Online Multiplayer in Emulated Games

With the news of TMNT Arcade coming to XBLA I decided to bust out Mame32 and play some TMNT. While that was fun, (even setting it up to control 2 (or even all 4) turtles at the same time using a controller was fun too), I ventured off to find some online play. And lo and behold there is an addon of sorts for most emulators, including Mame32. It's Mame32 with Kaillera to play classic arcade multiplayer games online. So here is a tutorial/guide so you can play online MAME (and other emulated) games.

1. Download a supported emulator. Right now there are 17 supported emulators, so you can take your pick but I'm only talking about MAME.

MAME Emulators- Mame32k seems to work better, but you may have better luck with HK2illera V9.
Kaillera supported emulator list

2. Download some games to play. Most people are playing the 2D fighting games: Street Fighter II, King of Fighters, and the Marvel/Capcom fighters. Although you can run whatever multiplayer game you want.

Rom Nation- I recommend this site, as all the roms worked.
Rom Hustler- also good, they have n64 roms.
Make sure you download the correct game for the game being played in the server. It's easier to identify the correct rom from Rom Nation as they list more info about each rom. I'm going into all the details of where to put the rom and how to set everything up, you can Google that.

3. Run your emulator and go to File> Play network game, Netplay, Kaillera or whatever.
4. Enter a username and select a server or enter the IP if you know a specific server, more on that later.

5. You will see the list of players at the right, the chat at the left, and the games at the bottom. Select a game that is Waiting and click join. You have to have the game to play, although in ZSnes you can (supposedly) send someone the game. You can also create your own game by clicking Create New Game, and selecting the game. Once enough people are in (with the correct connection speed) you can start the game.

6. ?????

7. Profit!!!

Running your own server:
1. Download the server from Kaillera
2. Edit the kaillerasrv.conf file to your liking. Such as changing the server name, location, url, or messages.
3. Run kaillerasrv.exe or your OS's equivalent.
When you refresh the list of servers yours will be listed.


While this method is definitely no Xbox Live, Xbox live also doesn't have The Simpsons, King of Fighters, Super Smash Bros, or any of the Marvel Fighting games. It's kind of touch and go but it works. I played Super Smash Bros at 320x240 @ 60fps. (as a test), there are occasionally hiccups but its definitely playable.

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