Posts earlier in the bread have inspired me to bost a slightly updated list on the absolute state of Gamenight emulator netplay, might be a good idea to include a short abbreviation in a future OP.
For starters, "netplay" in Gamenight terms ought to be distinguished into
>"Pure" netplay
Passes control inputs over the Internet between emulators in order to simulate couch multiplayer, the emulated games are completely unaware of the networking shenanigans and simply respond to player inputs.
This is the simplest, "purest" and most direct form of netplay but also the one with the most severe effects when Internets are slow or packets get lost, for in order to work as intended all players' emus need to have their inputs perfectly synced. Methods to account for and mitigate lag via rollback netcode and savestate resyncs exist but are not always implemented properly across most emus.
In hostan and playan terms netplay has the advantage of theoretically working across any given multiplayer-capable emulatable console game, but at the same time being dependent on the emulator's server-finding/matchmaking, netcode and in-session UI for chatting with anons.
Games might also not always be suited for netplay from a gameplay standpoint due to simply not being built with Internet multiplayer in mind or being otherwise limited by splitscreen constraints.
For hostan direct P2P netplay is available in nearly all emus with netplay functionality, this involves port forwarding on the side of the host and giving away his VPN IP address for anons to connect to. Many emus also have relay servers if port forwarding doesn't werk or posting IPs publicly isn't desireable, these range from simple IP hashing+forwarding to the more common input relays.
Relay servers often come with an optional public server browser and password protection, which eases hosting requirements tremendously provided the server doesn't have tranny wordfilters or retarded discord invite premium shenanigans which the vast majority of public netplay relays don't.
Some of these may require signups with proprietary niggervices, but surely no one here would be retarded enough to do that.
Regarding netplay-capable emulators, there's
<Dolphin (Gamecube)
Boss nigger of 6th gen console emulation, it has a highly advanced built-in netplay suite with a proper UI, server browser, relay-server-less non-port forwarded hosting, fucking GBA-GCN emulation that works in netplay, good chat interface, solid netcode and runs most Gamecube games with no issues.
The problem?
Fucking thing can't resync a desynced session because sending savestates over the network for clients to roll back to is hard, and if the host quits or disconnects the entire session crashes with no survivors.
If not for desyncs being much rarer than in other emulators this would render Dolphin unusable for Gamenight purposes, but as it stands it barely manages to coast by.
Wii games can be played over Netplay, but Wiimote use is highly experimental and generally not recommended.
Avoid if your Internet a shit.
<Mednafen (Multi-system)
Highly capable emulator emulating over a dozen systems ranging from the 3rd to 5th gen with the objectively best netplay out there.
Unlike most "pure" netplay implementations Mednafen relies exclusively on relay servers, it has built-in chat, password protected sessions on public servers, automatic buffer management, host migration and savestate rollback/resyncing which can keep a game running flawlessly as long as at least one user is still connected to the server.
The problem?
It's a command line exclusive application, the use of which has caused many a grievance with the sadly intellectually disinclined modern population of anons.
While starting the emulator can be mitigated by setting up the .cfg properly, any alteration done to game-relevant settings by an individual user will not be synchronized or even reported upon connecting to a server, which can lead to unchecked desyncs that may or may not be difficult to diagnose.
The other issue is that while Mednafen's PSX, Saturn and PCE emulation is considered top tier, its other cores are usually old versions of other emulators forked more than a decade ago with sub-par maintenance performed since then, leading to the possibility of encountering bugs that the mainline versions fixed ages ago.
<RetroArch (Multi-system)
While it's extremely unlikely for there to ever be a successful Libretro Gaynight on account of RetroArch being RetroArch, an entry is warranted if only to discourage Anons from using this pile of shit.
RA has its own built-in netplay implementation that in theory should provide a decent rollback experience across a wide array of cores...keyword being theory.
In practice, RA is by far one of the niggest experiences that serves as a perfect example of the pitfalls found in modern software development.
For one, RA's UI is niggerlicious to the max for users unaccustomed to it with its Netplay section being no exception.
Said section has various internal settings exposed to the XMB-tier UI that while certainly useful for someone would really do with some better labeling and less outdated/wrong terminology at times, with the desktop UI not helping due to using the same basic arrangement as the default UI.
Then, the in-game UI is barely existent with only basic default-font-with-no-hightlighting chat text temporarily displayed prior to fading away, there's no on-screen diagnostics to analyze the clusterfuck you're likely to run into nor are there any actually useful messages aside from a client ping display and popups whenever it resyncs every 5 seconds or so.
Contrast this with Dolphin's great imgui chat window making perfect use of the black bars found when displaying 4:3 games on 16:9 displays while still being decently colored and highlighted to be used with widescreen hacks, or Mednafen's striking yellow pixel font with strong highlighting that is easy to see at a glance and comes with a syntax covering everything you'd need for netplaying.
