Nope. On the default setting it has 1 frame of delay which anybody who’s been playing for longer than a day should notice. On the zero delay setting the rollbacks and framerate get bothersome, especially for 3S. Playing a low-intensity game like ST on zero delay at sub-30 ms ping might be almost offline, anything else is clearly not.
Still great netcode for fighting games though. If I wasn’t an arcade junkie I would use it more.
In terms of processing your commands aka input lag, it doesn’t get much better than ggpo.
ggpo really does recognize your inputs asap without any frame delay )if youre on smoothing 0).
is it the same as offline? No.
Network connection quality, PC specs, controller, convertor, LCD displays, these are things that all matter and can differenciate between true offline play.
It’s pretty close to the real thing. Definitely the best online fighting I’ve experienced (Kaillera sucks balls). I’d say its better than HD remix and SF 4 as well. Just spectate some of the MvC players, they’re still able to pull off those monster combos and counter each other and it’s still easy to parry in Turd Strike.
BTW, I love the spectate ability the most. Helps watching two good players and learning that way.