1. INTRODUCTION KiGB supports the Game Link Cable using tcp sockets. This feature enables 2 players to play games that feature a two-player mode on a tcp-enabled network, which is the most common type of network. Cascading to support 4 players is not supported. Someone notified me that this feature was broken in Vista. This may be caused by the incompatibility of the HawkNL library to Vista. Since I don't have Vista installed, I cannot verify it. 2. PLEASE NOTE BEFORE START As KiGB actually emulates the Game Link Cable, a lot of network traffic will be generated during game play. You need both a non-busy network and fast CPUs for fast game play. Be warned: your network may jam. PIII or above CPUs for both PCs are recommended. See the section "TESTING RESULTS" below. 3. GETTING START To start, one PC must be acted as a host and the other as a client. Select "Link->I am Host" in the main menu for the host PC. The window title will indicate you as host and the IP address will be enclosed in square brackets. If you are in full screen mode, a line of text will be displayed at the top of the screen, instead. The current connection status is enclosed in parenthesis which should be "listening". Then, the client PC can then select "Link->Link to Host" to connect to the host. A dialog box will appear requesting for the name or the IP address of the host. Enter it and press the OK button. If the connection is successfully made, both window titles will have the connection status shown as "connected". The game of the client will be reset. You are now ready to play. WinXP users: Due to the different font size, the connetion status may not be displayed in full in 1x1 and 2x2 windowed mode. During the connection, all function keys and the main menu are all disabled. The exception is the Esc key. To disconnect, press it once. You can see the updated network connection status at the window title bar. If you are the host (client), the client (host) will see a message indicating the disconnection. All function keys and the main menu will be resumed normal. After disconnected, the host will still listen for client connections. Select "Link->I am Host" once more to resume to the normal status. Some games will behave strangely after disconnected. You may need to reset the game before continue. If KiGB hangs (may happen when you change the Sync Speed - see below for details), press the 3 keys "Alt+Ctrl+End" together to quit. 4. WHAT IF I DO NOT HAVE A NETWORK? You can start 2 instances of KiGB and follow the steps in the section "GETTING START" to make them connected. Enter "127.0.0.1" as the host IP address when ask. However, you should note the following behaviours and limitations: - You cannot control both instances at the same time. One must be run in background so that no input can be taken. - Playing the same game: * There is no need to make another copy of the game. One copy will do. * If the game supports battery save, you need to have another copy of the save; otherwise, the save will be overwritten by the other (You may want to do this on purpose so that you can duplicate items for example.) To do this, copy kigb.exe and the save to other directory. Set up the SAVE_PATH in the kigb.cfg for the new copy. - It is extremely slow. May need a P4 to run in full speed. Try set to 1x1 screen size and set frame skip to 2 for both instances. Try set the Sync Speed to Half or Quarter (see below for details on Sync Speed). Linux users: The speed is even worse in Linux. Don't try it unless you get a P4. - You cannot do this in Windows XP. It seems a problem of Allegro - the game library KiGB employed. 5. WHAT IS SYNC SPEED? The Sync Speed is the internal speed used by KiGB to synchronize the Game Link Cable. It supports 3 speed: Normal, Half and Quarter. The default is Normal. Setting it to Half and Quarter will speed up the connections (Quarter being the fastest). However, it may make the connection failed and may make KiGB hang. Change it only when you find the speed is slow. To change it, right-click and then select "Link->Sync Speed". You have to be the host and change it before the connection to make it effective. 6. CAN I PLAY OVER INTERNET? Yes. The speed is unacceptable slow even in a broadband connection (10 Mbps both upload and download with the same ISP). You can try but it is not recommended. 7. TESTING RESULTS The testing environment ----------------------- PC 1 PC 2 ----------- ----------- PIII 550MHz PIII 500MHz 128 MB RAM 64 MB RAM Windows Me Windows Me Network: 10 Mbps Ethernet (no other network tracffic during tests) Results ------- Game Name Type Status ================================= ==== ================================ Tetris GB OK Mario & Yoshi GB OK Battle Arena Toshiden GB OK Double Yakuman 2 GB OK Penguin Wars GB OK Dr. Mario GB OK Battle Ship GB OK Pro Mahjong Kiwame GB GB OK Pocket Mahjong GB OK Nada Asatarou no Powerful Mahjong GB OK Dodge Ball GB OK Asteriod GB OK Monopoly GB OK Atomic Punk GB OK Battle City GB OK (1) Popeye 2 GB OK (1) Battle Bull GB OK (1) Go Go Tank GB OK (1) Doraemon Kart GB OK (1) Hung during game play Popeye GB OK (2) [*] Tetris DX GBC OK Columns GBC OK Pocket Color Mahjong GBC OK Bomberman Quest GBC OK Battle Ship GBC OK (1) Pokemon Crystal GBC OK (1) Mahjong Quest GBC OK (1) Magical Drops GBC OK (2) Bust-A-Move Millennium GBC OK (2) Pocket Puyo Sun GBC OK (2) [*] Doraemon Kart 2 GBC OK (2) [*] Metal Gear Solid GBC OK (2) (1) The game play was a little bit slow. For a PIII 550MHz PC, set to full screen mode. (2) The game play was extremely slow. A very fast network (might be 100 Mbps) and fast CPUs (P4?) might help. [*] The game play can be sped up and may get to the normal speed by setting the Sync Speed to half or quarter. You may also need to set to full screen mode with frame skip set to 1 or 2. Useful for slow PCs and/or network connection.