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up !

There has been a lot of news in online emulation gaming for the past months.
2 new alternatives to Kaillera have been created so far, much less laggy than Kaillera (hard to trust, but it's true ), and respectively called GGPO and 2DF Freeplay

They seem to be basically the same lag-wise (GGPO is said to be better along long distances), GGPO just has a bigger community / more active forum (it's older than 2DF), and 2DF has more games supported and more frequent updates. Both are based on nFBA.

Compatibility lists :

GGPO (copy-pasted from the site but I believe this list is not up to date...) :

* Street Fighter Alpha 2 (US 960306)
* Marvel Vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes (Euro 980112)
* Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire (Euro 970519)
* Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara (Euro 960619)

2DF Freeplay :

Super Street Fighter II Turbo
The King of Fighters '98 - the slugfest
The King of Fighters 2002 - challenge to ultimate battle
The Last Blade 2
Street Fighter Alpha 2
Street Fighter Alpha 3
Vampire Savior - the lord of vampire
Vampire Savior 2 - the lord of vampire
X-Men vs Street Fighter
World Heroes Perfect
Waku Waku 7
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo
Samurai Shodown V Special
Real Bout Fatal Fury Special
Night Warriors - darkstalkers' revenge
Marvel vs Capcom - clash of super heroes
Garou - mark of the wolves
Real Bout Fatal Fury 2 - the newcomers
Karnov's Revenge
Samurai Shodown IV - Amakusa's revenge
The King of Fighters 2000
Street Fighter II' - hyper fighting
X-Men - children of the atom
Street Fighter II' - champion edition
Ninja Master's haoh ninpo cho
Fatal Fury Special
Breakers Revenge
Twinkle Star Sprites
Marvel Super Heroes
Street Fighter 3: Third Strike
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

Would you like to give a try with one of those new emulators ? I'm using 2DF but I could give a try at GGPO.
(my time is GMT +1)


@Skyline : you might be interested in knowing there are some Twinkle Star Sprites playing on 2DF ! (me included).

i did a quick browse and tried to see if these emulators would record inputs, can spectators view the games or will only the players be able to see what happens?

2DF does automatically record input every match. I believe GGPO does the same.
GGPO seems to make the latest replays available on its website (see the "dojo" tab), and damdai (2DF admin/developer) said the same should be done for 2DF soon.

About a live spectator mode :
-GGPO --> I believe there's one but I'm not sure.
-2DF --> From what I have understood, there are few chances there will be one. But there's a "watch last match" option (when you click on someone's nickname, in 2DF client)

Kaede wrote:They seem to be basically the same lag-wise (GGPO is said to be better along long distances), GGPO just has a bigger community / more active forum (it's older than 2DF), and 2DF has more games supported and more frequent updates. Both are based on nFBA.

Minor correction: 2DF is heavily based on nFBA, but GGPO's version of FBA is their own custom version that is not derived from nFBA's source, and uses its own lag-correction algorithim.

Compatibility lists :

GGPO (copy-pasted from the site but I believe this list is not up to date...) :

* Street Fighter Alpha 2 (US 960306)
* Marvel Vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes (Euro 980112)
* Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire (Euro 970519)
* Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara (Euro 960619)

The gamelist on the "official" server at the moment:

Dungeons & Dragons Shadows Over Mystara
King of Fighters '98
Marvel vs. Capcom
Street Fighter Alpha 2
Street Fighter Alpha 3
Vampire Savior


But there is also a "test" server that has a completely different interface, and supports a few extra games:

Garou: Mark of the Wolves
King of Fighters 2002
Samurai Shodown 2
Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike
Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo
X-Men vs. Street Fighter

Some of these games may be removed from the test version before it officially goes public, though.

Kaede wrote:2DF does automatically record input every match. I believe GGPO does the same.
GGPO seems to make the latest replays available on its website (see the "dojo" tab), and damdai (2DF admin/developer) said the same should be done for 2DF soon.

Unfortunately, GGPO's Dojo has been down for a while and has not been recording matches for quite a while. It's unknown if Dojo will be fully functional when the newest test version "goes live".

About a live spectator mode :
-GGPO --> I believe there's one but I'm not sure.
-2DF --> From what I have understood, there are few chances there will be one. But there's a "watch last match" option (when you click on someone's nickname, in 2DF client)

Yes, GGPO supports live spectating. I believe damdai has said that 2DF may not have "live" spectating because it causes extra strain on the server and can lag the connection a little. But yes, there is the auto-recording of replays right now, but unfortunately I think they are only shown to people that are actually on the client at the moment. I think soon they'll be available from the website too.

Anyway, as if you couldn't have guessed, I have been spending quite a bit of time on both of these lately I tend to prefer GGPO because it has the larger playerbase and the live spectating, but I like 2DF too. The biggest problem with 2DF right now is that it doesn't have many players on, but I'm hoping it grows in the near future as more features are added. (I also have this weird problem with it where when I'm done playing a long set with someone, the client locks up and I have to restart it just to get back in...)

Also, I do think that GGPO's lag correction is superior to nFBA's. The newest test versions of GGPO have smoothing so you can set the number of frames you want to delay by. 1 frame has worked wonders for me within the US, 2 frames to Japan, and probably 3 frames to Europe/Australia. While the game is still playable on overseas connections with less smoothing, it makes the game a lot choppier. 2DF does not have an option for setting the number of frames for smoothing, and while it doesn't feel like there is much input lag at all, the framerate suffers heavily when I try to play with someone outside of the country.