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Active: 664 users

[GUIDE] How to play Melee ONLINE

Forum Index > General Games
Post a Reply
1 2 3 4 5 9 10 11 Next All
Shameless advertising for #tl-smash on Quakenet where you can find more TLers to play online with!
Xeofreestyler
Profile Blog Joined June 2005
Belgium6771 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-10-06 22:10:42
March 23 2014 21:48 GMT
#1
GENERAL UPDATE

Dolphin keeps upgrading at a pretty fast rate so this guide keeps on getting outdated. I suggest checking this page for when you want to get set up for netplay from now on: https://www.smashladder.com/help/netplay-guides


Also check out the Melee community build its a mod that gives new functions and stages. Europeans use the PAL patch instead

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

+ Show Spoiler +

UPDATE #3
Dolphin 7161 is out
https://www.smashladder.com/guides/view/25wi/dolphin-4-0-7161-update

UPDATE #2
Latest dolphin version is 6554:
https://nl.dolphin-emu.org/download/dev/f5b0468179f1c3c15cfb5957218ee9f27cb47d77/?cr=nl

This one also natively supports the nintendo controller adapter, which is practically lagless

In other news, there is a new ISO made by a bunch of talented modders/hackers which is called the 'Community Build', it has awesome features and is directed at online play.

Check out this thread on sb: http://smashboards.com/threads/melee-netplay-community-build-0-2-0-released.372251/
EUROPEANS who have the regular NTSC netplay iso, please use this patch instead of the ones listed:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/nv3uu2qih3pcil1/MNCB v0.2.0 - NTSC TO PAL.rar
If you live in europe it's best to play PAL, since that's what we play at tourneys


UPDATE

If you're looking for information concerning the new Dolphin-5886 (this guide was written for 652) go here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CIkBAGcf_-kBUa4urn4KUj2U4UA6y_2a7stXJz85yiE/edit

If you're looking for information for using the Wii U adapter on Dolphin go here:
https://nl.dolphin-emu.org/docs/guides/how-use-official-gc-controller-adapter-wii-u/?cr=nl





Hello liquid smashers, I figured I'd share this important piece of information. As a casual player Dolphin is giving me the chance to play people I've never met before. It even has decent latency, given you and your opponent don't live a continent away and you both have decent internet.

There are players from all over the world, it's quite easy to connect to other players nearby! If you ever played the game it's super easy to start playing again!

In my country, there's no scene at all. Luckily I can play with people from all over Europe now and improve. Getting my ass handed to me all the time. It's frustrating but awesome at the same time. But in return, you start kicking other people's asses too. Or you have super tight clutch games where you're both over 100% at the last stock and OMG EVERY MOVE COUNTS. The only other game that has nailbiting moments like this is brood war (for me, at least).

ALL CREDIT GOES TO SMASHBOARDS.com - This thread contains all the information you'll see here. I've merely reduced it to the bare minimum that's needed to get started.

Anyway, playing melee online is surprisingly simple. There are a few requirements:


A decent pc, although the newest dolphin runs pretty well on lower end machines, just stay away from Fountain of Dreams unless you've got the Community Build (see above)



A gamecube controller (dont try to save money, buy an official one or you will regret)



An adapter for your controllers, this can be an official Nintendo one or this one: http://www.amazon.com/Mayflash-GameCube-Controller-Adapter-Port/dp/B00RSXRLUE



An .iso file Super Smash Bros. Melee Revision 2 (1.02) ISO
if you type that into google with "torrent" behind it I'm sure you'll figure out the rest



Dolphin DC-Netplay 4.0-6554



Once you have all those things, follow these steps:


Extract Dolphin to a folder that you want to use. From there, you will run the emulator. You will need to configure a few things before playing:

1. Place the Super Smash Bros. Melee 1.02 ISO in a directory of your choice. Make sure it is either an iso or gcm file, extracted from any kind of archive. Within dolphin, you must set the default iso directory (under the File Menu,) to the folder where that ISO is being stored.

2. Once Melee shows up in the ISO list, right click it and go to properties. Under the AR-codes section, there should be a bunch of cheats. The only cheat used in general play is "Global Melee Netplay Settings." Enable that. Close this window.

