Link play on San Francisco Rush & all vegas/seattle games

[Boomslang]

Hey guys,

Has anyone achieved playing link play on MAME of these across multiple pcs?

I can get it working between 2 x mame running from 1 pc but my attempts over LAN never worked

Only games ive tried but all linked fine was San Francisco Rush, San Francisco Rush The Rock, San Francisco Rush 2049 & Vapor TRX

[MrThunderwing]

The old PC I used as player 2 died ages ago, so no more networking fun times for me anymore. Could use the Barcade for simple stuff, but it doesn't have a GPU so don't think it'd handle complex 3D MAME games

[Zebra]

Mame doesn't really make use of the GPU unfortunately. It emulates the arcade gpu in software via the CPU. That's why you need an absolute monster processor to run even fairly simple-looking 3d games in mame. My I7 3930K 6-core 4.2ghz processor is barely enough to run Time Crisis in mame without the extreme overclocking setting while newer PC based 3d arcade games like Mario Kart DX in Teknoparrot run fine on my 10-year-old laptop.

I've never managed to link two PC's in mame either so I'd also like to know how it's done and which games it can be done with. It's well documented in other emulators but I assumed it wasn't an option in mame.

[Boomslang]

Sorry, link works fine across multiple pcs


I was trying to do it with pc and laptop (via wifi), it needs to be ethernet really as wifi was too high latency i guess

[DarthMarino]

What is required to link the games on one PC? I can use this to unlock the last few paintjobs in Rush 2049 (on code 007007007).

[Boomslang]

credits to tedgreen for original information which ive modified slightly

For Multiple MAME on Single PC Link

1 - Install openvpn https://openvpn.net/community-downloads/
2 - Go to Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network and Sharing Center
3 - Go to change adapter settings
4 - See if you have any TAP-Windows-Adapter V9 installed already
5 - Browse to C:\Program Files\TAP-Windows\bin
6 - Right click on addtap.bat and select run as administrator (This will install a new tap adapter for 2nd MAME, skip step 7 if you already have one installed when you looked in step 4)
7 - Right click on addtap.bat and select run as administrator (ONLY DO THIS IF YOU HAD NO TAP ADAPTER INSTALLED ALREADY IN STEP 4)
8 - Go to Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network and Sharing Center & Change adapter settings again
9 - Select both tap adapters and right click then Bridge Connections
10 - Could get an error here
11 - Right click on the Network Bridge and select properties. Make sure both tap adapters have checkboxes selected in the top window
12 - Start sfrushrk in the first directory and then exit mame after the rush the rock splash screen appears.
13 - Start sfrushrk in the second directory and then change the serial number in the dip switches to something other than 6.
14 - For the second sfrushrk enter service mode and change the car color from red to something else. Exit mame.
15 - Edit sfrushrk.cfg in the first mame cfg directory. In the network area change so that interface="0" .
16 - Edit sfrushrk.cfg in the second mame cfg directory. In the network area change so that interface="1" .
17 - Start the two instances of mame sfrushrk in the two separate directories.

For Multiple PC Link
Wouldn't work for me via wifi, please use direct ethernet connection

1 - Install openvpn https://openvpn.net/community-downloads/
2 - Go to Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network and Sharing Center
3 - Go to change adapter settings
4 - See if you have any TAP-Windows-Adapter V9 installed already
5 - Browse to C:\Program Files\TAP-Windows\bin (If you already have one installed when you looked in step 4, Skip to Step 7)
6 - Right click on addtap.bat and select run as administrator (If you already have one installed when you looked in step 4, Skip to Step 7)
7 - Go to Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network and Sharing Center & Change adapter settings again
8 - Select tap adapter and your main ethernet adapter right click then Bridge Connections
9 - Could get an error here
10 - Right click on the Network Bridge and select properties. Make sure tap adapter & ethernet have checkboxes selected in the top window
11 - Start sfrushrk in the first PC and then exit mame after the rush the rock splash screen appears.
12 - Start sfrushrk in the second PC and then change the serial number in the dip switches to something other than 6.
13 - For the second sfrushrk PC enter service mode and change the car color from red to something else. Exit mame.
14 - Edit sfrushrk.cfg in the first PC cfg folder. In the network area change so that interface="0" .
15 - Edit sfrushrk.cfg in the second PC cfg folder. In the network area change so that interface="0" .
16 - Start the two instances of mame sfrushrk in the two separate directories.

