Hosting a Netplay game on lr-fuse (ZX Spectrum) kills keyboard input; and how to assign remote client controls?

sith.lord.goz

(I have a Pi400 running 64bit Bullseye Lite OS, manual compile of Retropie from source)

I'm trying to set up a simple 2 player Netplay session for a ZX spectrum game (The Goonies) since that game is 2P co-op.

I have the netplay stuff working just fine (they can see my session, and connect) but there are two problems it seems:

If I host ANY zx spectrum game (i.e. have the netplay config set to Host, and then do "Launch with Netplay Enabled" from the ES menu) - then my keyboard stops working. Doesn't matter if it's the built-in keyboard, my wireless, or a USB keyboard - nothing. Can't press any keys to start game or whatever. If I use the virtual overlay keyboard tho, it works fine
When the 2nd player connects and joins, they can only control "1P" - same as me as Host. For the life of us, we can't get each of us to control a different player - I tried changing the Port Binds, and the "Request Device" option in Netplay - nothing.

Does anyone please have any experience with Netplay specifically on lr-fuse?

Thanks so much - this has been driving me + my mate mad all day!

mitu

AFAIK the core doesn't support netplay (there's request for it to be implemented), so this part may not work even if the input mapping part would be fixed.
You may want to use Zesarux for remote multiplayer.

barbudreadmon

I'm not sure if this is a core issue or a retroarch issue, some types of controls aren't supported by retroarch's netplay, like analog, i wouldn't be surprised if keyboards weren't supported either.

Keep in mind that the keyboard in libretro cores handling computer emulation is usually set to port 3, so you might also want to make sure this port 3 is not handled by a 3rd player (that don't even exist ?) in a netplay session. I guess you can assign ports/players to specific hosts ?

Arguably, if this is indeed the core having insufficient savestate support for netplay, FBNeo would be a solid alternative.

mitu

@barbudreadmon said in Hosting a Netplay game on lr-fuse (ZX Spectrum) kills keyboard input; and how to assign remote client controls?:

FBNeo would be a solid alternative.

Oh, apologies - I forgot that FBNeo has Spectrum support and can be used for netplay.

sith.lord.goz

@mitu @barbudreadmon
Thanks for the input guys - really appreciated.

Since we were able to connect and have the remote player control one of the characters in the game, I kinda assumed netplay was supported and it was a config issue. If indeed keyboards aren't supported when Netplay is active, that would explain these issues.

Aside from the obvious user benefit of having savestates enabled for netplay, is it a requirement that savestates MUST be enabled for a core to support netplay?

barbudreadmon

@sith-lord-goz Rollback netplay, which is what is implemented in retroarch, relies on savestate determinism, like several other features (runahead, rewind, ...)