Of course, on the civilized and modern RA one has to navigate half a dozen sub-menues just to do what Mednafen can do with a few chat commands, which is assigning controllers to different players.
And after all that retardation, what do (You) get? An unplayable fucking mess with fluctuating input lag that shouldn't fluctuate, rollback stutter up the ass and very visible resyncs every 3-5 seconds until the Brazilian/Smartphone user/Person on the other end kicks you from the session or closes it outright.
Or you don't get any noticeable stutter and the preset input lag you configured only for every time you pass the sync check interval either (You) or your client get unceremoneusly resynced all over the place only for the sync check to sometimes fail with both you and your client then "winning" a KR match before RA syncs you back together in the menu.
I primarily attribute this behavior to the netplay code having been barely maintained for years due to its author leaving after another encounter with TwinAphex' idiotic antics, and RA's critical lack of documentation/policy regarding settings+content sync.
Now any moderately sane emulator will only permit a netplay session between users using the exact same content and the exact same version of the emulator, for both consistency and savestate compatibility purposes.
Ideally game-relevant settings should also be synced to ensure smooth operations, which is where Mednafen falls short and Dolphin excels before fatally desyncing.
Where, thus, does RA fail so critically?
The sub-par settings sync that's kind of there but also not really?
Nay, RA due to its nature as a frontend for emulator cores DOES NOT ENFORCE IDENTICAL VERSIONS OF THE SAME CORE BEING USED because THE GAY NIGGER BUILDBOT USED BY ITS OWN CORE DOWNLOADER+UPDATER DOESN'T HAVE AN ARCHIVE OF WEEKLY/MONTHLY/ETC. "STABLE", "BETA" AND SO ON RELEASES so USERS WOULD HAVE TO DOWNLOAD THE LATEST NIGHTLY OF A GIVEN CORE RIGHT BEFORE LAUNCHING A SESSION IN ORDER TO BE IN SYNC which CAN LEAD TO ALL SORTS OF SHIT BECAUSE LIBRETRO CORES RANGE FROM UNMAINTAINED-FOR-YEARS TO 30+ COMMITS/DAY looking at you FBNeo or the wise developers could just throw caution, reason and logic into the Ganges river and allow users with differing core revisions to shit on the same spot because surely nothing could wrong!
And let's have the ARMv7 smartphonejeets, M-series Macfags, Wangblows 10/11 Amazon warehouse slaves, Windows 7 anikis, Linux-using MIT niggermonkey atheists, Chinese handheld ricers, Switch homebrew developers kidnapped by NoA-paid mercenaries and Raspberry Pi Hipsters all shit in the same tub to celebrate diversity while we're at it, for multiculturacism is our strength!
Sadly the implementation's design probably isn't chromosomally deficient by itself as it does follow the typical rollback netcode conventions and can in very, very, very rare circumstances even result in a playable experience with almost no lag and only a few minor resyncs in spite of a 300ms+ ping, but still remains hampered by being part of RA/Libretro.
Also RA Netplay isn't white enough to support analog sticks, probably to the benefit of mankind as a whole.
>Arkadyzja (PSX, Dreamcast)
An emu frontend cooked up by some Pole, it has Netplay, fightan matchmaking, a server browser and chat for PSX (Duckstation) and Dreamcast (Flycast).
This is as far as I know the only way to netplay Dreamcast games using 4 players while also the only non-Fightcade DC netplay implementation.
Was able to get it working in a basic fashion back in Summer but I don't play fightans and have no idea how reliable 4 player netplay is over longer sessions.
>LAN netplay
Tunnels local ethernet packets over the Internet in order to simulate a LAN without the game knowing about it, usually through a relay server if more than 2 players are desired. This permits the use of more online-esque game design with games able to employ actual latency+packet loss tolerant netcode along with custom UIs and other things while at the same time not being bound to a central dedicated server aside from a simple, generic packet relay.
While in theory this approach could be the best of both worlds, in practice it varies heavily per game as there are still several things LAN games don't have to account for that WAN games do, the biggest of these being latency.
On a real CAT5 LAN latency between peers is easily in the sub-5ms range with packet loss certainly possible but rarely encountered, meaning that LAN netcode requires nowhere near the kind of latency and error tolerance that the WAN equivalent does in order to work in its intended environment.
The good thing here is that many games with LAN support usually just re-use the WAN netcode if one is available which is good for Gamenights, but when a game either doesn't have a WAN mode and/or takes the shitter route in either netcode design or QoL features then you may have games with barely useable ingame chat and sessions that crash when a single user abruptly disconnects because you wouldn't do that when playing with your homies downstairs back in '96.
LAN relays while trivial to set up locally in theory have also become a hotspot for jewish interests due to their heavy use for VPNs and Corporate purposes, so setting one up for a given game can quickly run into proprietary SaaS niggatry outside of emulators.