IF UNSURE OF INTERFACE NUMBER
load mame with -listnetwork flag and see where your tap adapter comes in list. Interface only looks at the Virtual adapters installed eg if you are using
TAP-Windows Adapter V9 #3 you would generally be Interface 2. Interface 0 is first tap adapter, if you use 2nd tap adapter its interface 1 etc

You can also press tab and goto Network devices on each mame and ensure it says your Tap adapter you want to use. If it's blank, change interface number in cfg folder again

To Remove TAP Adapters

1 - Browse to C:\Program Files\TAP-Windows\bin
2 - Right click on deltapall.bat and select run as administrator

[DarthMarino]

I'm getting stuck on Step 9.  I can install as many TAP adapters as I want but nothing will pop up here.  When I uninstall them with deltapall.bat, it will list all the ones I installed and delete them.

The installed adapters show up in my Device Manager but with errors.

[Boomslang]

What do you mean? Does it not bridge your 2 adapters?

[DarthMarino]

No, they don't show up at all in network connections.  Just my usual ethernet and wi-fi that were there before.  They appear in my device manager but have errors.

[Boomslang]

Hm sorry I'm not sure

Gotta solve that error then

Just googled it and try this

open cmd prompt via Start Menu, 'Windows System', right click on CMD (DOS prompt), More, then select Run as Administrator
on a command line type:

bcdedit.exe /set nointegritychecks on

This turns off integrity checking of unsigned driver - allows unsigned drivers to be installed
- run / install your software, openVPN TAP software

Test and then run the following to turn integrity checking back on

bcdedit.exe /set nointegritychecks off

[DarthMarino]

Hmm. Somehow it started working.  I deleted the entries manually from the Device Manager including the drivers and then they installed correctly. Odd.  Thank you for the instructions.

[DarthMarino]

I made some progress but still not dice.  The bridging worked.  When I go into MAME, I have one instance showing LAN and the other showing LAN2. I changed one instance to cabinet 2 (since there is no color option) however the 2049 games have no SN dip switch so I'm not sure if that's why they aren't communicating.  Rush The Rock doesn't have this dip switch either.

[Boomslang]

Are you running latest mame?

They are there for sure

[DarthMarino]

Now I am! Thanks again.

[Hydreigon]

Holy crap someone had guts to do this guide.

Anyway, the linking hardware on the Seattle and Vegas games aren't 100% so expect some bugs. Hyperdrive doesn't link at all (either the two instances won't talk to each other or game freezes at track select). I'm not really in the mood to have multiple MAME directories right now. An interesting test would be to link MAME to an actual machine. The procedure would be the same as linking to another pc except the second pc would be an actual Seattle/Vegas pcb.

I would like to see MAME make use of the GPU for these Voodoo games. My PC, running an i5 8600k @4.4 GHz can barely run Road Burners at full speed.

[Zebra]

Holy crap someone had guts to do this guide.

Anyway, the linking hardware on the Seattle and Vegas games aren't 100% so expect some bugs. Hyperdrive doesn't link at all (either the two instances won't talk to each other or game freezes at track select). I'm not really in the mood to have multiple MAME directories right now. An interesting test would be to link MAME to an actual machine. The procedure would be the same as linking to another pc except the second pc would be an actual Seattle/Vegas pcb.

I would like to see MAME make use of the GPU for these Voodoo games. My PC, running an i5 8600k @4.4 GHz can barely run Road Burners at full speed.

