (and possibly other systems) ONline against remote human opponents.

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    Speaking of Coverage, Here's Sprint's DIRECT CONNECT coverage map. Areas in dark green are useable with the older Direct Connect phones. Anywhere it's not white can be used with a new device. http://coverage.sprint.com and click Direct Connect.

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    Quote Originally Posted by tripletopper View Post
    Boja, because I'm not handy enough myself in building such a thing, but I do believe I understand the theory correctly, and I know what technology currently exists. If you can beat that research cost, I'll give you a cut of the business. That's why I'm long-winded on theory, but light in the actual practice. If I knew how to solder a Genesis so I can route joystick, random number, and timestamp data into and out of a network device, and alter a Sprint Direct Connect device to keep 20 separate inputs are kept separate, instead of merging them before you get to the phone, I would go ahead and do it. I need soem help i this department. Davison said they can do it for $17,000 + 10%. Beat that price and you can have the contract. There, I said it.
    I have to say it, you sound like a shyster. Wanting money for something that doesn't exist in any form. Something that is just an idea in your head with not a single proof of concept.

    I am not for censoring people, but honestly I think this post should be locked and probably deleted. He is asking for money for something that doesn't exist, at all, in any form. I believe this is an attempt to dupe people out of some money.

    Asking for pre-order money for something that doesn't exist at all is slimy and unethical. I suggest if you truly believe in this idea you save up your own money and prove it.
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    If I was truly a scheister, I would not have exposed my secret weapon, using a low-ping connection. I would have made it sound like a trade secret, and and asked you to trust me blind. I have given the key to it working so that those who believe this makes sense could help me. Apparently, PikoInteractive said (s)he'd like to help me. If my honesty got someone to help fund it instead of begging the average Retrogamer, I'll drop the pre sales and wait to get a prototype funded before I offer sales of devices. If someone else can make a low ping modem that can play anything, I welcome it. I was just trying to fund it myself. I gave the number of Davison, so that if you trust Davison, that'd be your assurance. So PikoInteractive, respond by calling me on the number I gave in your PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by tripletopper View Post
    If I was truly a scheister, I would not have exposed my secret weapon, using a low-ping connection. I would have made it sound like a trade secret, and and asked you to trust me blind. I have given the key to it working so that those who believe this makes sense could help me. Apparently, PikoInteractive said (s)he'd like to help me. If my honesty got someone to help fund it instead of begging the average Retrogamer, I'll drop the pre sales and wait to get a prototype funded before I offer sales of devices. If someone else can make a low ping modem that can play anything, I welcome it. I was just trying to fund it myself. I gave the number of Davison, so that if you trust Davison, that'd be your assurance. So PikoInteractive, respond by calling me on the number I gave in your PM.
    Yes, you actually are asking people to trust you blindly because you have nothing to show. Asking people for money for a product that doesn't exist in any form is not funding it yourself. Funding it yourself would be taking money from your own pocket and building working model and then using that to get investors and/or crowd sourcing to get it into its commercial form. Also, there is no proof your idea will even work, yet you want other people's money for it. I would advise anyone to stay far away from this unless the guy actually shows something. Anyone can come up with an idea, that's the easy part.
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    The more I talk to Sprint about it, the less I like it. They are not sure whether "one person talks, the rest listen" is a restriction of the phone or a restriction of the network. Secondly, they talk about maximum message bursts of 6 or 9 seconds, but not minimum message bursts of milliseconds to microseconds. It was obviously designed for voice in mind, not data. Also the cost is 20 cents per minute by the initiator. Which is an expensive network for playing any 2 player game for the Genesis. It'd be interesting to see if it can be pulled off, but after what Sprint told me, 2 or 3 times in a row, I cannot in good conscience ask for money which is that radical of a change which is too experimental and has too many "what if's" and that expensive to run.

    I'll wait until I raise the $17,000 another way (through my income) to make a prototype. Then I can show Sega and the cell networks how this works, and then the work can continue.

