VOGONS


Adding network to games

Topic actions

First post, by Ecc

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Thanks for this program, it lets me play some games more easily...

I have some idea that might make it even more interesting. I wonder what do you think about it? Is it possible? Is it interesting?

I think about adding network support to old games which did not have it themselves (the games where you had to have all players on the same computer). I think it could be done as follows:

- create some kind of shared disks, so all players share the same game. I think this would be the easiest part.

- make DOSBox behave deterministically - if DOSBox gets the same input on two computers, it will behave the same. I don't know the internals of DOSBox, so I have no idea how hard is it to program.

- connect DOSBoxes with network --- so they share their input (when one of the player presses the key on his computer, this key is inputted to all DOSBoxes, probably after some short time passes). Pause if contact is lost. Real-time network games exist, so I think it would be possible.

In this way, all players will "feel" the keypresses of all players, so it would make a network play.

Thanks again,

--EK

Reply 1 of 1, by Snover

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

A la the Netplay implementation in ZSNES.

Yes, it’s my fault.