Me too but the Mame guys seem to be more concerned with accurate hardware emulation than actually making games run well. Apparently, patching old games to use modern GPUs would be in conflict with their stated aim of "preservation"... or something...

For now, it's best to just use mame for 2d games and other emulators or consoles for 3d stuff. We'll all be long dead by the time the Mame team figures out how to make complex 3d graphics run well without a dedicated GPU.

[Hydreigon]

Holy crap someone had guts to do this guide.

Anyway, the linking hardware on the Seattle and Vegas games aren't 100% so expect some bugs. Hyperdrive doesn't link at all (either the two instances won't talk to each other or game freezes at track select). I'm not really in the mood to have multiple MAME directories right now. An interesting test would be to link MAME to an actual machine. The procedure would be the same as linking to another pc except the second pc would be an actual Seattle/Vegas pcb.

I would like to see MAME make use of the GPU for these Voodoo games. My PC, running an i5 8600k @4.4 GHz can barely run Road Burners at full speed.

Me too but the Mame guys seem to be more concerned with accurate hardware emulation than actually making games run well. Apparently, patching old games to use modern GPUs would be in conflict with their stated aim of "preservation"... or something...

For now, it's best to just use mame for 2d games and other emulators or consoles for 3d stuff. We'll all be long dead by the time the Mame team figures out how to make complex 3d graphics run well without a dedicated GPU.

Mame has possible plans for their BGFX renderer to make use of the GPU sometime in the future. Preliminary support was added as of 0.215.

[MrThunderwing]

If you're only interested in getting the Sega M1 comm board games linked (Virtua Racing, Outrunners et cetera) it's possible to do both multi-system and single PC link (or a combination of both) without needing to download any additional programs and just setting up MAME to run as multiple machines and adding some additional info in your MAME ini file. This is the video I used to get it all set up originally

[vandale]

If you're only interested in getting the Sega M1 comm board games linked (Virtua Racing, Outrunners et cetera) it's possible to do both multi-system and single PC link (or a combination of both) without needing to download any additional programs and just setting up MAME to run as multiple machines and adding some additional info in your MAME ini file. This is the video I used to get it all set up originally

Yes that's what Ive been doing since Sailorsat posted the VR details years ago. Are the other linked racers not the same process? I always wanted to link final lap and rush etc but never got around to it.

[totoplay]

Hey guys,

Has anyone achieved playing link play on MAME of these across multiple pcs?

I can get it working between 2 x mame running from 1 pc but my attempts over LAN never worked

Only games ive tried but all linked fine was San Francisco Rush, San Francisco Rush The Rock, San Francisco Rush 2049 & Vapor TRX

LAN across multiple pcs doesn't work for me following your instructions with MAME 0.217.
I've tried to change interface number from 0 to 9 manually with no luck.
Going to "Network Devices" and then trying to go left/right to check numbers crashes MAME:
Fatal error: Attempt to register save state entry after state registration is closed! Module timer tag osd_netdev::recv name m_param

Network bridge and LAN is OK (2P Virtua Racing works fine with it).

[MrThunderwing]

If you're only interested in getting the Sega M1 comm board games linked (Virtua Racing, Outrunners et cetera) it's possible to do both multi-system and single PC link (or a combination of both) without needing to download any additional programs and just setting up MAME to run as multiple machines and adding some additional info in your MAME ini file. This is the video I used to get it all set up originally

Yes that's what Ive been doing since Sailorsat posted the VR details years ago. Are the other linked racers not the same process? I always wanted to link final lap and rush etc but never got around to it.

I believe the method I'm talking about is specific only to a small handful of Sega System 32 and Model 1 board games. Off the top of my head, I think the complete list is:
Virtua Racing
Virtua Formula
Wing War
Outrunners
F1 Super Lap
Rad Rally
I'm not sure about any others. Sailorsat is the guru when it comes to this type of stuff (as well as it's architect).

