Testing Kawaks 1.65 Netplay

Yesterday I was testing Kawaks 1.65 Netplay at home using 2 PCs. It should be said I have never played with other people but I I wanted to give it a try... So I got in Emuparadise America Kaillera server, I got 90+ ms of ping at "Good 20 keyframes per second" settings I am far away from the server (I live in the central zone of Mexico) and my internet conection is not so fast I must accept it. So I create a new game that was KOF 2002 and using the other PC I got in to the server as well. I pushed coin button on player 1 resulting in 1 credit, then I pushed the coin button on player 2 resulting in 2 credits at the same time (!) there was something strange... I selected the characters on both sides and when they were on screen the stage was not the same on the 2 PCs Hell, this is what people call desync? What's more once a round was over I mashed the buttons when I made one character win in order to skip the win pose and return to game quickly, the result: on the side I had smashed buttons succesfully skipped the win pose but on the other screen there was not any skip at all so yeah, even more desync!

Things were not turning out as I would have wanted, but I had an idea, First I had to leave the server and get in again, then I create the KOF 2002 one more time and connected the other PC at the server as well. I pushed the coin credit on player 1 side (1 credit) but this time I pushed the coin credit on player 1 again for the usage of player 2 getting a second credit as regular. After select the characters I observed that now the stages were synchronized and even when I smashed buttons on win pose the skip was synchronized too. I guess this occurs because NeoGeo games were configured to have only 1 coin slot. I decided to test a CPS1 game, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs was my choice and because this game is configured to sport up to 3 players (and 3 coin slots obviously) there was not any desync issue. Either way I need to do more tests on another games like Street Fighter II.

Kawaks' wide variety of the best classic Capcom arcade games brings back memories of the Funarama arcade located at Westland Mall in Miami-Dade FL from the time I was 16 years old to 29 years old. The staff and owners were the consumate experts in what all the best arcade games were, anything from Midway, SNK and Capcom had multiple cabinets and there was always one available. If I popped a quarter into any of them I would subsequently beat the game and any challenger dropping a quarter in would more often then not get trounced because I can pick any Capcom, SNK or Midway game character not giving any chance to win because I know all their moves, combos, counters, throws and play style as well as advanced fighting system tactics. Funorama held tournaments and I won every one that I attended. Kawaks is one of the emulators that faithfully recreates the real cabinet game perfectly as a true clone, it's a stable for me to keep my skills sharp whenever I get rusty. Other emulators emulate other fighting game cabinets but not as faithfully as Kawaks. I could probably write an article in ode to Kawaks but it would be tl;dr

In closing thank you LATER HERO, it's a pleasure to discuss Kawaks with someone who appreciates it as much as I do as an old school yet one of the most nostalgic emulators from the era of arcades before most if not most local area ones shut down.

Kawaks stills being my favorite emulator for Neo-Geo, CPS1 and CPS2 games. However it has some issues that any Kawaks user must to know, from Windows 8 and above full screen feature causes a couple of glitches. In some systems title bar and window frame still showing at full screen, or else Kawaks fails creating the full screen with an error message saying something like "Failed to initialize DirectDraw" and Kawaks closes unexpectedly. Playing Kawaks on windowed mode works perfectly, though. However there is a fix that prevents Kawaks to fail at full screen setting. Looking for a possible fix for Kawaks I found a page where a user suggested a way to make Kawaks runs in full screen using certain registry script: https://forums.emulator-zone.com/ind...0/#post-130028

It is worth to mentioning that Kawaks has issues with fullscreen from Windows 8 and above so on these OS the use of the script is required in order to use full screen succesfully. From Windows 7 and earlier Kawaks fullcreen works normally, so there no need to use such script on those OS.

There is another issue that involve the use of fullscreen in Kawaks and this happens regardless of the version of Windows you use. Leaving of full screen will crash the emulator. Doing tests about it I discovered that Kawaks tends to crash after leaving full screen. The only way to prevent it is use "Normal" video blitter in Video>Select video blitter menu.

The settings I recommend for the use of full screen on Kawaks are:

NeoGeo games
Video>Full screen resolution>NeoGeo>640x480
Video>Select video blitter>Normal
Video>Correct full screen ratio>Stretch to full screen

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Capcom non rotated games
Strange enough Kawaks doesn't give appropiate full screen resolutions for Capcom games. Aspect ratio of Capcom games is 16:9 and there is no option available in menu video because all options included are 4:3 rather 16:9
According to your PC resolution you must use these values and type them in WinKawaks.ini file

"This is the resolution for non rotated Capcom games"
HorizontalFullScreenWidth= (change this value for the witdth of your screen)
HorizontalFullScreenHeight= (change this value for the heighth of your screen)
*People with 4:3 monitors should try the available options, I guess.

Video>Select video blitter>Normal
Video>Correct full screen ratio>Stretch to full screen

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Capcom rotated games
Well... Kawaks is terrible with vertical (rotated games) at full screen settings. The way I discovered to play these games on full screen with the appropiate aspect ratio is
Video>Full screen resolution>CPS1 / CPS2>Rotated games>1024x768
Video>Select video blitter>Software zoom x2>Plain

Because video blitter used isn't Normal but Software zoom x2 Kawaks will crash after leaving full screen most of times. As it seems there is not a fix for this.

And regarding Kawaks 1.65 Netplay I discovered that is normal that NeoGeo games give 2 credits using 2 player coin button and can be configurate it

Attachment 74810

I have already discarded the theory that you should only use the coin button on player 1's side. Yesterday I was testing a NeoGeo game it was SVC SNK vs Capcom and I got horrible results. Using 2 PCs at home there was a terrible desync issue. I was playing arcade instead of 2 players challenge and looking at the other PC the CPU controlled character was not the same neither the stage... This happens when packets of information traveling through Kaillera get corrupted. The only way I got prevent this desync was a simple way: allowing Kaillera time to initialize the synchronization and when I say it I mean get in a Kaillera server and stay there about 5 minutes, then create a new game room, people who want to play with you must be patient as well and wait time (about 5 minutes again) then finally the user who created the game must start the game. Giving time to Kaillera prevents to start the games with desync issues (mainly if you are so far away from the server), at least those are the results I got yesterday

if someone want to find me sometimes I use the Emuparadise America Kaillera server, it's IP is: kaillera-us.emuparadise.org:27888) send a message here, please. My type of connection is Good 20 keyframes per second (Delay = 2 (8 frame delay) and remember Kawaks 1.65