I’ve heard some compaints about ghosting on EmuLinker servers and I’m trying to investigate. Ghosting being your character making random moves that you did not input.
I would like to track down this problem but need your help because I can’t make it happen on my computer. There’s a new server setup at 82.165.178.145:47888 called EmuLinker Debug Server. It’s in the server list. This server has extra debug logging so I can see the problem in the logs if it happens.
Anyone interested in helping track down the problem please play on this server like usual, against someone or alone, but when you notice ghosting, please immediatly type “GHOST” in game chat, and quit the game. Type GHOST as soon as you can when it happens. Then I can then go back through the logs to find where people typed GHOST and see what happened.
Happens to me almost every game if I play long enough.
Although sometimes it’s so small it’s difficult to notice.
It’s the worst when the ghosting happens your opponent does something. I remember one game, everytime they walked forward, my character would stand up. Very annoying.
Honestly, if you stick out a random normal or don’t block when you swear you did, it might’ve been some minor ghosting.
Too bad most people don’t believe me when it happens. Seriously, the majority of the reasons I will ever lose any matches unless I’m playing someone really good, is due to ghosting. Most of the time I don’t even say anything because I’m sure the opponent will say “excuses, you just lost”.
I can’t count the number of times buttons and directions have been cross mapped.
pressing HK and getting LP or vice versa has happened so much it doesnt even suprise me anymore. sometimes for me whole buttons stop working (as if the haven’t been mapped) for no reason at all, and they won’t work again until the game is reloaded or i rejoin the server.
cos everyone seems to have a unique problem with the emulinker thing. it’s random cos the problems seem to vary from computer to computer. iirc slide had problems with FP for me it’s LP/HK while unknown x used to complain about “A” in neogeo games alot.
also nobody’s gonna go into the debug server to play. you should make the bug reporting availible in the main server were people are having the problems.
I’ve seen a few people playing in the debug server, and finally got someone to come in with me.
Please don’t give up on this yet, I know others who have this problem consistently and I’m trying to get them in with me to test things out.
For those who have the issue randomly, but are having problems reproducing it, try using the Excellent setting. That always drives it crazy for me.
What emulator/version?
** Mame .64 from Darktemplarz.com
Not sure if it’s noteworthy but I use the keyboard.
What Server?
**EmuLinker Debug
What kind of Internet connection were you using?
** Cable for me, Neo’s might be DSL, I’m asking.
What was your ping?
** 20~ish, his was 98
How many players in the game?
**2 (DeadlyRave-neo and myself), and no one else was in the server.
Which player number were you?
** He was player 1, I was P2
How bad was the lag/delay during this game?
** Some delay/a bit of lag the first time, but in the entrance message you noted that would happen. The second time was worse because we were using Excellent.
Approximately how may minutes into the game did the problem occur?
** The first time it had to be at least 8 minutes into it, possibly longer. The second time we ran it, closer to 4 minutes.
Describe the problem
** In these two instances, it happened at the select screen. Neo (player 1) picked the wrong character and autoguard.
How long did it last?
** As per the instructions of the server we dropped after the problem occured (after he typed ghost). I’ll talk about other times (not on this server) below.
Did you have to drop or reset the game to make it stop?
** see above.
If you know, did the other players see it happen?
** The first time I asked him if he picked that character on purpose (to make sure it wasn’t desync or he simply made a mistake), the second game (we dropped, left, rejoined and restarted) he typed it right after and dropped.
**Older instances: I was talking about this with Sinala/EWAShock (also a KB user, usually), and he mentioned it’s almost always during point with alot of action going on (for him). Like the other player’s commands are interfering with his own.
When that happens to me, it’s usually I’ll hit a directional and a Hard Punch (“button 3” in mame) will come out. The opponent can be doing whatever, and I’ll jump in any direction and a punch will come out. Or worse, hold back to block and the punch comes out. This generally happens after the game’s been running for a long time (10+ minutes). It also tends to happen a bit for a few seconds then go away, and randomly will come back.
I’ve also ended up picking the wrong character at the selection screen. One instance was in XvSF, I was just moving the cursor around and both of my characters got picked without me hitting anything but directions.
Thanks for helping. I scanned the log from your games and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary unfortunately, but I’ll go back later and look closer.
I don’t suppose you play by yourself much, but if so do you know if you have ever seen ghosting while playing alone?
