Emulator Issues #11009
closed
Netplay spectators aren't kept in sync with players
0%
Description
Game Name?
Super Smash Bros. Brawl (But can be any netplay game)
Game ID? (right click the game in the game list, properties, info tab)
RSBE01 (and others)
MD5 Hash? (right click the game in the game list, properties, info tab, MD5 Hash: Compute)
d18726e6dfdc8bdbdad540b561051087
What's the problem? Describe what went wrong.
Filing a feature request, not a bug
What steps will reproduce the problem?
In a dolphin netplay room (the window where you see info about the connection and can up the buffer and whatnot before starting a game)
we are able to Assign Controller Ports for reach player in the room.
When we set a controller port for one or several of these players to "none" they can still watch the netplay session/matches being played without affecting the people who are actually playing.
We've been using this recently to livestream some matches and sessions but there is one issue:
The gameplay feed of the people who have their controller port set to "none" aren't entirely synced up.
From our testing so far it seems that the people actually playing the matches are always way ahead (as expected)
but one "none" port viewer/player will always be behind or ahead of the other "none" port viewers/players
This means that although we really want to, we are currently unable to do live commentary over other people's matches.
I'm not entirely sure how the entire none port system works or how the gameplay feed is streamed to the none ports but it would be great if there was some way to sync it up since based on our initial testing the differences are at least 8 seconds.
Is the issue present in the latest development version? For future reference, please also write down the version number of the latest development version.
Tested in 5.0-321, 5.8.7 (Ishiiruka) and the latest 5.0 developer build
Is the issue present in the latest stable version?
Yes
If the issue isn't present in the latest stable version, which is the first broken version? (You can find the first broken version by bisecting. Windows users can use the tool https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-green-notice-development-thread-unofficial-dolphin-bisection-tool-for-finding-broken-builds and anyone who is building Dolphin on their own can use git bisect.)
If your issue is a graphical issue, please attach screenshots and record a three frame fifolog of the issue if possible. Screenshots showing what it is supposed to look like from either console or older builds of Dolphin will help too. For more information on how to use the fifoplayer, please check here: https://wiki.dolphin-emu.org/index.php?title=FifoPlayer
What are your PC specifications? (CPU, GPU, Operating System, more)
OC'd 3570k, Radeon HD7950, 16GB DDR4 RAM, samsung 830 SSD
Is there anything else that can help developers narrow down the issue? (e.g. logs, screenshots,
configuration files, savefiles, savestates)
Updated by JosJuice about 6 years ago
- Subject changed from Sync'ing the inputs/frames for non-port players on netplay to Netplay spectators aren't kept in sync with players
- Issue type changed from Bug to Feature request
Keeping spectators in sync would probably have to be an option. I'm not sure what we would want to call the option, but other than that, this seems like a decent thing to support.
Updated by JMC4789 about 6 years ago
Turn off the frame limiter for the spectator.
Updated by FourSword about 6 years ago
JMC4789 wrote:
Turn off the frame limiter for the spectator.
Alright I'll try it out sometime this week (probably today or tomorrow)
Updated by FourSword about 6 years ago
So it took a bit longer than expected.
Our initial testing went like this:
2 people playing each other from EU with one other person from EU and one other person from US spectating, there was still a bit of a desynch, but it definitely synced better than normal, our largest disparity was about 2 seconds.
The other test took a lot longer to realize (had to get the right people)
Second test went like this:
2 people from US played each other with two people from EU spectating, there was a minor desynch but overall it was very acceptable (within 1 second)
However the constant slowdowns and speedups in terms of framerate made the matches very jarring to watch/commentate.
I might also try a different solution like Parsec, for now this is the information I have.
From talking with JMC it seems like this is hard to implement in dolphin natively (although I have no idea how the spectating system works, does it just send button inputs, or...?)
Updated by JosJuice about 6 years ago
Yes, spectators are sent button inputs just like regular players.
Updated by JMC4789 almost 6 years ago
- Status changed from New to Won't fix
The spectator system is designed to work like this. You're meant to be able to fall behind. This prevents spectators from lagging the game. The remedy to this issue is to turn off frame-limiter on the spectators.
Anything that involves purposefully syncing the spectators will cause additional strain and potential lag.