Has anyone tried Parsec (couch gaming online experience)?

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8bitMicroGuy
Posts: 314
Joined: Sun Mar 08, 2015 12:23 pm
Location: Croatia

Has anyone tried Parsec (couch gaming online experience)?

Post by 8bitMicroGuy »

Hello.
I have been looking for a way to play multiplayer games without wrecking my system with Hamachi, port forwarding, installing virusy stuff, listening to boring dubstep Bandicam/HyperCam Notepad tutorials with "the umm" speech only to await me with a complete disappointment of solutions. And you know, broken links, needing to register/login to download, getting trial/demo/watermark nonsense.

I wanted to get something 100% free. And so I found Parsec!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9xNDnuW6eA

Basically, it's the perfect alternative to Netplay/VNC/VPN/VPS/remote/portforwarding/Hamachi if you want to play any retro game together with someone ESPECIALLY if that game is not meant to be played online.
Parsec uses peer-to-peer technology and efficient low-level C code for all sorts of GPUs and routers and etc.. I tried playing Super Homebrew War on Mesen and it was nice! All I needed to do was follow a tutorial for the Intel CPU + AMD GPU fiascos with laptops to let the integrated GPU do the encoding when I was hosting. It worked seamlessly!

The entire lag of just the program is 7ms. 2ms is my ISP's fiber. It basically sums up to something around 10-20ms of latency. Hosting NES/SNES games is easy with just 5Mbps or 10Mbps because the video encoding is very efficient with pixely graphics. I played Mario Kart 8 from someone's computer in Europe and it worked out pretty good; there was a bit of a JPEGgy picture, but playable for me, stable framerate and no input lag (unless a slight internet stability hit for a second). But I suck at Mario Kart 8! XD

The setup is easy for when you have a joystick (unless you have a cheap one with axises and D-pad mixed up), but most of joystick problems including not having one can be solved with a local software solution that converts your keyboard into a joystick. So, you map your joystick buttons to the host's virtual XBox-like controller. The host will then get a tam-parabam sound effect meaning that your virtual joystick is plugged in. You can then basically do the same thing as in real life. Sitting next to your buddy who clicks on the NES input mapping thing on the emulator and you're good to go!

So, I was thinking if anyone would like to play some Super Homebrew War or Super Bat Puncher or that Super Mario Bros Two-Player Hack Co-Op or maybe my new WIP Battle City hack.

What do you think? PM me for my Parsec account ID.
I need lots of content made of this XD so please!
I WANNA PLAY SOME HOMEBREW NES STUFF!
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