[totoplay]

Link play on San Francisco Rush & all vegas/seattle games

Keep trying with sfrush and sfrushrk but LAN (2 PCs) doesn't work at all. I'm using different serial number and car color.

Network devices > Tap adapter is defined for each PC.

Again, LAN is OK with all SEGA titles using MAME 0.217 and network bridge.

Is something special required for mame.ini and vegas/seattle games?

[Boomslang]

No

Just the steps I said

Perhaps your lan isnt low enough latency or something

[vandale]

No

Just the steps I said

Perhaps your lan isnt low enough latency or something

Hey Boomslang. Does having the TAP adapter installed affect other link emu like m2 etc? Thanks

[Hydreigon]

No

Just the steps I said

Perhaps your lan isnt low enough latency or something

I've been told the emulation of the device responsible for networking is in a buggy state. Some games won't even network even on a network bridge (Hyperdrive for example).

[totoplay]

Thanks for the info Boomslang and Hydreigon.

I was wondering what it could be as I tried everything possible and my network is very stable... I'm able to play Indy 500 (2 simultaneous players) for 15-20 minutes with no problem, finishing races and restarting.

[BrownEye02]

Sorry to bring this back from the grave but I for the life of me can't get MAME to find the TAP adapter.

• I've got the TAP driver installed and listed in network adapters with no device manager faults.
• I've tried several versions of MAME but everyone just gives "No network adapters were found" when running -listnetwork
• I've tried running MAME as admin and even CMD
• When setting sfrushrk.cfg interface to 0 or 1 I noticed the cfg gets reset to -1

Am I missing some MAME ini config entry that I need to enable to turn on network? Some forms noted a network menu in the main MAME screen but I don't have that.
Would love to get this working for a bit of local multiplayer fun.]

Alright, figured out the problem. OpenVPN recently updated the TAP adapter driver which looks to have either broken it or at least made it not work with MAME. Here are the steps I took to get this working. I can confirm it worked locally on the same machine as well as over my network between two machines on the LAN (PC to switch to router to PC). Next a buddy and I will be trying a VPN to see if we can play over the internet. Would love to see about getting a group together for a session if this works!!! This was all done using Bigtymer781's 60FPS port of MAME too! But it should work on any version of MAME that supports network.

Same Computer


PC 1


PC 2


For Multiple MAME on Single PC Link

1 - Download the tap-windows-9.24.2-I601-Win10.exe file, or the one for your version of OS from OpenVPNs alternative download server (https://build.openvpn.net/downloads/releases/) Ctrl-F will be your friend in finding it!
2 - Run the installer. (I checked all options including the SDK to be safe. You only need to check TAP Virtual Ethernet Adapter & TAP Utilities. If you do not check TAP Utilities you will not have the bin folder with the add and delete .bat's referenced later on in this guide.)
3 - Go to Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network and Sharing Center
4 - Go to change adapter settings
5 - See if you have any TAP-Windows-Adapter V9 installed already
- optional, I renamed this adapter to MAME 1 to make things easier to identify. Mame does not care about the name as you will specify what adapter in the rush cfg file.
6 - Browse to C:\Program Files\TAP-Windows\bin
7 - Right click on addtap.bat and select run as administrator (This will install a new tap adapter for 2nd MAME, skip step 7 if you already have one installed when you looked in step 4)
-rename the second adapter if you wish
8 - Right click on addtap.bat and select run as administrator (ONLY DO THIS IF YOU HAD NO TAP ADAPTER INSTALLED ALREADY IN STEP 4)
9 - Go to Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network and Sharing Center & Change adapter settings again
10 - Select both tap adapters and right click then Bridge Connections
11 - Could get an error here
12 - Right click on the Network Bridge and select properties. !!!Make sure both tap adapters have checkboxes selected in the top window!!!!
13 - If you do not have two directories of MAME then you will need to do so now.
14 - Start sfrushrk in the first directory and then exit mame after the rush the rock splash screen appears.
15 - Start sfrushrk in the second directory. After the game boots fully press tab, select dip switches and change the serial number to something other than 6.
16 - For the second sfrushrk enter service mode (hold F2 after the game has booted, unless you changed the service mode key to something else) and change the car color from red to something else. Exit mame.
17 - Edit sfrushrk.cfg in the first mame cfg directory. In the network area change so that interface="0" . Don't forget to click save.
18 - Edit sfrushrk.cfg in the second mame cfg directory. In the network area change so that interface="1" . Don't forget to click save.
19 - Start the two instances of mame sfrushrk in the two separate directories. I'd recommend letting the machines run for a bit (about 10 sec) before trying to start a game.
-You can also use the test network option in service mode to verify the two sessions can communicate to eachother.

