Hi everyone!

I am the QA Manager here at Capcom and I wanted to update you on the SFII Beta, as well as take this opportunity to introduce myself. I joined Capcom April 1, having relocated to San Francisco from NYC where I was a Lead Game Analyst at a game company in SoHo.

I'm incredibly excited to be a part of CAPCOM, working on some awesome titles and taking on a new role. Its great to be working with some of the same IPs I grew up with as a kid - though, admittedly, I'm much better at 1942: Joint Strike (pick it up for XBLA and PSN today!) than I ever was as a little brat!

Anyway, enough about me, now what you really want to hear...

As you know, we've been hard at work optimizing the netcode in Street Fighter II HD Remix and prepping a patch for all you Beta users to enjoy! (Reminder: if you pick up WOTB: Commando 3 you will have access to this exciting beta!)

Thanks to all of your great feedback, we were able to pinpoint many problems in the beta and repair them. (Please keep your bugs coming at beta.capcom.com!)

So, a couple things - first, you may be asking, what will be addressed in this patch when it goes live, Will?

Well, here is the rundown:

1. Crash while joining games has been fixed.
   
   
2. Headsets no longer transmit constantly. (Please note: on some Arcade Sticks, the connection to your headset can be a little wonky, so if you're hearing static, check your connections!)
   
   
3. Ken’s strong Shoryuken no longer juggles.
   
   
4. Ken’s fierce Shoryuken now only juggles for a maximum of 3 hits.
   
   
5. Ken’s roundhouse Hurricane Kick now leaves him slightly farther away from the opponent on hit.
   
   
6. Default round number has changed to 5 for Ranked and Tournament matches.
   
   
7. Win/Loss data now shows up in Player Matches.
   
   
8. Game Speed has been fixed to match the original arcade game.
   
   
9. Game no longer crashes when trying to select Akuma by the old code.
   
   
10. Super Finishes now display correctly in 4:3 mode.
    
    
11. Game no longer crashes when signing out during a Tournament.
    
    
12. New netcode to reduce lag generate by packet loss.
    
    
13. New rewind code that mitigates latency by smoothing out what people see on screen.

In a previous post, Gary Lake outlined how we went about testing this (here and here.) I've been absolutely blown away by what Backbone Entertainment accomplished with their tweaks to the netcode, and now is your chance. When can we see this in action? Right now!

In the two videos below, Rey is playing as Ryu, and Derek is playing as Ken. The first video is shot with the patch applied to the game; the second, with the code you guys are all playing right now.

We have the game running under the following conditions:

• Latency: ~180ms roundtrip
• 15% packet loss
• Dial-up Bandwidth (56k)
  
  

So, here is the game, under the above conditions, with the patch -

 

(Notice that when roll-back does occur, its hardly noticeable. This is because instead of warping the characters, the game will draw in select frames to minimize gameplay disturbance.)

And, here is the game running without the patch (i.e., the current beta that is public.) Check out the difference!

 

(Notice the warping that occurs, especially during the Shoryuken)

As you can see, we've really made some great strides. For the final game, there will be even more optimizations!

The patch should be live in a few weeks at the latest, and we're looking to extend the Beta too!

Have fun!

Will

(PS: if you want to destroy me online, I'm AvidMarxist on Xbox Live!)