Progress on Getting Download Play to Work (Mario Party DS)


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Main - Compatibility / Testing - Progress on Getting Download Play to Work (Mario Party DS)

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Blockboy

Posted on 11-17-19 12:26 AM (rev. 4 of 11-17-19 12:31 AM)

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Using version 0.8.3 of MelonDS, I was able to play Mario Party DS multiplayer with 2 and 3 players on the same computer. 4 players wouldn't quite work. I was able to play a full 20 turn game of Mario Party DS with 2 players, and while I didn't test 3 players as extensively, it didn't seem to crash after a few turns so I would assume that it works the same. 4 players kept causing issues with losing connection or some players not connecting at all and even when it finally got into the character selection screen, it would disconnect before getting to a map. There was slowdown after every minigame when it tried to save, but other than that it was fine. The game also didn't like when multiple people had the same name when joining. I also found connecting worked best if the host waited ~10 seconds after every player joining had their dialogue box stop showing the loading icon before starting the game so all of the players were synced.

I was even able to partially connect to my laptop by using a vlan program (I currently use Radmin VPN) and selecting the program's adapter in the wifi settings. I also used winpcap 4.1.3 and it worked with wifi, not just ethernet. (I'm not sure if it's a special version of winpcap or not.) The issue with that is my laptop couldn't run MelonDS or Mario Party DS at a reasonable speed and thus disconnected when I tried to play, but I believe it works as a proof of concept.

The only real issue with play was the fact that everyone except the host has sped up game audio. The gameplay is synced and normal speed, but the game audio for all of the players except the host is sped up. This is all because the only way to connect was to have the host play with a locked frame rate and synced audio and everyone who joins had to have an unlocked frame rate (I usually got around 90 fps on the actual board when in game) and unsynced audio in the settings.

The only changes from the default settings I made were rebinding controls and hotkeys (which should not do anything), disabling the microphone, checking bind socket to any address and direct mode in wifi settings (and selecting my internet adapter in the settings, but it didn't make a difference for the same machine play), and the previously mentioned settings of the frame rate limiter.

If there is any way to fix the audio for the players who join the host, or to stream the host's audio to the other players, then proper Mario Party DS online netplay could be possible with 2-3 players.

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Blockboy

Posted on 03-15-20 04:21 AM

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Bit of an update for anyone who comes across this thread.

I found a website called talk.gg that seems to work well for a workaround for the audio problem. You could use another voip program, but this is a simple lightweight web app that you can just link to people instead of getting them to install a program. I used VB Virtual Audio Cable to route my audio from MelonDS to talk.gg, and I simply used the "listen to this device" feature in the properties of audio devices in windows to hear the audio myself. I used a program called Audio Router to force MelonDS to use the VB Audio Cable, and I had to use Firefox with talk.gg because it didn't seem to want to play nice with Chrome for me.

Unfortunately, I tried testing the whole netplay thing (minus the audio because he didn't care about having messed up audio) with another person, and it didn't really work at all. It felt super close, but it would slow down both of our games when we tried joining the other (we tested multiple times with me hosting and with him hosting). The connection would eventually time out on the download play menu for the one connecting.

I am still determined to get this to work eventually, but I'll probably have to wait for new MelonDS releases, possible game specific mods/cheats, or other new developments. At the very least, based on my previous testing, local multiplayer on the same machine seems to work now which is nice, and a program like Parsec could probably let you play multiplayer, but Parsec is a data hog since it has to stream a video of your machine instead of just inputs (which currently makes it impractical for someone like me with limited data), and it's just not real netplay like Dolphin or other emulators have. If anyone is serious about playing Mario Party DS with their friends, getting a few DS systems and meeting up physically to play is probably still the best option (although getting a flash cart or something to avoid having to beat the single player mode to unlock the last board is a pain), and if that's not an option, then Parsec looks like the next best thing (I've never used Parsec, so idk if this is already a thing you can do, but you would probably have to figure out how to isolate the screens so that you can only see your own screen since screen-peaking messes up some minigames).

I'll continue to try to get MPDS netplay working, and I'll post updates here if I have any breakthroughs. I should have access to better, non-data-capped internet in 5-6 months, so I can probably test Parsec then as well.

Posted on 02-17-21 03:56 PM (rev. 3 of 02-17-21 04:10 PM)

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how did you manage to use ds download play with melon ds ?
i have been searching how to do this for so long.

Main - Compatibility / Testing - Progress on Getting Download Play to Work (Mario Party DS)

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