    In the meantime, I'm talking to Anthony Gaccione about a way to be more likely to find an opponent on Xbox 360, One, PS3, PS4, PS Vita, Wii U and 3DS games, with less endless waiting for opponents on most of the games most of us (at DigitPress.com at least) want to play online, like Xbox Live versions of Daytona USA, Guardian Heroes, Virtua Fighter 2, Sonic the Fighters, Gunstar Heroes, Fighting Vipers, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Altered Beast, and any other 2 player online Xbox 360 game. And it will work for other companies' games too. Even Indie games that happen to be online.

    If this succeeds, maybe I can fund Netrogames myself. Now I'm taking down my TryCelery site after I post this.

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    Truthfully, I see this as being a waste of funds. It will seriously be a novelty at best. Check out SNESoIP. It essentially does with a SNES with what you want to do with a Genesis, just over ethernet. Obviously it has latency issues. However, there is no sync, no matching service, or guarantee of desired functionality. It may work, it may even work for a good while, it may totally desync or some sort of randomized event in the game will completely throw it off one end from the other. See this video for example



    From my understanding, the XBAND was able to accept and patch game code on the fly. It could create a standardized start point (i.e., pausing one or both sides to sync up prior to a match) so at least both machines were running identical gamecode at very nearly the same time. Still not a perfect solution, but it had the benefit of being reliable rather than blindly sending input commands with no more than hope that they are properly aligned on the other side to be synced with gameplay.

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    Sorry, but I cannot see this working at all. Paying a monthly service fee to play vintage games online is ludicrus. Existing servers for modern gaming platforms are generally free, and all but the most popular games more than a couple years old have trouble finding players online, despite the fact the servers are up and running. You are expecting people to put in any 20+ year old game and be able to find other players with the same game to play with???

    Firstly, your desire for <16ms of lag is a pipe dream. Internet has lag because of the myriad of switching stations signals need to be routed to. Use of proprietary networks would kill the service before it got off the ground. Modern games overcome lag issues by using intelligent prediction algorithms to predict player behavior. Course correction occurs as the input streams are updated. This can make even 130-250ms of lag feel like realtime. But all this predictive input needs to be programmed into the game engine, and even though the bandwidth necessary to track controller inputs andvplayer data is low, the prediction algorithms require a huge amount of CPU time, more than what vintage consoles could handle, but only a fraction of what modern consoles can pull. Secondly, safeguards are in place to ensure the game consoles do not desync. Player coordinates and velocity are usually updated periodically to prevent errors. If one player's game console runs .0001% faster or slower than the other, they will desync within a few minutes.

    Typically dedicated servers are necessary to handle the bits going in and out. So what if two gamers are next door when the signal has to go to a server half way around the world and back? Direct connect is no good because one console will have to be master and the other console slave. This is how emulators do it with Kallihera or whatever it's called. I tried it once, running an NES emulator off a flash drive in a school computer lab, with my friend playing on the PC next to me. Both PCs had IP addresses adjacent to each other, meaning they were connected to the same router. Each building had a huge router that handled hundreds of connections. The input lag was so bad, most games were entire unplayable, and that was between the router and a couple hundred feet or so of LAN line.

    Clasdic games are just not gonna work this way. Emulator people have tried it, and quite frankly putting this tech into expensive proprietary hardware is simply not worth the effort or investment. I would suggest you scrap the idea or you'll risk bankrupting yourself. Worse still if you do it with investor money.

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    Quote Originally Posted by c0ldb33r View Post
    That's the craziest wall of text I've ever read.
    While a cool idea its something I would of dreamed of as a kid. As you grow up and life takes its cruel toll on you your dreams will die too :P

    Also love the name dropping, I doubt anyone here will know Anthony and in reality he probably sits unnoticed in a cube while his upper management won't give him the time of day to vet ideas.

    That being said keep us posted on your progress . It would be cool if it does work.