For Multiple PC Link
Wouldn't work for me via wifi, please use direct ethernet connection

1 - Download the tap-windows-9.24.2-I601-Win10.exe file, or the one for your version of OS from OpenVPNs alternative download server (https://build.openvpn.net/downloads/releases/) Ctrl-F will be your friend in finding it!
2 - Run the installer. (I checked all options including the SDK to be safe. You only need to check TAP Virtual Ethernet Adapter & TAP Utilities. If you do not check TAP Utilities you will not have the bin folder with the add and delete .bat's referenced later on in this guide.)
3 - Go to Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network and Sharing Center
4 - Go to change adapter settings
5 - See if you have any TAP-Windows-Adapter V9 installed already, if so skip to step 9
- optional, I renamed this adapter to MAME 1 to make things easier to identify. Mame does not care about the name as you will specify what adapter in the rush cfg file.
6 - Browse to C:\Program Files\TAP-Windows\bin
7 - Right click on addtap.bat and select run as administrator
8 - Go to Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network and Sharing Center & Change adapter settings again
9 - Select tap adapter and your main ethernet adapter right click then Bridge Connections
10 - Could get an error here
11 - Right click on the Network Bridge and select properties. !!!Make sure both network and tap adapters have checkboxes selected in the top window!!!!
12 - Start sfrushrk in the first PC and then exit mame after the rush the rock splash screen appears.
13 - Start sfrushrk in the second PC. After the game boots fully press tab, select dip switches and change the serial number to something other than 6.
14 - For the second sfrushrk PC enter service mode (hold F2 after the game has booted, unless you changed the service mode key to something else) and change the car color from red to something else. Exit mame.
15 - Edit sfrushrk.cfg in the first PC cfg folder. In the network area change so that interface="0" .
16 - Edit sfrushrk.cfg in the second PC cfg folder. In the network area change so that interface="0" .
17 - Start sfrushrk on boht PCs. I'd recommend letting the machines run for a bit (about 10 sec) before trying to start a game.
-!I had to reboot to get both PCs to see each other!
-You can also use the test network option in service mode to verify the two sessions can communicate to eachother.

IF UNSURE OF INTERFACE NUMBER
load mame with -listnetwork flag and see where your tap adapter comes in list. Interface only looks at the Virtual adapters installed eg if you are using
TAP-Windows Adapter V9 #3 you would generally be Interface 2. Interface 0 is first tap adapter, if you use 2nd tap adapter its interface 1 etc

With sfrushrk up and running you can also press tab and goto Network devices on each mame and ensure it says your Tap adapter you want to use. The name will match what you named your TAP adapter in control panel. If it's blank, change interface number in cfg folder again.

To Remove TAP Adapters

1 - Browse to C:\Program Files\TAP-Windows\bin
2 - Right click on deltapall.bat and select run as administrator



MAD THANKS TO Boomslang and tedgreen!!!!!!

[BrownEye02]

So I did a bit more testing and here are the results.