As for software, there's
<Yuzu/Ryujinx' LDN
Emulates the local wireless networking protocol of the Switch, either on an actual LAN with the possibility of connecting emulators to real hardware or tunneled over the Internet.
Used to be Yuzu-exclusive outside of patreon, but with the shutdown of Ryujinx its own payware LDN code has been merged into public forks.
Both emulators implement the protocol to the same degree, but neither emulator can connect to one another over the Internet using LDN.
Ryujinx also lacks the neat server browser full of illegitimate Chinese serbs still hosting in spite of all the dumb gweilo lawsuits with only direct connections via code working, but that shouldn't be a problem.
In the case of MK8D local multiplayer on Yuzu works astoundingly well over the Internet with the LDN protocol being arguably more tolerant of bad connections than many dedicated online games.
<DOSBox' IPX tunnel
IPX Tunneling over layer 3 with a variety of simple relay server implementations available. Fine by itself and works across a variety of forks, but limited by the sophistication and lag tolerance of individual games.
<Wireguard
VPN built into the Linux kernel and also available on Wangblows, as a proper VPN protocol this requires a whole range of certificate and networking autism to set up on the hosts' part alongside having to hand out keys to individual anons prior to a prospective Gamenight.
Supports everything on LAN while encrypting all data sent, but comes with a range of potential security issues if the host isn't Terry enough to cleanse his network of (glow)niggers.
<l2tunnel
A much more simple tunneling tool, it essentially does the same thing as Wireguard minus all the VPN autism because you're trying to play emulated/real Xbox games over a virtual LAN not train AIs to run crypto scams for Mossad.
Originally intended for Xemu, it can theoretically work with any game over LAN after port forwarding on the hosts' part except for those that use more than 1 port simultaneously such as anything utilizing UPnP so fug.
<Paid for VPN services offering easy layer 2 tunneling for gayman
Nigger just rent a VPS and host some Killing Floor at that point.
>"Netplay"
This would be games connecting to a dedicated domain name server that in practice functions similarly to a relay, albeit with additional features such as a generic matchmaker and session password system usually accompanied by various per-game fixes/additions.
Not really "Netplay" per se, but it's functionally different enough from normal non-netplay games to warrant a mention.
Available services consist of
>Wiimmfi
Recreates the Nintendo WFC for use with Dolphin the Nintendo Wii and melon DS(i) stop mentioning emulators, emulators are bad and le illegal I will of banned you and reported to teh FBI!!!1 t. Wiimmfi mods.
In 99% of games it functions like a glorified LAN with Soy thrown into the mix, your emulator/console will register its own Friend code in addition to some per-console UID only found on real, genuine Wiis when trying to play sacred Mario Kart Wii upon first connecting which can then be used with any supported game.
Works well outside of Mario Kart and while not every game is fully supported what does work usually werks, but you're console/emu's name will show up in the public user list when connected.
Also in case you haven't gotten the memo yet stay the flying fuck away from MKWii there, that game's moderation is exceedingly autistic with automatic bans for using a VPN or loading an illegal track from an outdated modpack, using anti-semitic shortcuts, or driving backwards in a race which is a dangerous microaggression and not allowed.
Other games including the entire supported DS lineup don't seem to have any moderators, but still.
>RPCN
Recreates the standard matchmaker used by the majority of PS3 games with online multiplayer support, currently exclusive to RPCS3.
Supposedly works well in games it supports, but it's exclusive to RPCS3 and as such neither toaster nor retard friendly.
>PS2Online
Same as RPCN/Wiimmfi but for the PS2, this one though works on both PCSX2 and real PS2s.
Unfortunately many online-capable PS2 games either have PC versions with dedicated servers available or lack essential Gamenight tools such as ingame chat or mouse+keyboard support in case of shootan gaem, friend lobby support also isn't found in every game.
PCSX2 itself while being far better than it used to be 5-6 years ago is still considered heretical by some anons.
>DCLive
Recreates Sega's Dricas/SegaNet/Dreamarena servers for various Dreamcast games. In most games it's similar to the above entries with the required DNS address built into the Flycast emulator, but Phantasy Star Online has its own dedicated server with its own community in addition to various DRM hurdles made by Sega, not the private serb admins so anyone wishing to host a Gamenight for that specific game better use the PC port.
Online MP sophistication also varies across games.
>Not netplay
Any normal PC/Console game that uses dedicated servers.
Ex.
>SRB2Kart
>DMM
>Sven
>L4D2 etc. etc.
>>265676
There's that CTR semi-decomp thing with full 8 player online races using modded Duckstation, but I've never tried it and so don't know how gamenight compliant it is from a practical perspective.
Speaking of decomps sm64coopdx now has a vanilla Kaizou gore mod that might be fun to shitpost around in.