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    I've found someone who could help. Sprint has the sprint accelerator program. If you believe a low-ping network is a way to get EVERY Game to work, which Sprint has with its Direct Connect, then click a link on my facebook page. Search for and follow/friend "Brian Ciesicki" on facebook.com, and if you believe this will work, click on the Sprint Accelerator link and support the project with your vote. You don't need to contribute any money, all you need to say is that it's realistic enough where if it were funded, more games would more easily be turned online.

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    I think StoneAgeGamer hit the nail on the head already.

    This isn't the first time someone had this idea, and the reason why it never went anywhere is because it wasn't worth the work to satisfy such a small, niche market, especially when you can do it for free, not $125 (or was it $175?) + a shitty connection from Sprint (another monthly cost on top of your already existing home internet connection, no thanks), of all companies.

    Also, why would you even consider taking preorders on something you can't prove works, will work, and so on? You're selling people on an idea (one that has been discussed by people who would be able to make it happen if it was worth the time and effort) with nothing in return. Taking peoples money before an idea has been proven and an actual market study has been done is right on the lines of being a shyster for sure.
    Currently Playing: Super Mario RPG (Wii VC), Ghostbusters (Wii), DJ Hero (360, 5* All songs on Expert), Mario Kart Wii

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    Quote Originally Posted by dra600n View Post
    I think StoneAgeGamer hit the nail on the head already.

    This isn't the first time someone had this idea, and the reason why it never went anywhere is because it wasn't worth the work to satisfy such a small, niche market, especially when you can do it for free, not $125 (or was it $175?) + a shitty connection from Sprint (another monthly cost on top of your already existing home internet connection, no thanks), of all companies.

    Also, why would you even consider taking preorders on something you can't prove works, will work, and so on? You're selling people on an idea (one that has been discussed by people who would be able to make it happen if it was worth the time and effort) with nothing in return. Taking peoples money before an idea has been proven and an actual market study has been done is right on the lines of being a shyster for sure.
    If you notice the last post I shifted. I'm not asking people to pay $175 for a Net Genesis. It was kind of dubious asking people for money for something unproven. But I have described my theory. If you believe that when you can beat 8 ms ping time one way for a 60 FPS game you can turn any game online, then visit my facebook page and vote for me on SprintAccelerator.com

    Sprint would be funding this if I get enough votes. This would be the best thing to happen to Sprint, have a new way to use Direct Connect to play games online. I was intentionally charging lots of money becuase I wanted to cover myself in case the technology was more expensive. Better to ask for a higher price, and refund money, than to beg twice. Now I don't have to beg for money, just your vote. Visit facebook.com, Friend/follow "Brian Ciesicki" and click on the Sprint Accelerator Link to vote for Netrogames.

    Xband didn't work because it's all 3: low bandwidth, high ping, and not universal. Most other networks accept high-ping as a given. If you accpet that notion, then the consequence is that you need artificial intelligence to anticipate moves, a staple of modern online gaming, thus non-universality. I say, lower the ping, increase the universality. The only sacrifice is physical range. (1600 km if the network is 67% efficient.)

    A 6 button Genesis 6-button joypad has 12 bits N,S,E,W,A,B,C,X,Y,Z,Start,Mode. I understand Direct Connect has 33 kb/s or 33 b/ms worth of bandwidth. in 1 ms 2 6-buttons controllers can fit (24 b), If you've got 8 ms, eight 6-button Genesis controllers should fit comfortably enough (maybe at a loss of range for an 8-player 6-button game) assuming my theory works. If Sprint believes their network is straight-line quick, they should fund it.

    Also do not confuse 3G or 4G with Direct Connect. 3G and 4G are high bandwidth tradtional connections. They have slightly worse ping time becuase it goes from cell to tower to nearest onramp to the internet, across the network to either its destination, or if it's another cell phone to an offramp to the cell network then tower to the other phone. Direct connect is a netowrk owned by one company that goes straight from phone to tower (usually more than 1) to phone. That's why they can deliver a low ping connection. They just never thought of using it with data.

