Connecting emulator devices

[Lord Mushroom]

Some games (on the original hardware) let you play with more players if you connect two devices. If you have an emulated version of such a game on two computers, can you connect the computers and play with more players?

[mr_me]

What game are you thinking of.  The emulator would have to emulate the original hardware being used.

[Lord Mushroom]

2 hours ago, mr_me said:

What game are you thinking of. 

Attack of the Zolgear (Arcade)

F-1 Exhaust Note (Arcade)

F1 Super Lap (Arcade)

Final Lap (Arcade)

Final Lap 2 (Arcade)

Final Lap 3(Arcade)

Final Lap R (Arcade)

GP Rider? (Arcade)

Gun Buster (Arcade)

Indy 500? (Arcade)

Manx TT Super Bike (Arcade)

Lotus 2 (Amiga)

Riding Hero (Neo Geo)

Super Skidmarks (Amiga)

The Fast and the Furious (Arcade)

Wipeout (PS1)

Wipeout 2097 (PS1)

Xtreme Racing (Amiga)

+ handheld games

+ other games

 

What about games which had (or required for more players) 2 screens? Games like:

Road Riot 4WD (Arcade)

Wrecking Crew (Arcade)

 

I know X-Men (Arcade) can be played in 6-player with emulation either as a narrow screen on one screen or using two screens.

Edited September 4, 2021 by Lord Mushroom

[mr_me]

I was thinking of Populous which originally connected two computers by serial port or remotely with modems.  What GoG is offering looks like works through TCPIP.

 

Mame does emulate multimonitor arcade machines by putting all the screens on one display.  My understanding is that Mame has options to put each emulated screen on a different physical display.  If the arcade game is multiple systems networked together that's something else.

Edited September 4, 2021 by mr_me

[Lord Mushroom]

54 minutes ago, mr_me said:

Mame does emulate multimonitor arcade machines by putting all the screens on one display.  My understanding is that Mame has options to put each emulated screen on a different physical display.

I thought I had to choose between two evils when it comes to dual monitor games. Either accept a very narrow screen, or play with two screens, which creates an awkward transition between the screens. Then I watched a You Tube clip of the game, and realized the original screens were of course in 4:3, which makes the narrowness on a widescreen TV more acceptable.

[scotty]

Model2 Emulator will let you connect up to 8 machines together via a LAN for up to 8 player Sega arcade games like Daytona USA and others.

 

[zzip]

It depends on the emulator.   Some will emulate serial ports or midi ports, or have networking support so that you could do this in theroy.

[Lord Mushroom]

On 9/7/2021 at 4:24 PM, zzip said:

It depends on the emulator.   Some will emulate serial ports or midi ports, or have networking support so that you could do this in theroy.

Do emulations of games, which originally required machines/consoles to be connected for max. players, allow for max. players using a single device?

[zzip]

17 hours ago, Lord Mushroom said:

Do emulations of games, which originally required machines/consoles to be connected for max. players, allow for max. players using a single device?

You can run multiple instances of an emulator on a single PC, and possibly connect the ports to each other, so that they act as though they are networked.   Is that what you meant?

[Lord Mushroom]

1 minute ago, zzip said:

You can run multiple instances of an emulator on a single PC, and possibly connect the ports to each other, so that they act as though they are networked.   Is that what you meant?

I had hoped that you could play with the max. players within one emulator (emulated game), but connecting two emulations on one device would work as well. As long as the players are playing on the same screen, I am good.  

[zzip]

3 minutes ago, Lord Mushroom said:

I had hoped that you could play with the max. players within one emulator

That would require a new version of the game to make work

 

3 minutes ago, Lord Mushroom said:

but connecting two emulations on one device would work as well. As long as the players are playing on the same screen, I am good. 

There would be multiple windows on the same screen showing the output of each player.

 

Also the OS may matter here..  it's pretty easy to redirect ports on Linux so that you can get two emulators talking to each other, but I'm not sure if it's as easy to do in Windows

[Lord Mushroom]

5 minutes ago, zzip said:

That would require a new version of the game to make work

I thought an emulation is a new version of a game.

[zzip]

14 minutes ago, Lord Mushroom said:

I thought an emulation is a new version of a game.

Ah..  no that would be a remake.

 

An emulator just tries to pretend that it is the original hardware so that the game runs in its original form, although some emulators do offer enhancements like filter to improve graphics, speed boosts, etc.

[Lord Mushroom]

2 minutes ago, zzip said:

An emulator just tries to pretend that it is the original hardware so that the game runs in its original form, although some emulators do offer enhancements like filter to improve graphics, speed boosts, etc.

So ROMs are the original games, only compressed?

[zzip]

4 minutes ago, Lord Mushroom said:

So ROMs are the original games, only compressed?

not even compressed (well sometimes),  they are just a byte-for-byte dump of the original cart, disk or CD.   To the emulator it looks just like a cart or CD.