One cool thing I relized from your log is that I can actually store every input from each player in file on the server, and play it back later like a movie. You would just start a game with the same emulator as the recording, but instead of playing, the server ignores your inputs and plays back the recorded ones. Could be a neat addition to the server to be able to save your matches so others can watch them later.
I tried playing on there tonight. It was just me as Player 1, Mame .64 on the Good setting.
I played starting at 9:05pm and played for about 20 minutes.
After I had played through once I hit F2 to reset to the config menu. I stayed at the select screen and played with the arrows to see if anything would happen, then picked my character and continued to play through again. I beat the first opponent the first round, hit start and ducked to hit them between the round and the game ghosted F2.
That’s another fairly common one. I remember it happening in 4P games a bit, but it’s happened with just 2 players as well.
A replay log would be a cool thing for tournaments, espeically if players forgot to record it themselves. I believe I have the 2 replays from the other day if you want to compare them, I didn’t record today’s though.
Edit: Played (alone, no one else in server) again from around 11pm to 11:30 and didn’t have any noticeable problems, lost connection around 11:30.
Naw when I used to play, the problem was Roundhouse and Jab. It happened most on .64 on “Good” connection type. I used to think that the problem was my driver for my stick. It then started happening on .61. I just know that it was a pain in the ass, especially when I’m playing with Ryu1999 and every move we both make is CRUCIAL and you mean to a deep crouch jab and instead you do a deep crouch roundhouse with Guy. Then you get served. Samething with Mika. Actually my 3 best fighters in the game all should not be doing deep or close ranged cr. roundhouses at all.
It’s funny too cause we both understand what moves we make vs each other and why, and it’s so blatantly obvious when the buttons swap.
These problems happened less frequently when playing on Excellent type. Which is another reason why that shit is just way better, but hardly nobody agrees with me that Excellent 30 > Good 20.
Kinda moot since GW isn’t the ghosting test server, but just had the longest bout of straight ghosting I’ve ever seen.
Game started at 1:00 EST (XMCOTA) me (Battousai, 20~ms) vs DraculaX (60~ms)
1:12am to 1:13am (roughly a full minute ) neither of us could control our characters.
Mine walked forward on it’s own, and if* I hit or held back to make him stop walking, Drac’s character would HP.*
After it stopped, we were able to play just fine as if nothing happened until 1:31am when it started again for a few seconds (we quit soon after).
This is not strictly an online problem. I have a MAME cabinet, and the ghosting is guaranteed on SF2T, after 5 or 10 minutes of play. It’s usually minor, and sometimes unnoticeable due to intense gameplay, but this one is consistent: player 2 is dizzied and jiggling stick/mashing buttons to shake out of dizzy, player one walks forward, player 1 jabs will come out.
I have noticed it online as well, and again, seems to happen after longer durations of gameplay (say 10+ minutes). I will certainly be helping to resolve the problem.
:edit: Attempted to play on the server last night, but couldn’t ever connect.
Ok had some ghosting problems on Anti3d about 10 minutes prior to this post. Me (dracula X 60 ~ms) and Battousai (20~ms) Game was X-Men: COTA (euro). Time was between 5:05 am and 5:10 am Est
We finished a match batt won then I proceded to hit atart and select a character. However a character got selected on it’s own and when the match started my character really did nothing but walk backwards the whole time. If I hit back Batt’s character would do a mp.
The thing that was odd about this was that the ghosting was constant, no input from us at first and it never subsided. I closed the game a few minutes after it began.
I noticed something was wrong while waiting for Drac to pick the next character… my character was jumping vs the CPU while I had my hands completley off the keyboard O.O
So we just sat there and waited to see what would happen after his character picked itself. Mine continued to jump straight up while his continued to move right.
After a bit we started hitting buttons and seeing what would come out. I tapped (then mashed) left (back since my character was facing right) and hard punches would come out, then it would continue to punch on it’s own.
What’s interesting about this one is the length of time and the fact that it never subsided.
Thanks for the help guys. I haven’t figured it out yet but I think we’re getting closer.
When this weird stuff happens, do both of you see the same thing? Like one person said when you press back, the other person jumps. Does the other person see themself jump? It could be that the 2 players are completely desynched to the point that all the keys are mapped to the wrong actions.
