MHP3rd HD - PC Ad-hoc guide for Dummies! ft. Tunngle

[fuzzout]

Hello,
after extended wait for a response to a PM I decided - "To hell with it, I will make a guide anyway!". If you are reading this, then you must be looking for a way to play MHP3rd HD online with friends or without (matters not, in MH everyone is a friend!).

SUMMARY OF REQUIRED "items":

• PPSSPP emulator from the download page of PPSSPP. (Newest version 0.9.9)
• Tunngle (Just google this "tunngle download" and register an account there) <-- not sure if I can post links T_T
• MHP3rd HD version .iso (or an alternative version of MHP3rd that works, I can't help you with finding this, piracy is not a nice thing)
  

OK, now that I got the tools, how do I use them?
Alright, step 1 is to make sure your PPSSPP is correctly set up and your game runs well! And so begins:

Chapter 1: OPTIMIZATION
Start up PPSSPP and launch the game, create a bland character and just try to get into the game as quick as you can.
-
Leave the bathing area and go to Yukumo farm (you wont be able to fast-travel yet, you will have to speak to the village chief AND the guy at the farm entrance first).
The reason we're going to the farm? It is the most intense scene in the entire game, it uses by far the most graphical resources in the entire game. It is a good place to optimize in.
-
Now that you're in the farm, after the intro camera concludes, stand there and with your cursor navigate into:
Game Settings -> More Settings -(Scroll all the way down)> Show FPS Counter -> Select "Both"
-
Now go back into the game and see if standing around the farm entrance it says "100%" (99.8% is fine, it will sometimes do that), if it is not 100% you want to turn the graphics down a notch (if you haven't messed with the graphics, tick the "Disable Slower Effects" option).
-
While in the graphics settings UNTICK the following settings:

• In System Settings -> Untick - "Fast memory"
• In System Settings -> Scroll all the way to the bottom and change the nickname to something you prefer
• In System Settings -> Click on "Change MAC Address" a random amount of times
  

-
That's the settings done (for now)! Just click "back" until you return to game.
NOTE: As your farm gets developed it will become more intense for the emulation, thus you want to make sure there's some "breathing room" with the 100% emulation speed thing.


Chapter 2: Tunngle!
Once your Tunngle is installed, it will ask you to restart! Just do it.

Once you launch Tunngle, it will ask you to log in.
-
Once logged in click on "Home",
On the left side there will be a search box, type "Monster" into this search box.
-
Once the search is complete, you will see a few channels such as:
Monster Hunter
Monster Hunter Freedom Unite
and some other ones...
Double click "Monster Hunter"
-
You will see a big box with text in it (talking about ventrilos/mumbles and such) and on the right side there will be a list of people in that channel, you can type into the chat to ask if anyone is around and see if they are "Hosting".
-
When you find someone who's hosting, scroll over their name, you will see their Tunngle IP and "Ping", for good play experience the Ping should be below 180, anything above that will cause players disconnecting, jittering and other such atrocities.
-
To make use of this magical IP,
you go to Game Settings -> More Settings -> System Settings -> "Change proAdhocServer IP address"

There you type in the IP of said person (i.e. 123.456.789.432), then click OK, go back into the game and continue with this guide!
-
Before entering a gathering hall, ALWAYS press F2, it will ensure you save a state of the game before entering, and in case your emulator crashes during entry you can just restart it, start the game and press F4 to get back to where you were.

if it freezes: I suggest waiting for 20 seconds if its the first time you're entering a GH which someone is hosting, maybe they mis-configured something, if this is the case, you will get a comms error.
-
And once you successfully connected...

Voila! You're in! Enjoy your time on MHP3rd!

BONUS ROUND:
If the little smiley face at the bottom of Tunngle is yellow or green, you can host your own gathering hall with a program called "adHocServerPro" (google it), and then people can take YOUR IP from Tunngle and connect to you!
Note: To enter your own online gathering hall, use the Tunngle IP it gives you at the bottom left corner.


NOTES:
The emulator DOES NOT crash that often, it might crash once every 2-3 hours of playtime. The game is EXTREMELY STABLE when in all other aspects of it. I've personally tested every single map and zone to make sure after this game it will run well for you.

NOTES:
Works perfectly with:
2 People
4 People

Crashes 1 person when there are 3 players engaging on a quest. So always make sure you have either 2 or 4 players!

Q&A:
Q: "My friend is hosting, but I don't see anyone in the gathering hall... I got the IP and everything is correct; what is happening?"
A: You want to make sure your computers firewall is letting the PPSSPP and Tunngle through to the internet.

Q: "My PPSSPP is saying I'm missing a .dll file?"
A: You want to install "Visual C++ Redistributable Packages for Visual Studio 2013" <-- just google it

Q: "Will there be any low rank players that will play with me? I don't want to have the game ruined for me by being boosted"
A: There are many different players out there, some high rank, some low rank and some would be very happy to start anew to join you!

Q: "I am not very good at Monster Hunter, I am worried people will make fun of me."
A: Don't worry about that at all! Everyone knows how hard Monster Hunter is, no matter how bad you think you're doing; you're AWESOME because you choose to play this difficult game!

Q: "My computer is too slow to run the HD version "
A: The genuine-PSP version works as well, HOWEVER you may have to dig around the forum to find a version of the emulator that will run it (as there's a set of lines not-yet-implemented into the current emulator version).

Q: "Is it possible to transfer saves from PC to PSP and back? Will they work?"
A: Yes they will, the saves for both versions are identical.

Q: "Nobody responds to me on Tunngle "
A: People tend to be pretty inactive there, however if you wait around 5 - 15 minutes you are certain to find someone who's alive!

Q: [i]"After successfully picking a Gathering Hall, it loaded and then said "Communications Error", what do I do?"
A: Go back into "Game Settings -> More Settings... -> System -> MAC Address (and click a few times on this to randomize it) and then try entering the hall again!

[barbanium]

Untick - "Simulate block transfer"
This is not necessary. It might be even better if you leave it on.

Also, I'd advise you to stop using save states at ANY POINT OF PLAYING THE GAME during multiplayer sessions.
Better yet, don't use save states at all.
You'd rather waste some time loading the game all over again when PPSSPP crashes than have a save file problem like not being able to save normally ever again, right?

[fuzzout]

Well, I will edit that out then
Thank you!

[Lunstra]

Hey I've been trying to get this working for me and a friend today, first time messing around with a psp emulator, followed all your steps and checked and double checked everything that we could find off google and no matter what we still drop once we load into the hunt.
We have a ping between us of ~10ms and we've tried with pretty much every combinations of settings on and off and still not got it working, any ideas? Would really love to be able to play this again since my psp crapped out

[barbanium]

You may find the solution here: http://forums.ppsspp.org/showthread.php?tid=12714
Check at the bottom for the FAQ section.

[Lunstra]

Thanks, turned out it was my firewall after all

[barbanium]

Do note: turning the firewall off works the same way.
It's just not recommended 'cause other unrelated programs won't be protected from whatever's trying to attack your PC.

Also, don't forget to allow "adhocsever.exe" connect to PRIVATE and PUBLIC networks as well.

[fuzzout]

I updated the guide with a Q & A

[Lunstra]

Oh something I forgot yesterday because I was tired. With me, while it wasn't Windows Firewall causing the issue (quest taking ages to load and then dropping instantly) it was the firewall on my anti virus, worth mentioning that settings in that may need to be changed if you get the issue I had. Thanks again for that FAQ though it pointed me to the last thing I'd overlooked