3. In Options > Configure, we need to change a few settings. First, make sure Dualcore, Idleskipping and Enable Cheats are all checked. If your router cannot handle UDP automatic port forwarding, you can set the netplay listen port to a manually port. You must follow the port forwarding guide below if you want to do this.

4. In Options > Configure, move to the GameCube tab. Make sure you have at least one controller plugged in.

5. In Options > GC Pad settings, you can setup your controller. It should be self-explanatory for anyone who's setup an emulator. Use this image as a reference

6. ALL FIREWALLS MUST BE DISABLED OR ALLOWING DOLPHIN. This allows us to connect/host netplay sessions without port forwarding.

7. You must right click the game in your gamelist and select the host netplay option. The code your given lets you host without giving out your IP/Port.




Finding Matches and playing online

2 options: ladder matchmaker & IRC channel

+ Show Spoiler [IRC] +

Dolphin currently uses a peer to peer system. That means the best way to find matches is to find a group of people who want to play online. Right now, the best place to do that is within our IRC chat. We support Project M and Melee currently, and will be adding support for other games as we gain a big enough community for them. We're currently hoping to

To host a Netplay Game in Dolphin, you simply right click the game you want to host and select the "Host Netplay Session" option. There you will see an ID code on the upper right. You can copy that and give it to anyone else on the same build. You can still get the port by switching from ID to IP. The IP will be your localhost IP, so you have to google for your external IP for others to connect.

Connecting to Netplay is simple. You just go into the Tools tab and hit connect to netplay session and input the 8 character ID or the IP: Port combination as such.

Host then can set buffer before or during the netplay session. The way to get optimum buffer is to stay in the menus and lower buffer until the framerate starts to drop. Lower buffer means less latency, you want the lowest buffer possible without affecting the framerate!

All a client can do is join another netplay session. You must first get the IP and port from the person hosting, and then enter it. Once joined, you just need to wait for the host to start the game.

Recording Input is broken as of 4.0-515, and will be fixed as soon as possible. We'll keep you updated. For games that use memory cards, when you configure pads in Dolphin on 646, you can also configure the memory cards! This is useful when playing other games than Melee and one person has a partially completed save file.


+ Show Spoiler [Ladder] +

http://www.smashladder.com/log-in




Graphics settings
+ Show Spoiler +

Graphics Settings

General Tab lets you change some general settings. Auto Adjust Window Size lets the window size get locked to Internal Resolution. The rest of the settings are for personal preference and self explanatory.
Under Enhancements, depending on the strength of your graphics card, turning up Internal Resolution can greatly increase your picture quality without sacrificing framerate. Anti-aliasing and anisotropic field will cause problems in Melee, so don't use them. Under Hacks, Cache Display lists can be used for a small speedup, but can break other games. Everything else is fine as default.
All backends sync with one another over netplay, so don't be afraid to try them and figure out which one suits you.

nVidia Users
OpenGL plugin will be fastest, especially with the Vertex Streaming Hack enabled. It will not cause any issues in Melee. OpenGL does suffer from some very intermittent background flicker in Melee; if you have extra processor speed, you can use D3D11 to play with no graphical errors. D3D9 can also be used to fix the background flicker, but will introduce other errors.

AMD/ATI Users
D3D9 and D3D11 will perform better than OpenGL, but D3D9 has significant problems because of how old it is. Despite this, it will also be slightly faster than D3D11. Use D3D9 if you must, but D3D11 will provide more accurate graphics.

Graphics
MTB
Profile Joined June 2012
France26 Posts
March 23 2014 22:20 GMT
#2
Jump in your car and come to Lille on April 5th if you want real competition

That being said, Online is pretty cool, and it will definitely get widespread over time with computers being able to run the game, and connections always improving.

It's got a bright future, for sure.
crayolalax
Profile Joined March 2011
Australia27 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-03-24 07:21:34
March 24 2014 07:21 GMT
#3
Awesome that this is posted here now that there's Smash on Liquid Here's to hoping the Smash scene in Aus will get bigger.
Firebolt145
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Lalalaland34491 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-03-24 07:33:49
March 24 2014 07:33 GMT
#4
I hear a lot about how ping has a huge impact when playing online. From the UK, what countries can I play with to have any 'reasonable' ping? For example, is it possible to play a decent game with people from the US East Coast, or am I restricted to EU countries, or worse still just the UK? For what it's worth, in Dota I get ~120-150 ping to East Coast, and ~70 ping to EU.
Moderator
bo1b
Profile Blog Joined August 2012
Australia12814 Posts
March 24 2014 07:38 GMT
#5
On March 24 2014 16:33 Firebolt145 wrote:
I hear a lot about how ping has a huge impact when playing online. From the UK, what countries can I play with to have any 'reasonable' ping? For example, is it possible to play a decent game with people from the US East Coast, or am I restricted to EU countries, or worse still just the UK? For what it's worth, in Dota I get ~120-150 ping to East Coast, and ~70 ping to EU.

