Nintendo 64 Online Multiplayer

Ok, I just barely played some kid in Colombia a game of Super Smash Bros. from the Nintendo 64 over the Internet. It was pretty cool. There was some lag (nearly a sixth of a second, enough to make playing a little frustrating) but the point is it worked. It is amazing that a game intended to be played on a TV with somebody in the same room as you are can be shoehorned onto much newer systems with more capabilities.

I used two open source projects to do it, Project64 1.6 and Project64k 0.13. The latter is a modification of Project64 1.4. The problem is that Project64 1.4 didn't support the newer versions of DirectX that 1.6 did, so isn't technically compatible with Windows Vista or 7. That is where 1.6 comes in. When you unzip both projects open up the plugin folder in Project64, find the file named Jabo_Direct3D8.dll and copy it into the same folder in the Project64k folder. Now change the name of the Jabo_Direct3D7.dll in that folder to Jabo_Direct3D7.dll.bac (or delete it if you want, I like to keep things just to be safe) and change the name of the new Jabo_Direct3D8.dll to Jabo_Direct3D7.dll. Voila, it works.

When you open Project64k, go to the File menu and select Start NetPlay. The Kaillera client will open up and show you all the servers it can find. If you know the IP address of the one you want you can enter it at the bottom, otherwise select the one you want. When you log in to the server it will open a new window with all the games available to play. You can join any waiting game, but you can't interrupt a game already in progress. If the server allows you to you can create a new game by clicking Create New Game at the bottom. Select the game you want to play from the alphabetized list then wait for people to join. When you are ready press Start Game. That is it.

You will probably want a controller of some kind. If you use an Xbox 360 controller or want to use an analog control (like a joystick or the triggers of the Xbox 360 controller) as a button (say the Z button) you will need to also replace the included Jabo_DInput.dll using the one from Project64 1.6 instead of the Project64k included plugin.

Now, last night when I first tried to get it to work Kaillera kept crashing. I don't know why yet, but Bad Company 2 was also not able to log on. Probably not related but can't be sure.

Have fun!