Doesn't that just look great?



This takes me a bit by surprise that no one has used the GGPO system and played its games, or may have played it yet haven't spread the word of how good this is. If one knew of it then surely they should try to find others to play this with, no one is that greedy to keep it in there "circle".



I'm sure alot of friends online have wanted to play some two-player type of games over the net with each other but haven't been able to, right? Not just any games here but more along the lines of the fighter franchize (Street Figher, MvC, etc.). GGPO allows us to do this with no cost at all and best of all- it's lag free. 'Course if it were not lag free then I myself wouldn't even consider picking it up, can't have a match like that at all.

(Also, I figure if I am to inform the masses of the system and its games I might as well give a little walkthrough to help those in need, pictures and all.)


http://ggpo.net/

The main site telling us its wonders, what it's capable of, and yada yada yada. The site should look like this just incase something random occurred and you just happened to input a different address:




If it doesn't look like that, you're on the WRONG PAGE. Click the "Try It" button in the bottom right corner, you can't miss it I hope.


You're brought to a new page which should resemble something as such:





Now before you comment on the lack of fighter arcade games there are much more than what is shown, they just have no updated this in awhile. You will see the rest of them when I post screenshots of me in game later.

The instructions are pretty clear here on out, they even tell you to go to the forums if you have problems. But I'll continue to hold your hand until we have gone through the entire process.

What you are going to do is install "Adobe Air" if you do not already have it on your computer. It shouldn't take more then a minute to download and finish installation.

Next you want to download the "GGPO" right under the Adobe Air download. Click it, download, install. It does not matter where you install it to, I have it installed on my desktop if that means anything to you all.

Now here comes the part that I had extreme trouble with when I first started out, although I didn't know anything about IP's and such aside from it was my own computers code (Right? I might be off still! Aha!). This part I will walk you step-by-step with but it is ONLY if you have a Linksys type router since that is the only type of router I have and therefore the only type I know how to deal with, otherwise hit the forums the people there are very helpful. Also this does not mean you NEED a router in order to play, this is just for the people with the router.

Now for everyone following me on the router linksys route please follow along carefully, otherwise the rest of you can just scroll down past all of this;

Open internet explorer (Or any browser, I use IE) and type in what it say's in this image in the address bar (I circled it in red just incase):




After you enter that a pop-up should appear as follows




You leave the username blank and enter in password "admin". I don't really know if some of you are allowed to do this so ask parents permission first if you live with them.

After that you should be here:




Don't wander around unless you know what you're doing, you could really mess something up and become messed. What you're going to do is click on "Applications and Gaming" in the top tabs which I have circled yet again





This should be the final stretch if I'm not mistaken. Your page should now look as such:




Yours probably doesn't have the "ggpo1" and etc. in it but it will have it. Basically you're are going to copy exactly what I have wrote there onto your own screen. Once you do all that and click save settings at the bottom you can now finally start to play!





Okay now that you have done all that hard stuff with fixing the router, unless you just skipped all the way down here, you can now begin playing. Go to wherever you installed the GGPO client and open that folder up. You need to make a new folder in there titled "games" or whatever it is you choose to call it. That folder is where all of your games will go and everything you need in order to be able to play.

Once that folder is made you're probably wondering which one of the three GGPO's start the game right? Well GGPO comes with Final Burn, a system that lets you play the games without having to be online (Practice?). This is also where you want to first input the keys to your controls, I'll supply the images but first you need to have opened the "ggpofba" file that is in your folder and ONLY this file for now:




You should be here and no where else at the moment, hit load game and it will show you a list of all games playable by GGPOFBA




Do you see the red circles with the line through them? That means you do not have the game in your "game" folder and it will not work unless you do. That list can be shortened to show just the games you have by clicking the little box in the bottom left corner. Load up a game that you do have and follow the next set of instructions;




As soon as your game begins to load go to file and under that click on "Map Game Inputs" or just hit F5. The reason why I tell you to do this now instead of during an online match is because the other person doesn't want to wait and the last thing you want to hear when you destroy somebody is "Oh, I was setting my controls and I picked the wrong person" the generic loser response.




The screen above is what you should have now. Just double click and set a key, it's simple and easy.

REMEBER, YOU HAVE TO SET THE GAME CONTROLS FOR EACH GAME! ONCE YOU DO IT [ONE TIME] IT WILL REMEMBER IT FOREVER!

That settles the 1-player portion of GGPO, now onto the part that got me addicted. Multiplayer.
If you followed the instructions for you Linksys router users, or if you just skipped down here this part is the eye candy I guess you can say.

Exit out of the GGPOFBA file that you clicked on and go back to that folder. You are now going to click on the "ggpo" file and should be seeing this screen now:




Of course without my username and password. Just click on Create Account and follow the steps.

NOW you're FINALLY on, great right? Check it out:




The left side bar is all the games currently supported by GGPO's online gaming. You're in "The Lobby" now and are put in with pretty much everyone else in there, notice where there from it's pretty cool if I do say so. They have a little smilie there for you to say if you're idle or not.

You pretty much pick a room and randomly, or if you're facing a friend, choose them and click "Challenge such-and-such" at the top. They will be shown a "SUCH HAS CHALLENGED YOU!" they give you two options "accept" or "wimp out" and you don't want to click the "wimp out" option just because of pride.

Here are some screens of myself playing.

Garou Mark of The Wolves








Street Fighter III: Third Strike








That's all of the screens I will post for now anyways. Hopefully this was good news to some and gets more people to signup. Existing members of the site feel free to add on to whatever. The game range isn't that "wide" but when you have a lagless vs. game then I have to say I'm content for the time being. Updates are always being made as you can compare the front page of GGPO to the list of games currently available!

Also to note there is a "sister" site to GGPO called 2DFighter. I would make a guide such as this one for them but they are kinda laggy. The reason I mention them is because there range of games is way wider and instead of just fighting games they have others such as "Metal Slug X-5" (Huge fan of the series btw) and the such. Unless it is really needed I won't make one.

If there are ANY questions or if you need more help then just add me on MSN:

[email protected]