• I have noticed that stability is not as good in link play. The game will just close randomly. Again I'm using Bigtymer781's 60FPS port of MAME as well as FFB Plugin so this may be the main cause to this. My money is on the 60FPS port of the two but it's possible that any delay in the communication between the PCs will case the game to crash. When I get more time I'll try the latest MAME version to see if that has any effect on stability.
  I was able to get three PCs working and talking all at once. I was not able to complete a full game with them all connected due to the above; got to the last turn on the last lap though. 2 of the PCs just sat still while I drove around with the 3rd so I'm not sure if this might be a factor in the stability as well, i.e. if there was a driver for all 3 PCs.
• WIFI is a no go. I have discovered why but till a workaround is discovered this just won't be possible, for windows that is. Can't speak for other OS's. The cause is windows prioritizing (Interface Metric) the TAP Adapter for use as its main internet connection over the WIFI adapter when they are bridged. (https://superuser.com/a/272555) The problem is you can not set the individual adapters metric number when its in a bridge. I tried setting the interface metric for both the TAP and WIFI adapters prior to bridging them but windows ignores this and looks at the bridge for all the apaters settings.
• sf2049 works as well. Same steps as sfrush in that you need to set the adapter to 0 in cfg, change the machines SN, and set the cabinet to something other then 1 (in sfrush this is car color). I did still have the same crashing issue but will again try with the latest version of MAME and report back.

[Boomslang]

Yeah I found its unstable too 

Great info though

[Zeosstud]

Hello All,
             Any updates on this? Being able to race 2 or more players with Rush 2049 on my home network is the absolute holy grail for my new driving setup.. I will be testing this out tonight but was just curious if people were still keeping up with this.  Anyone happen to know if any members of the Mame Dev community have this on their Radar?  Also curious if people were using sf2049 or sf2049se and if one might be preferred over the other.

Thanks for this post.. Very much looking forward to trying to make this work.. that said, if it does work, I am not really looking forward to all the stuff I have to buy my son for Christmas so we can own his butt playing this..

[Zeosstud]

Followed the instructions and was able to get 2 other PC's on my Lan to connect to my new, fast, AMD 3900x PC with GTX 1080TI video card.. The instructions are brilliant..
That said, in all cases, the slower PC's (older intel i5 and really older interl i7) crashed/locked up within seconds of the race starting, I could come up with no troubleshooting steps to
change what was happening. I did everything with San Francisco Rush 2049, both the normal and Special Edition versions.  Sure the results were
a bit of a bummer but the fact that we are this close, is very encouraging. I have a buddy who just built a PC around the new AMD 5950x and RTX
3090, I am hoping I can convince him to bring it over and see if somehow that makes a difference, if maybe you just need BEEFY PC's to let all
the magic happen.

-Zeosstud
Rodney Butler

[BrownEye02]

So I was able to do a bit more testing last week and discovered a few things.
I was able to get 4 instances of Bigtymer781's 60FPS MAME port running on my laptop (7700HQ). I did not bump the frame rate to 60 though as all 4 running at once I was barely getting 12-15 FPS. BUT, with all 4 running and linked together not one crashed. I was able to slowly play through a whole race on The Rock without dropping one.
Now, using the same laptop and my desktop (3900x), just like Zeosstud I wasn't able to get a minute or two into the game before one of them crashed. Usually my laptop but there were about 2 times my desktop was the one to crash out of maybe 10 tries.
I tried both on the latest stock MAME (.226b) and saw no changes.
I thought maybe it was the network protocols interfering since RUSH broadcasts its data. (physical layer I think, never quite got the OSI model ) So, I tested both machines directly connected to each other and all network protocols like IPv4, v6, etc. disabled but it didn't make a difference.
Now, neither machine can emulate the game 100% of the time all the time. My desktop even when not set to run at 60FPS will dip to about 93% on go (after 3,2,1) but will only dip to 98% the rest of the time maybe ever 10 to 15 sec or so. My laptop drops to the 80s on go and bounces between 98 and 95 most of the time. Part of me is wondering if this is the issue. That one of them becoming off sync just enough for a long enough time causing it to crash. Since my laptop has the weaker CPU it was usually the one. My theory with my laptop running all 4 with no issues is even though they were not 100% sync, they all stayed together (around the same %) since the same CPU was doing the work for all of them. This would some what also explain why I was almost able to get through a full race when my MCPC was linked to my gaming desktop as the MCPC has a 7700K in it. In that case, if I remember right I noticed my gaming desktop was the one to crash more.

