The local multiplayer saga, ep 10

< The local multiplayer saga, ep 9Merge party >

The local multiplayer saga, ep 10
Sep 8th 2022, by Arisotura

This tenth episode is going to close the first season of this saga. At this point, local multiplayer has been tested and found to be smooth in most cases, so we are mostly done with the actual wifi work.

We have also been porting our semaphore code so that our shared-memory based communication layer could work under Linux and macOS. This has shown to be a bit challenging, and I've been making several attempts to try and determine what was the best method for fast and reliable IPC.

What is left is mostly UI-related work. Handling several situations that can be problematic during multiplayer: supporting multiple controllers, maybe also things like multiple firmware settings, making sure the multiple running games don't write to the same save file, firmware file, and so on. I have a few ideas for that.

That will help turn local multiplayer support into a more finished product and less of a clunky experimental thing.

But for now, I'm going to take a break. I've been pouring a lot of my free time into this, and I think I need to relax for a lil' while.

I'm also going to debate the direction to take now with the rest of the melonDS team. There will be a second season to this saga, and it will be about implementing netplay. The results of all this wifi work are well beyond my original expectations, and now we have big ideas and hopes for this. But first, I want to take a collective decision about whether to make a release before season 2, whether to go straight for melonDS 1.0, these things. Stable local multiplayer was one of the must-haves for melonDS 1.0, but that's not all there is.

I'm also collecting ideas for netplay, so if you know more about this than I do (which is, relatively little), feel free to reach out to me!

28 comments have been posted.

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Ant says:
Sep 18th 2022

I’m 100% being honest rn the too cause I was gonna drop 500 on 2 ds and the games and then maybe 2 more for my brothers. If this shit gets working I’ll just pay it forward to y’all. I do appreciate all the work you been putting in! You’re a beast

CoffeeCakes says:
Sep 19th 2022

I LOVE YOU, TAKE THAT BREAK GOAT YOU DESERVE IT SO MUCH

edoliva says:
Sep 20th 2022

ill sell my left testicle to be able to play multiplayer of DQ9. Other than that, you're the goat and deserve a well deserved break. love you king :)

D says:
Sep 20th 2022

You deserve that break. I second the hamachi idea that sounds promising. Please release a local play version before 1.0 for bug testing. And then do net play later!

maskyyu says:
Sep 20th 2022

Heroic work
you and the ppl helping with this project are amazing
I wouldn't have been able to enjoy DS games as much without y'all

Name says:
Sep 21st 2022

I've already done DQ9 multiplayer over parsec. Just have to turn framerate limit off for more than 2 players.

Zinx says:
Sep 21st 2022

Citra and Yuzu use a middleware called ENet for the netplay.
Maybe it could apply here as well.

lemonzzz says:
Sep 21st 2022

this is so sick Ariso

A says:
Sep 22nd 2022

@name what other settings did you use to get DQ9 to work because for me it lags my 2nd player out after about 5 mins

Fedoraman(Linuxguy) says:
Sep 26th 2022

Hey, there's an issue with fullscreen on Fedora 36(Workstation) for melonds. I first noticed it in the flatpak version, which also has some windowing issues when not fullscreen. I compiled and built the emu from source, thinking it was an issue unique to the flatpak edition. It was not. This is the terminal output :

qt.qpa.wayland: Wayland does not support QWindow::requestActivate()
qt.qpa.wayland: Wayland does not support QWindow::requestActivate()

As I thought when it didn't work when I compiled from source, it seems to be a Wayland issue. On the flatpak edition, it's a black screen with the audio still playing. On the version I built from source, it shows me a white screen and audio still works. It's probably not relevant, but I thought it would be nice to mention.

Anyway, I hope you found this helpful! I really love this emulator and want to see it grow even more! I don't have a github account, so I decided to post it here.

Sanshou says:
Sep 27th 2022

Is a online multiplayer comming after your break

Guest says:
Sep 28th 2022

@Fedoraman(Linuxguy) Did you try running MelonDS under X11?

Since I have never had any issues running MelonDS, whether using the prebuilt binary on the website or compiling it myself (granted, the last time I compiled it on my own was before the Qt port, and I am not using Fedora, but I have not yet switched over to Wayland, since Budgie is still reliant on X11).

Noah.Cfgeek says:
Dec 5th 2022

Can anyone help me with the parsec method for Dragon Quest IX? I'm new to melon and parsec. We've got two instances of DQIX running together and connected through multiplayer but how can you control both windows at once? Even with different keybinds the computer only focuses one window at a time. If we use a controller can both be controlled simultaneously?

But like others have said I will donate $500 if Dragon Quest IX can work with the next update with netplay. Too much nostalgia I would do anything to play that multiplayer over the internet without using the parsec method.

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