You can get away with ping in rts/moba games because precision isn't super important past a certain point. It's so important in melee, that people won't use lcds because there will be a frames lag or so, which is equal to 16.66... ms. Realisticly, playing on a computer (lcd, so a frames lag at least), with a gamecube adapter (almost certainly input lag), over the internet is super limiting as to where you can play. Overseas is a no go, and I'd even argue that 40ms of lag is getting too high to make it worthwhile.

Imo you want to play as close to someone as possible.
Kyuukyuu
Profile Blog Joined January 2009
Canada6263 Posts
March 24 2014 08:04 GMT
#6
it's basically for if you live in a crappy suburb with no real scene and you can't afford the time/money/whatever to go into the city. you can try and perhaps even get somewhat decent with laggy play but if you attend a tournament ever the 0-lag CRT will throw you off. you'll have solid johns tho
BrTarolg
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
United Kingdom3574 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-03-24 12:22:20
March 24 2014 09:54 GMT
#7
On March 24 2014 16:33 Firebolt145 wrote:
I hear a lot about how ping has a huge impact when playing online. From the UK, what countries can I play with to have any 'reasonable' ping? For example, is it possible to play a decent game with people from the US East Coast, or am I restricted to EU countries, or worse still just the UK? For what it's worth, in Dota I get ~120-150 ping to East Coast, and ~70 ping to EU.



Just wondering where in the uk are you? Are you part of the smashUK group?

Also pretty much for any REAL play you're not gonna wanna play anyone outside of the uk or france.

Be sure to pm me with your details and maybe i'll be hosting smashfests near yours. Also we can play online (im london)

bo1b
Profile Blog Joined August 2012
Australia12814 Posts
March 24 2014 10:19 GMT
#8
On March 24 2014 17:04 Kyuukyuu wrote:
you'll have solid johns tho

The real goal
Marou
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Germany1371 Posts
March 24 2014 11:22 GMT
#9
waow thats great ill try that after i finally have a decent PC.
twitter@RickyMarou
Firebolt145
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Lalalaland34491 Posts
March 24 2014 11:31 GMT
#10
On March 24 2014 18:54 BrTarolg wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 24 2014 16:33 Firebolt145 wrote:
I hear a lot about how ping has a huge impact when playing online. From the UK, what countries can I play with to have any 'reasonable' ping? For example, is it possible to play a decent game with people from the US East Coast, or am I restricted to EU countries, or worse still just the UK? For what it's worth, in Dota I get ~120-150 ping to East Coast, and ~70 ping to EU.



Just wondering where in the uk are you? Are you part of the smashUK group?

Also pretty much for any REAL play you're not gonna wanna play anyone outside of the uk or france.

Be sure to pm me with your details and maybe i'll be hosting smashfests near yours. Also we can play online (im london)

Just to clarify, I'm asking as a person who has never played Smash before and is just curious as to how I can get started. I'm not quite looking to get involved in tournaments or anything like that anytime soon. Sounds like playing online isn't that good of an option though, so at this point I'm feeling a little hesitant to get involved.
Moderator
Xeofreestyler
Profile Blog Joined June 2005
Belgium6771 Posts
March 24 2014 11:57 GMT
#11
Imo the ping is very doable if you're just getting into it. Frame perfect play is important for doing advanced techniques, but at your level it shouldn't be too noticeable. And if you ever decide to become competitive, you'll take a few days to adapt to the 'real' speed. East Coast has about 120 ms for me, so forget that cause it's too much (like playing on extra high lat) But you should be able to connect to france, belgium, holland, germany, maybe even sweden... without too much trouble.