So, what does this all mean. Well if my theory is correct then were kind of boned. Until we can emulate RUSH 100% of the time all the time or find some back end way to allow for a machine to become off sync with out crashing this just wont be stable enough to be reliable. I have 0 programing experience so am no help in that department. I'd love to see GPU support to help with the emulation but lord knows MAME will never do that since they prefer 100% accurate emulation to 100% performance emulation. Which I can understand and believe should be an option for any emulation. Just wish there was an option out there, kind of like Bigtymer781's port that prioritized features and performance over emulation accuracy. I'd put up 100$ minimum for a bounty but with how special the hardware in the RUSH cabinets is vs others and the few of us that would pay/use said port it just seems like a fantasy.

Hello All,
             Any updates on this? Being able to race 2 or more players with Rush 2049 on my home network is the absolute holy grail for my new driving setup..

Love the setup!!! Don't mean to be off topic but how much do you like the shifter? When I picked up my wheel I was told its not really needed since it has paddle shifters but with me having more hours in RUSH then any other driving game I'm kind of starting to regret not having one.

[Zeosstud]

The shifter is amazing when I am playing Forza Horizon on my Xbox.. So far for arcade games I still stink worse when I use it.. I am just getting my basement back in order after some renovations and am looking forward to using it a lot more. The new pedal set and shifter really have improved the fun factor in Horizon, if you can, treat yourself, you will not regret it.. Full disclosure, in Horizon I am using the setting where you shift but no clutch is needed ( baby steps )..

I have recently got Teknoparrot working, really enjoying Outrun 2 SP SDX and Dirty Drivin' using that emulator and Sega Rally 3, got force feedback working with that one..

Zeosstud

[aevans0001]

Hi all, I recently tried to work through the instructions from @BrownEye02.  I got all the way to #10 on the using 2 pcs list.  After I create the bridge link the windows enviroment gives me a BSOD. I tried multiple different solutions, but none of them worked.  It is the bridge.sys (i believe) that keeps crashing.  i tried this on at least 2 different computers but i believe i on 3 (it was over a week ago). Any suggestions?  I would really love to help test this and possibly find solutions.


Thanks
   

[BrownEye02]

Hi all, I recently tried to work through the instructions from @BrownEye02.  I got all the way to #10 on the using 2 pcs list.  After I create the bridge link the windows enviroment gives me a BSOD. I tried multiple different solutions, but none of them worked.  It is the bridge.sys (i believe) that keeps crashing.  i tried this on at least 2 different computers but i believe i on 3 (it was over a week ago). Any suggestions?  I would really love to help test this and possibly find solutions.
Thanks

We need more details about your setup to help. What version of windows, 64 or 32bit, PC specs, wifi or LAN, what driver are you using from openVPN, etc? With you having tried multiple machines I would put my money on the TAP adapter your getting from openVPN but I'm not 100% commited to that till we know the exact one your downloading. The only thing that makes me hesitate is the bridge.sys as thats saying the bridge adapter is causing the crashing. But that could still be failing due to the TAP adapter being bad.

[jorgenjl2]

Correct me if this is not the case but doesn’t playing two emulators on one pc at least give us one solution to playing Rush link play on two separate cabinets?

In Win 10 if you right click the desktop and go to display you can see both displays if you output to two different displays at once. After doing what Browneye02 said in post reply #26, couldn’t you manually drag one mame Rush copy to your main screen in full screen and drag the second Mame Rush install to the secondary display and have it full screen on the 2nd display? You would just have a long usb extension cable to go from the 2nd cabinets g29 ( or g27 similar) steering wheel to the (single) pc that is in the primary cab. Then you would click tab on the first Mame install and setup the primary cabs g29 wheel controls and then you would open the 2nd Mame Rush install and click tab and setup the 2nd g29 controls.. any reason that would not work? If it does work, maybe we can script the opening of each mame64 exe to open on a specific display with a bat file via Launchbox/Bigbox.

