How feasible is it for me to create a decent Netplay plugin for Dolphin...

[Lumian]

...that is NOT Kaillerra-based? I have had enough experience with Kaillera to know it laggs like all hell with games like this. If my info is not outdated also, netplay on Dolphin is rather cumbersome too (settings must be exactly the same, save states too, sound disabled). I'm thinking maybe I'd like to try my hand at simplifying athe process and making netplay more playable in general. I am a 2nd year CS major with extensive C++ programming and x86 assembly programming, I know a bit about networking but I have no experience making plugins for Dolphin or working with Gamecube/Wii games so my understanding of how big of an undertaking this would be is almost nil. So I wanted to ask people knowledgeable about Dolphin, Gamecube and Wii (hardware/software knowledgeable) about it before I go investing massive amounts of time doing research and design work and what not. Is this feasible for one person to do? What are some of the big problems I might encounter, and what do you know about them? Will I have to reverse engineer the broadband adapter or something?

Also, please don't post in here just to say 'good luck' or 'acgcggdg I want netplay yay!' as I am looking for input on the technical subject at hand, not encouragement or random discourse.

Thanks.

[neobrain]

There's no plugin infrastructure at all in Dolphin anymore (and there never has been any for netplay stuff), so you'll either need to rewrite the current netplay code from scratch or just improve on it. Note that the current netplay code isn't based upon Kaillerra.

Additionally, the issues with the current netplay code are less due to the netplay side, but rather due to bugs in the emulator core itself. From what I understand, the general issue with e.g. dual core was that the video thread of the host and client got desynced too quickly. Now put some DSP (sound) thread to the core and video thread, and stuff gets even more complicated.
Anyway, I don't know too much about the details of the netplay implementation, maybe Billiard can tell you more about this if he sees this thread.

[Lumian]

(06-23-2011, 07:43 AM)NeoBrain Wrote: There's no plugin infrastructure at all in Dolphin anymore (and there never has been any for netplay stuff), so you'll either need to rewrite the current netplay code from scratch or just improve on it. Note that the current netplay code isn't based upon Kaillerra.

Additionally, the issues with the current netplay code are less due to the netplay side, but rather due to bugs in the emulator core itself. From what I understand, the general issue with e.g. dual core was that the video thread of the host and client got desynced too quickly. Now put some DSP (sound) thread to the core and video thread, and stuff gets even more complicated.
Anyway, I don't know too much about the details of the netplay implementation, maybe Billiard can tell you more about this if he sees this thread.

I see, so Netplay has changed since I last read about it. I did do some preliminary searching of the forums about this before posting but found a lot of older posts that only reflected what I already knew. Thanks for your input though, it's very helpful. I wouldn't mind refocusing my endeavors on helping to optimize the emulator itself if netplay is improved in the process. If that's what it ends up being.

[neobrain]

Sure, if you want to know some details however you're better off idling in our IRC chan and asking there, most devs don't visit the forums regularly.

[Lumian]

(06-23-2011, 07:57 AM)NeoBrain Wrote: Sure, if you want to know some details however you're better off idling in our IRC chan and asking there, most devs don't visit the forums regularly.

I'll take that advice, thank you.