Post subject: Netplay server source request
Joined: 5/24/2004
Posts: 262
Did anyone grab the source code for the latest version of the FCE netplay server before the project was discontinued and the sourceforge site taken down? I can't find it via Google. Many thanks for the help.
Post subject: Any dauntless programmers in the house?
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
FCE Ultra should have Kaillera support... anybody up to that? :) Kaillera servers are easy to set up (even though you don't need to since there are a lot of servers ready for use) and work for everybody, even to those behind annoying routers. It's not perfect, but it works just fine. It would be great to play Balloon Fight on Kaillera with FCEU!
Joined: 5/24/2004
Posts: 262
I strongly disagree with this. In my opinion, Kaillera client and server are terrible pieces of software. I think the FCE netplay architecture is quite well designed as well as lightweight, intuitive, and functional. Anyway, I think the FCE server was in version 0.0.3 or something? I hope someone kept the source..
Joined: 5/24/2004
Posts: 262
*Still* looking for this btw. I know someone here must have it. I have access to a couple of 100mbps servers and I'd like to make at least one of them a dedicated FCE server.
Active player (410)
Joined: 3/16/2004
Posts: 2623
Location: America, Québec
I already tried to find the .exe or the source and failed.
Player (20)
Joined: 10/14/2005
Posts: 317
With this FCEU netplay server, does it communicate all the gameplay data through the server (a la Kaillera) or is the server just a utility that helps players find each other quickly to set up a direct connection (a la ZSNES)? If it's just the latter, then your 100 Mbps server isn't really needed. A long time back I went on Kaillera servers looking for NES gamers. Despite many emulators that now have Kaillera support (NESten, Jnes, NNNesterJ, Nestopia) there weren't any willing NES players hanging out on the servers. There are also many other emulators with their own custom netplay mechanisms (FCEU, RockNES, Nester, etc). Without much demand for NES online play, these direct-connection interfaces seem sufficient and a special server for finding other players doesn't seem like it would help much.
Joined: 5/24/2004
Posts: 262
hanzou wrote:
With this FCEU netplay server, does it communicate all the gameplay data through the server (a la Kaillera) or is the server just a utility that helps players find each other quickly to set up a direct connection (a la ZSNES)?
It is an actual gameplay server. All the input data does go to the server and then to the other clients. It doesn't allow searching for servers or other games at all (although if I had the source, listing in-progress games on the server would be a snap to do). Basically, it is just an ultra-simple, functional server. And for all the popularity of Kaillera, they haven't been able to duplicate a non-buggy, functional gameplay server implementation. I also came up with a way to play NES games "head to head" using two instances of FCEU with no latency at all, and it's a blast. I don't think this would be possible with Kaillera (at least not practical with all the GUI bugginess it exhibits).
Joined: 12/16/2005
Posts: 3
Hi folks. I did hang onto the FCEU netserver source, and it's available here: http://nightwulf.rbicentral.com/fceunetserver-0.0.3.tar.bz2 I'm a member of an RBI Baseball community, and we've had the server running on two separate servers (one which is a decently-loaded webserver also, and one dedicated server), and the performance wasn't great on either. Our members reported that the lag was bad enough to make the game unplayable at times. The netserver is available at "potatoes.dee-nee.com" (drop the 'potatoes' for the other server, which acts as our webserver too) if you'd like to try it out (default port 4046). I'm interested in seeing any modifications you're planning on making to the server. Anything to improve playability would be a huge bonus.
Joined: 5/24/2004
Posts: 262
Nightwulf: thank you so much! I will be putting up a build on a server as it is now very soon, which you and your friends can try (if the other one's really that bad though, it could be a problem from a single client - who knows). I'll also start toying with the source and see if I can fix up a couple error handling issues and chat enhancements, and then maybe implement server game-in-progress listing.