Glad to see this is generating some interest!
Graphics
BrTarolg
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
United Kingdom3574 Posts
March 24 2014 12:23 GMT
#12
with response to the above on lag

16ms = ~ 1 frame or so

playing on an LCD only produces lag because of the conversion of native resolution 480p to a 1080p or other screen
Of course, using an emulator doesn't suffer any of these problems
All LCD's have some native response time (CRT's have 700 nanoseconds), though a modern screen wont have much more than 1-2ms (mine is 2ms, and pretty much unnoticable). Anything <5ms is basically completely unnoticable and acceptable for competitive gaming.

The rest of your lag comes from the adapter you use. Mayflash and raphnet adapters are known for being very fast, and all within <1ms

Basically, if you get more than a few ms of lag playing locally on dolphin, it' sbecause of your hardware (GPU issues with some AMD), vysync (aero does this for example) and other issues. Otherwise it's as good as a cube+CRT

---

You will probably get <1-2 frames (hopefully 10-30ms) of lag playing someone else in the uk. This is fine for friendlies, though not enough for tournaments. Feel free to hit me up for some games

Also smashfests arn't tournaments, they are just casual gatherings in peoples homes to play for fun, so definitely get involved they are tons of fun
Xeofreestyler
Profile Blog Joined June 2005
Belgium6771 Posts
March 24 2014 16:21 GMT
#13
Thanks for the indepth info!

For anyone who wants to play, PM me here or hit me up on IRC. I'm 'remork'.
Graphics
DiuCadit
Profile Joined April 2011
United States15 Posts
March 24 2014 16:44 GMT
#14
I was just thinking about the two players added to teamliquid and wondering about online this morning. Really great to come on and find this!
BrTarolg
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
United Kingdom3574 Posts
March 24 2014 21:36 GMT
#15
Guys i made a mistake above

Monitors do have some native input lag, and you can check it on here

http://www.displaylag.com/display-database/#participants-list

Response time is NOT the same as input lag (though it is related)

Still as long as you have <1 frame input lag you should be OK. It might get noticable if you're a very high level fox though
Spazer
Profile Blog Joined March 2009
Canada8031 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-03-25 02:29:08
March 25 2014 02:22 GMT
#16
Miscellaneous troubleshooting notes:

Some routers don't play nice with UPnP, so if people can't connect to your game, that's probably why. There are a few ways to remedy this.

In the netplay screen (assuming you're hosting), click the dropdown box below "Players" and change it to localhost. It'll show you the port number Dolphin picked. Forward that port manually in your router settings.

Like so:

[image loading]

This port changes every time you restart Dolphin. If you just want to play with friends and don't want to muck around with ports every time, you can consider using Dolphin 4.0-430. This version of Dolphin doesn't use the ID/UPnP stuff, instead using an older netplay interface where you need to specify IP and port to host and connect.

Edit:
One more thing. You can actually have people obs your match for maximum humiliation.

First, everyone must connect to the same room (obviously). Next, the host needs to click on "Configure pads" on the host screen, which should bring up the following screen:

[image loading]

Remove EVERYONE except for the two people who are playing, then start the game. The extra observers will not have control in the game, and will not contribute to latency.

An FFA is theoretically possible, but you might end up with massive lag.
Liquipedia
Xeofreestyler
Profile Blog Joined June 2005
Belgium6771 Posts
March 25 2014 02:42 GMT
#17
I actually played a 2v2 with a friend nearby and 2 french guys, lag was surprisingly good
Graphics
Aylear
Profile Blog Joined May 2009
Norway3988 Posts
March 25 2014 21:17 GMT
#18
Haven't yet found a retailer that will ship the adapters to Norway. Even Amazon.co.uk is under-performing here. I'd probably have to resort to eBay to get one.
TL+ Member
Firebolt145
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Lalalaland34491 Posts
March 25 2014 21:18 GMT
#19
For those in the UK, I ended up purchasing the following:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Official-White-Controller-for-GameCube/dp/B0017KIBAI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395756466&sr=8-1&keywords=gamecube controller
http://www.amazon.co.uk/GameCube-Controller-Adapter-PC-USB/dp/B0089NVTDM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395756471&sr=8-1&keywords=gamecube controller usb
Moderator
Aylear
Profile Blog Joined May 2009
Norway3988 Posts
March 26 2014 01:50 GMT
#20
For those not (or at least those in Norway), the equipment linked were precisely the ones that could not be shipped to Norway. If I find a good alternative I'll post about it here.
TL+ Member
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