[Hedda]

RakNet, one of the leading networking middleware systems in the games industry designed for third-party app/game integrations is now open source now under a GPL compatible modified BSD license.

Any chance of you implementing it into Kodi/XBMC for networked and online multi-player gaming with RetroPlayer over the internet?

https://github.com/OculusVR/RakNet
http://www.jenkinssoftware.com/features.html

"For those unfamiliar with RakNet, it is a comprehensive C++ networking engine for game programmers designed for ease of use and performance. The tech is tuned for integration into cross-platform, high-performance applications that operate across a wide variety of network types.

Key features include object replication, remote procedure calls, patching, secure connections, voice chat, lobby system for friends / community chats and leaderboard ranking, and real-time SQL logging. The technology has been licensed by thousands of indie developers, as well as companies like Unity, Havok, Mojang, Maxis and Sony Online Entertainment."

Would be very cool to have an online gaming community just for Kodi/XBMC with all interface integrated!

[garbear]

Very cool, and open sourced (FreeBSD) by Oculus last month. Integrating it as a networking platform for xbmc could have a lot of advantages, and I can see it helping the multi-client model that the team is pushing for. Will keep an eye on this

[RockerC]

XBMC for Xbox (XBMC4Xbox) had a GUI frontend for online-gaming via XLink Kai backend at one time. Maybe that old code could be found and resurrected from the dead to just reuse the GUI frontend parts for this as a base to build on?

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Arc...oldid=3631
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=4147
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBMC4Xbox#X...rnative.29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XLink_Kai

RakNet engine could in this case work similar to how the XLink Kai tunnelling (backend) software worked to enable online game play with games that was originally only designed for play on local area network (LAN).

[Hedda]

You guys simply must checkout this "Ignition - Social Retro Gaming OS for the Raspberry Pi" project

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/171...-raspberr/

This to me basically sounds what GUI for RakNet integration into XBMC with RetroPlayer could be like:

Ignition is a Social Retro Gaming "OS" for the Pi with features such as Gaming Achievements, Gamer Profiles, Online Play, more...

What this is About.

My name is Alexander Stubbs and I am a lifelong retro-gaming enthusiast as well as a Front-End Developer and Designer. I have a love for open and low cost devices such as the Raspberry Pi.

I have had a long-time vision for an open and modern platform for Retro-Gaming that not only would allow you to play Retro Games in a new way, but allows for modern features to be incorporated into the games we all know and love.

What would you say if I told you that you could have a dirt cheap, fully customizable "console" in your living room that not only plays all the classic games you grew up with, but also brings modern features such as Gaming Achievements, Gaming Profiles, Online play, Social Interaction and more?

Imagine sitting on your couch, playing games like Super Mario Bros. or Street Fighter II on your TV, with friends (or strangers!) from across the globe set up using a dead simple, intuitive and beautiful interface. Imagine re-visiting games like Contra, Zelda, or Sonic the Hedgehog with Gaming Achievements and challenges set by you or the online community. Imagine sharing those achievements in real-time.

This is the vision for the Ignition Retro Gaming "OS," a raspberry pi distribution fully set up to bring modern experiences to classic video games. Think XboxOne dashboard or Steam OS... but for all the games you know and love.

[teeedubb]

XLink Kai

Ahhh.. the Halo memories...

[encript]

System link was awesome. Good ol days. Ignition looks cool though.

[Soul_Est]

RetroArch already supports NetPlay, so perhaps a combination of NetPlay and RakNet would work?

[garbear]

RetroArch already supports NetPlay, so perhaps a combination of NetPlay and RakNet would work?

no netplay yet. i have that feature scheduled, but i'm working on a couple new APIs for retroplayer that should clean up the code i've got. plus, these apis allow other developers to attach cool features to many different parts of this project. the game API was just the start

[Soul_Est]

Ah ok. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out when it's stable. I'll be following this closely.

[Woerd88]

Me too, i feel a Mortal Kombat tournament comming!

[Hedda]

Bump this idea of using RakNet C++ networking engine middleware for networked and online multi-player gaming now that garbear is back

Maybe RakNet can assist in Cloud Gaming too?

[Hedda]

What about the idea of a shared online persistent gamer database (for persistent datastore of game data)?

To extend on the network-play idea but different concept from simple peer-to-peer networked multi-player capabilities, as here the XBMC Foundation or Team Kodi would provide a gamer server that hosts a shared online database (and datastore) to enable the persistent saving of gamer player profiles ("gamer cards"), save player rankings, and high scores in one online location that can be seen across the Kodi gamer community if users choose to opt-in, create user account to log-in and upload such gamer data which will be saved on that online server even when the user log-off.

Again, RakNet ( https://github.com/OculusVR/RakNet ) can provide among other things provide this via a "Lobby Server" http://www.raknet.net/raknet/manual/lobby.html that is a system which provides a database powered lobby with support for friends, rooms, quick match, ranking, messaging, and multiple titles.

Some also call these online game board ranking features "social", but I think that is a ugly word here for something like this. Se example here http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=202061

This shared online persistent gamer database could act similar to similar to commercial arcade video game network communication systems like SEGA's ALL.Net (Amusement Linkage Live Network) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALL.Net and Taito's NESiCAxLive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NESiCAxLive

If the database was somehow linked to this forum userbase for single sign-on then we could use our user accounts from here.

Keywords here in this concept being PERSISTENT ONLINE DATABASE SERVER.

[natethomas]

Keywords here in this concept being PERSISTENT ONLINE DATABASE SERVER.

I think we'd probably be hesitant to have the foundation host something like that. In the past there's always been a bit of hesitancy about privacy-related issues when going down that road. With that said, it's certainly something to talk about.

[Hedda]

Keywords here in this concept being PERSISTENT ONLINE DATABASE SERVER.

I think we'd probably be hesitant to have the foundation host something like that. In the past there's always been a bit of hesitancy about privacy-related issues when going down that road. With that said, it's certainly something to talk about.

Yeah you are right that the online server part is almost like XLink Kai concept and yes that would practically be an entirely new project with it own issues.

However if you would instead only focus on the lobby system part of the idea for peer-to-peer local LAN network multi-player gaming then would see that you still need a frontend GUI inside Kodi even for just peer-to-peer, and therefor thinking ahead you could from the start try to make that frontend GUI lobby system work only in peer-to-peer mode at first for simple local LAN network multi-player gaming, and then later you could add the ability to connect to an online server on the internet which connect players all over the world for deathmatch multi-player gaming over the internet through one single lobby system as long as all are connected to the same server. And I believe this is what RakNet could do for Kodi.

[Woerd88]

Hubba hubba!, that sounds so cool