    As for finding people to play online, I was thinking of a cell phone texting service, combined with a directory service, kind of like the yellow pages. You put your gamertag listed under a game (possibly hundreds or thousands. If you don't object to playing that game, can play it online, and you own it, list it.) you're willing to play anytime when someone pages you, you answer the page, (or page someone when you are in the mood) and you reach them. This has an advantage over waiting in waiting rooms. You can literally wait in hundreds of waiting rooms, and all you need is a page from one to answer the call. Also you don't have to sit in a waiting room and do nothing. You can do chores, homework, or once that's done, play a more popular game online, or play a game against the computer, and you'll be summoned on your cell phone text message. Another advantage is it anonymously looks up people and matches by game title. So if you want an opponent, any opponent, page them and it will randomly pick a few people on the list to play. They'll text you back, and you meet in that particular games meeting room. Finally if you want to play a Wii U offline game, but want your ear to the ground for PS4/Xbox1 challenges, your phone will text you when you find someone.

    This goes hand in glove with Netrogames, because Netrogames would have a hard time finding human opponents without this. But this will also work with current online games that are less popular. Maybe this idea people will get behind more. And it will make both Netrogames as well as older current-gen games more tolerable to wait for and to summon people for. Since they could be developed together, maybe this will get you to vote yes for Netrogames, and even if you never intend to play Genesis game online, maybe you can find an opponent for a 360 or PS3 game easier.

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    And why Sprint and not Verizon or AT&T? (Or DSL, Or Fios, or U-Verse, or the cable company?) Verizon and AT&T are not committed to their low-ping networks. They offer it for a few months and then cancel. Sprint, (and before Sprint bought them, Nextel) was committed to low-ping connection, albeit voice. Do not confuse this with 3G or 4G from Sprint. Verizon and AT&T are not committed to low ping technologies. For what this project needs, commitment to low-ping communications, Sprint is the right network for this project. Regardless of what you think of their other policies, this is a perfect match. As for the other alternatives, they cannot offer straight line internet. They always ping around.

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    Hey Pretty Fly, this technique uses micorpauses in case the network gets out of sync and rewinding and fast forwarding,, but the network pauses and the shifts will be less dramatic, because it will be 1 frame behind or less before it's corrected with micropauses or shifts, or due to the here-today-gone-tomorrow nature of cellular recepiton, a longer pause for quite a few frames of network brownout.

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    It sounds like you are pretty determined to get this done. As a huge lover of the Sega Genesis I would be totally for something like this if you could make it all work well.

    Why not just do it like the OnLive did it? Just make a box that is basically a streaming device and have a central server that does all the processing and streaming of the data? But make it for retro gaming ONLY.

    I am not too familiar with technology as far as streaming data, cell data, voice, etc etc..

    I do not quite understand what hardware would be required to get it going either.. but it sounds like you are talking about a clone Sega plus the network device right? And this clone would accept real carts like an AtGames clone or something similar would as well correct?

    My only issue with that idea is no clone can ever get the Genesis right - and they usually outright make the Genesis look and sound like crap. If there was a way to make a clone Genesis with original Yamaha and Motorola chips and 100 percent replicated circuitry I would be all up on it. If it worked.

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    Quote Originally Posted by tripletopper View Post
    Sprint would be funding this if I get enough votes.
    No they won't, dude. They don't give a rats fragrant ass about your votes. They care about their bottom line and I can't imagine playing old Genesis games online is going to bring in millions.