The downside is that I want to say Daytona USA on Model2 M2emulator does better with seperate PCs in link mode (maybe?) but hopefully we could still do the same concept of two emulators in one pc with token ring for Daytona. The other downside for Rush is the CPU has to be really good. Maybe a Ryzen 5600 would play two Rush’s at once now that AMD is faster than Intel in gaming? I was going to get two i5/i7 4th gen boxes for rush but I wonder if I need one newer box instead?

[jorgenjl2]

EDIT: I am going to test doing locally on my Ryzen 3600 pc. I will update if I am successful.

Apparently global_inputs can be set to 1 in the mame.ini (or <game>.ini) to allow you to have two separate controls (two g29 wheels) even if only one Mame copy has the window highlighted so that may be another requirement for 1 pc with 2 emulators. We will see.

[jorgenjl2]

Success: I was able to get two player San Francisco Rush the Rock link play (mame .227) to work on my single pc using BrownEye02 directions and it is glorious being able to crash into the 2nd player    This is SOOO close....

Now for the bad news: The game (usually one copy) seems to crash after a minute or so of playing (more on this later) and I could not get global_inputs to work how I expected it to even with it being set to 1 in mame.ini (or sfrushrk.ini if specific file) although I did not try for long. I am reading that global_inputs is only for raw input so I am not sure if the g29 wheel and pedals are raw input but I could only enter one set of commands at a time (whichever window, aka copy of mame, that was highlighted at the time). Since that did not yet work I did not yet look into running a powershell command (or Nirsoft advancedrun) to specify the window size and position as shortcut arguments or commands to play the 2nd copy of Mame on the 2nd monitor (I just manually dragged for now).

Note that one time I accidentally ran mame 32 bit instead of 64 bit and started a game thinking they would be linked when they were not and the game still crashed after about 30 seconds so I think the Ryzen 3600 may not be fast enough for two copies of sfrushrk at the same time. Overall CPU was only 29% but it did look like individual cores sometimes went up to 100%.

I would like to see two things:

1) A mame developer comment on San Francisco Rush the Rock networking and what they think it would take to get reliably working

2) Someone with a Ryzen 5600X (or even better a Ryzen 5950X) test out if they can get two copies of San Francisco Rush the Rock to link play on one pc without freezing

This is crazy how close this is to completely working! 

[jorgenjl2]

GREAT NEWS!  Thanks to the Mame developers, the latest version of Mame (.234) has improved performance for SF Rush/SF Rush the Rock by 30% since it includes updates to the Voodoo games (SFRush/Rock being a Voodoo game).

I was able to do multiple linked play games (on a single pc using BrownEye02's "November 21, 2020, 07:32:11 pm" reply steps) to completion without a single disconnect. In fact I cannot get it to disconnect if I try. Hitting F11 also shows that I am running both copies of the game at 100% (0/10 skip). I also do not get any minor audio stutter like I used to (I think it used to say "Check...checkpoint" instead of just "Checkpoint" at the 1st checkpoint on the title Rock track for example... or at least it does on my i7 4th gen). This new test is using a Ryzen 3600.

Now we need someone to test multiple linked pc's to see if it is fixed... As long as the pc's are able to run a single version of the game at 100% now (F11 to show fps %) I wonder if this will work now!

[Bigtymer781]

This would be a dream come true if network play worked for Rush the Rock. I was completely unaware that it even remotely worked, this is great news!

Soon I'll compile a 60fps version for the latest MAME, and instead of having to adjust the slider to get 60fps, the game titles will just have (60fps) in them and it will automatically run at 60.

Hopefully we can play this online soon, I can't wait.