Why does 3S suck on GGPO?

[Alexander]

Not complaining about the players or anything. But I recently got into GGPO (after securing a private net connection) after using 2DF for many months. I was amazed when I fought against a guy in Japan in Last Blade 2 (keep in mind I’m still learning that game) and it ran perfectly fine with his 300 ping. It was a near-perfect experience which left me deeply impressed. I then decided to play some 3rd Strike on GGPO, and the experience was the exact opposite.

I would say maybe half of my matches were pretty good. Though, I did experience a weird bug where after the 2nd, or 3rd match, lines would appear on the screen. It was totally random, I could play against a guy with under a 100 ping, and if it connected, it would lag like all hell. I mean, bad, horrible lag… as bad as SNK netcode lag. Very few matches have been ideal, mostly the ones I’ve had with 2Nasty have been near-perfect.

Whereas I could play on 2DF and face a guy in Brazil, and it would be near-perfect with maybe the occasional non-game-breaking lag spike would happen. Plus some input delay when it comes to parrying + obnoxious Ken Scrubs.

I checked and I couldn’t find an answer, but why does SF3 perform so badly on GGPO?

*And yes I know, it’s still in beta, and there’s no guarantee that it would be perfect, and Ponder may drop it in a future release. My question is in regards to why specifically it runs so badly, considering GGPO’s superior netcode compared to 2DF’s. What does Ponder and his team have to do to make each game run at an ideal level?

That said; I still love the crap out of GGPO. I’ve had some great Garou/LB2 matches and have learned quite a bit.

PS: Add Metal Slug 3, SS V Special (Uncut), Real Bout 2, KOF 95, Kizuna Encounter and/or Matrimelee to GGPO. :smokin:

PPS:I have a cable connection. I get about 10 Meg download, and half Meg upload.

[Joe_The_Condor]

That is weird… Maybe the other player is downloading?

[metric]

this is new and refreshing.

[PENETRATOR]

Your ping might not be updated until you log in again, so it’s sketchy anyway.

[funk1]

GGPO is superior to me as far as 3S is concerned and runs perfectly, I seem to get issues on 2DF primarily with noticable input delay especially if the guys ping isn’t excellent whereas on the flipside I can play people with pings ranging from excellent to poor on GGPO and the input delay remains unnoticable.

GGPO needs a decent computer though, atleast for 3rd Strike. (Not saying thats the cause of your particular issues, it could be anything really)

[Tweleve]

Simply enough SF3 is a CPS3 game that sends out more information than most other games that are CPS2 (or NeoGeo as well).

Oddly JJBA is also CPS3 but that runs a lot smoother, even overseas.

[Lane]

If Ponder removes 3s from ggpo then who will fight off the chinese and mexican KOF zerg…but seriously they overload the server probably.

[Alexander]

I find 2df to run flawlessly. I don’t see how GGPO could be superior in any way. GGPO gives me tons of problems

See, I like 2DF. But the input delay (especially on 3rd Strike) can be incredibly annoying. Usually a Parry fails, or a well-timed wake up attack fails. Leading to scrub Kens and Ryu’s with the Stun Super getting an easy victory.

[SF3LP]

See, I like 2DF. But the input delay (especially on 3rd Strike) can be incredibly annoying. Usually a Parry fails, or a well-timed wake up attack fails. Leading to scrub Kens and Ryu’s with the Stun Super getting an easy victory.

just block then :china:

[Alexander]

How can you block Ryu’s SA3 without parrying?

[SF3LP]

How can you block Ryu’s SA3 without parrying?

dont get knocked down

if you dont give denjin ryu a chance to knock you down you’re pretty much safe the whole match…if its too delayed for you to parry then you can either try to adapt to the delay or just find someone else to play against

[sakura_otoshi]

Simply enough SF3 is a CPS3 game that sends out more information than most other games that are CPS2 (or NeoGeo as well).

Oddly JJBA is also CPS3 but that runs a lot smoother, even overseas.

to be more specific, the developers of ggpo didn’t know which data was actually needed for gameplay, so when you play, it records, and sends ALL data (like background states and so on) for it’s rollback funtion, so you need much lower ping, and problems may occur when playing people with high ping (phantom health bars, black lines, etc.)

try and play someone below 80 ping…

[sakura_otoshi]

dont get knocked down

if you dont give denjin ryu a chance to knock you down you’re pretty much safe the whole match…if its too delayed for you to parry then you can either try to adapt to the delay or just find someone else to play against

if you’re in the corner though, some will try and lp hado xx into denjin (so you have to deal with the hadou with either parry/block - parry screws up your timing, and blocking makes it you HAVE to parry because of stun)
they’ll try and use it as often as possible, so stay out of the corner as well…

but yeah, knock down is the biggest threat…

[Lane]

You still gotta deal with lag tactics and shit, but it’s not bad around 50 ping.

[kenuran]

I remember Ponder posting why 3s wasn’t as supported as the other games while back but I cant remember what he said exactly. I think it was something to do with the source code of the emulator that it runs on (Final Burn Alpha v.0.2.96.74).

If anyone can find that post or get to Ponder about the issue then maybe someone can help him to make this game run better.

Seems like a good idea to me…

EDIT: I think i found it:

This makes sense. Once you use GGPO for more graphically and game play intense games, it gets harder to keep it running smoothly. For example, any 3S game beyond 100 ping=gets laggier and laggier, but with all the alpha games and 2T you can play with 200-300 pings and it still be silky smooth.

I see how you could draw that conclusion, but graphics really don’t have anything to do with it. For GGPO to work, you only need to be able to save and re-execute the parts that are relevant to the state of the game. For example, you need to remember the position and speed of Ryu’s fireball every frame so you can rollback there if need be, but you don’t need to remember all the pixels used to draw the fireball every frame or all the alpha blending effects used to make it cool or the exact wooshing sound that it’s making at the moment. None of that is relevant to the state of the game, it doesn’t affect the outcome, and you can generate it all from the position and speed of the fireball, anyway. Ultimately, you want to save as little as possible and do as little work as possible to move from frame to frame during a rollback to minimize CPU overhead.

The reason 3S is harder than A2 is simply because there’s no way to isolate the stuff you need to remember from the stuff you don’t in an emulator! GGPO in FBA has no choice but to save everything every frame because that’s all the emulator sees, even though 99% of the information is irrelevant. All that goes out the window if you have the source code. Everything about the game is transparent, and you can pick and choose what you want to save and what you want to have generated from saved state.

[Echo_Black]

^ Damn. Someone infiltrate Capcom’s HQ and steal 3S’s source code!

[Alexander]

Thanks Kenuran. That’s a lil’ disappointing, I was hoping that there was room for improvement. It doesn’t look good for possible Naomi/Atomiswave emulation in the future.

[kenuran]

Well it doesnt look good IF Ponder doesnt have the source code of the emulator that would run the games.

I think that Ponder just doesnt have the source code of Final Burn Alpha v.0.2.96.74 which is basically the first emulator he used that runs CPS-3 games. If he did, he might probably have 3s run from a specially modified savestate.

So maybe he needs to be giving the source code for Final Burn Alpha v.0.2.96.74 or use a different emulator that runs CPS-3 games.

Ill try to see if I can find source code for this version of FBA myself.

[orochi_ryu]

3s runs fine for me most of the time.

[Tweleve]

2df is better for 3s real talk