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    Quote Originally Posted by JSoup View Post
    No they won't, dude. They don't give a rats fragrant ass about your votes. They care about their bottom line and I can't imagine playing old Genesis games online is going to bring in millions.
    Don't think Sega alone would be enough? How about the 2600, which was only delayed by a hang-up about "granting too broad a license" (Maybe they either want to make money off obscure third party games or prevent the porno games from being turned online, or don't want to deal with third party hassles)? We also got Intelliviison, Colecovision, and SNK Neo Geo saying, If I can show it working they'll review it then. Plus Sega has other systems that will work with it too. Finally Nintendo said they don't comment on stuff in the idea phase. But once i prove this to works with the guinea pig, the Sega Genesis and/or the 2600, I can make a version for Nintendo, Playstation, and Xbox's old systems, and then we're really cooking. Genesis is just the start, but the first one who got onboard. And it will work regardless of whether these games were originally networkized before or not. Imagine playing Ice Climber head-to-head online, or Mario Bros.,

    This also makes keeping tomorrows retro games online easier. Now you don't need one server for each game, each endpoint acts as a generic joystick server for that particular connection. The only reason you need server ref-bots is because of poor ping time. It's a called-as-needed server that's versatile.

    Also I'm trying to get a hold of Bally (WB Games maybe), Hudson/NEC (now Konami perhaps), 3DO (now Panasonic?) Philips/Magnavox, for the Astrocade, Turbo Grafx, 3DO, Odyssey 2, and CD-i as systems that can use the treatment. Most of these companies either don't acknowledge their system making past (first 2) or their video game division (last 2)

    As for the Genesis not being done right, I don't know how much it costs to buy "made now to old standard" chips need to make the original Genesis when other functions that are independent of the Genesis run on a modern machine, but if it's less than $50, it'd be worth it when you add networking to it. Even if you never network it, you can play it like an original No-printed-English-title-screened Altered Beast version with the original sound effects.

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    Quote Originally Posted by tripletopper View Post
    Don't think Sega alone would be enough? How about.....
    You're missing the point. It's not a matter of having "enough", it's a matter of this not being worth developing. There are already better, faster methods to do the exact thing you're proposing for every system you've mentioned. Even if you were to develop this around systems that still aren't properly emulated, you'd still have the problem of playing them on an expensive, slow, buggy network.

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    Currently, the way you make a game online is to program the game individually for the network, which means for x labor you get 1 game made online. So you better make darn sure that is one game people are willing to pay money for.

    For the same x labor EVERY game will be turned online with my method. The easiest way to make a universal online system is to beat 16 ms ping time. If you do that then every game is turned online with no individual code for individual games. The only connection that can beat a 16 ms ping time for distances up to 1600 km is Sprint Cellular Direct Connect. (AT&T and Verizon occasionally offer this, but not as consistently as Sprint. It's an everyday emphasized feature at Sprint, unlike the other 2.)

    Also if you beat 16 ms, you don't need to have high bandwidths for systems up to the analog joysticks. And if this succeeds for the Genesis, maybe the low ping network will be improved to 300 b/ms then 3 kb/ms then you can do more modern systems in a low-ping way. The only flaw with this is it's ranged. If you want to play outside a 1600 km range, you need to network the traditional way. So don't worry about Xbox Live and PSN, they'll still have a place.

    Want to spend x labor to make one game online, or spend x labor to make every game online?

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    Quote Originally Posted by tripletopper View Post
    Currently, the way you make a game online is to program the game individually for the network, which means for x labor you get 1 game made online. So you better make darn sure that is one game people are willing to pay money for.
    Are you just completely unaware of how online emulation works?
    Most emulators can play any game that has multiplayer built into it online.
    ZSNES does it, Gens does it, Visual Boy Advance does it...the list goes on.
    A few specific games needed a few tweeks, but by and large any fool can download an emulator, select "open port" and play with anyone on that channel.

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    I feel that there's a better way to do it on the hardware side of things. Instead of using a SGOAC which is what it'll ultimately rub down to because of cost and what have you and you'll have compatibility problems with sine games why not make use of the expansion port. They're should be a way

    That chikun guy made that expansion port board for the nes and it's got planned upgrades for Ethernet for exactly this.

    And speaking of telecommunications.
    Sprint wireless service sucks butt and not many people have home service any more. This is from experience. All I hear about at work is frighin cell phones and when you pull up a map of cell coverage for Sprint that isn't a map put together by any other cell phone provider but instead provided by an uninterested 3rd party it shows it.

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