DS NetPlay? (PSP-DS Crosscommunication)

[Kichigai Mentat]

Greetings. I'm running a PSP with a hacked firmware and my friend is running a DS with a PassMe. My request is a simple one. Are there any emulators for DS that use NetPlay (hopefully AdHoc WiFi)? Preferably GameBoy or GameBoy Advance. The goal is to be able to play games with each other. Thanks for any help.

[DanTheManMS]

Unfortunately, this is impossible at the moment, and unlikely in the future. For one thing, Ad-hoc DS-to-DS communication hasn't been figured out yet, and even then I doubt the DS would know how to communicate with the PSP at all. Then there's the issue of having different emulators to begin with. Have you ever been able to netplay using two different emulators, even on a PC? Also note that wireless is probably still too slow for GB/GBA games to handle, as they expect the fast link cable to be there.

Basically, you'd have different emulators running on different systems communicating wirelessly in different ways. It would never work.

[joshisposer]

From what i can remember, there has been only one instance of DS and PSP communication play. It was, I think, a tic-tac-toe game. Or even maybe a pong game. It is possible, just not probable. I mean, like Dan said, different emulators does make it a bit hard.

[Kichigai Mentat]

Unfortunately, this is impossible at the moment, and unlikely in the future. For one thing, Ad-hoc DS-to-DS communication hasn't been figured out yet, and even then I doubt the DS would know how to communicate with the PSP at all.

See, that's where I think you're wrong. The DS uses WiFi, and can communicate over the internet. This means its WiFi chipset can communicate using a set of established standards. Therefore, assuming a PSP game and a DS game speak the same standards, they ought to be able to communicate. BTW, I'm pretty sure there's some Marvel Card Game coming out for the PSP and DS that's supposed to be cross-console communicative.

Then there's the issue of having different emulators to begin with. Have you ever been able to netplay using two different emulators, even on a PC?

I believe so. SNES9X for Mac OS X can communicate with NetLink emulators for PC.

Also note that wireless is probably still too slow for GB/GBA games to handle, as they expect the fast link cable to be there.

That's where I know you've got to be wrong. The GameBoy (up through Color) ran on an old serial protocol with low speeds. Probably was barely measured in full kilobits. I think the GameBoy Advance was quoted somewhere as running around 115 KbPS. The Nintendo DualScreen has a WiFi chip running 802.11 (not 11b) with maximum throughput of 1 MbPS. Obviously, Nintendo thinks that's enough speed for online games, even over the internet (so far, it has yet to be proven wrong). If the DS can play over the internet, no reason it can't do local area play, which would have far less latency and be able to run at maximum theoretical throughput.

Besides, how much throughput do you need for Tetris or Pokémon?

Basically, you'd have different emulators running on different systems communicating wirelessly in different ways. It would never work.

See, that's what protocols are for. They both use WiFi, and both systems have proven local area network play to be viable in their respective games, which probably transfer far more data than the GameBoy Advance did.

From what i can remember, there has been only one instance of DS and PSP communication play. It was, I think, a tic-tac-toe game. Or even maybe a pong game. It is possible, just not probable. I mean, like Dan said, different emulators does make it a bit hard.

Yeah, that's what they were saying when I posted this on the PSP side of the forums, that there was a Tic-Tac-Toe game. The problem isn't with different emulators, the problem is making them all use the same protocol. Once that's done, all someone has to do is implement it.

[Mr_Biggs]

well, if you know so damn much, why the hell are you asking questions you seem to know the answers to? What do you plan to accomplish if someone were to say yes? The WiFi protocols are hardcoded into the system's bios, firmware, whatever it uses, meaning it isnt possible to standardize communication on the software end of things. Am i right on this guys?

[DanTheManMS]

It's not the throughput that worries me, it's the response time. DS-to-DS communication uses a non-standard wireless system dubbed Nifi, and this is the protocol that has not been figured out. Since direct DS-to-PSP communication is not possible, you would have to use either standard TCP or UDP with the wifi library, using a router or similar device as a middleman. This is where response times would be important, as I'm worried that either one of those would be too slow for two-player games to remain in-sync. I'm really not sure about this, but here's a quote from someone when the possibility of multiplayer SnezziDS was brought up

The thing that is so difficult about emulating multi player on multiple emulators is that the snes games were not meant to be played multi-player in the style of linking. They expect the data from the other controller pretty much immediately, this is why online SNES playing rarely ever syncs properly.

I'm guessing that the GB and GBC are the same way, but I'm not certain. It has been brought up however that the most likely way to emulate the link cable for a GBC emulator on the DS would be to emulate two GBCs at once, one on each screen, which would guaruntee a controllable sync. This leads me to believe that the response times for TCP would not be adequate to allow for wireless multiplayer between the two consoles.

I guess I was wrong about different emulators not being able to communicate. Even still, it's a difficult task, so the most effective solution would be to have the same coder working on the emulators for both of the systems.

Even if it's theoretically possible, nobody has done anything of the sort, so our arguing is rather pointless.

[Kichigai Mentat]

well, if you know so damn much, why the hell are you asking questions you seem to know the answers to? What do you plan to accomplish if someone were to say yes? The WiFi protocols are hardcoded into the system's bios, firmware, whatever it uses, meaning it isnt possible to standardize communication on the software end of things. Am i right on this guys?

I don't know "so damn much." If I knew things, I wouldn't be asking. I'm here asking if any emulators existed. No need to be nasty. I do know some things about networking protocols, but my grasp of what's available for the PSP and DS isn't as strong.

It's not the throughput that worries me, it's the response time. DS-to-DS communication uses a non-standard wireless system dubbed Nifi, and this is the protocol that has not been figured out. Since direct DS-to-PSP communication is not possible, you would have to use either standard TCP or UDP with the wifi library, using a router or similar device as a middleman. This is where response times would be important, as I'm worried that either one of those would be too slow for two-player games to remain in-sync. I'm really not sure about this, but here's a quote from someone when the possibility of multiplayer SnezziDS was brought up

Well, I suppose we won't know until we try. But it's a good point. However, isn't it possible that the DS could be programmed, in homebrew, to use a different protocol? Or tell the DS to connect to an Ad-Hoc network (hosted by the PSP, in this particular case) as if it were an infrastructure, or access point? Or could the NiFi protocol be reverse engineered and implemented on the PSP side of the software?

[DanTheManMS]

It could probably be done in theory, but the hard part would be finding someone willing to spend the time to figure it all out.

[Kichigai Mentat]

What about any DS Homebrew that uses WiFi (not NiFi) to communicate? We're willing to settle for anything at this time (all of a sudden, I see a small market for AA-powered Pocket-Routers... maybe I could build one with a GumStix). Oh, and we found the NDS/PSP Tic Tac Toe game (Net Tac), but we're having trouble getting it to work. Oh well.

For those who care?
http://www.wagonbutterworth.com/projects/nds/tictactoe/
http://www.wagonbutterworth.com/projects/psp/tictactoe/

[DanTheManMS]

The guy porting Quake to the DS mentioned that it might be possible to do netplay between PSP and DS. I haven't followed the project much myself, but you can check the topics at the GBAdev forums for details (there are two of them, the main thread and the Pre-Release 1 thread).