Earlier this year, Chad Paulson found himself in a bind. The Indiana University student learned several LAN-enabled Nintendo GameCube games--Kirby Air Ride, 1080 Avalanche, and Mario Kart: Double Dash!virtually real time.

　　However, as promising as the Warp Pipe project is, the program is only an un-optimized alpha version (currently in v2.0), and won't support residential cable and dsl connections until the beta version. Also, so far Warp Pipe can only support two-Cube games, another limitation Paulson hopes to overcome by Mario Kart's November release.

　　Warp Pipe's progress hasn't been easy. Paulson and his collaborators, all part of the sourceforge.net Open Source development collective, have been working on the project for months while holding down real jobs and/or taking a full load of classes.

　　Surprisingly, though, he still has high praise for Nintendo. "I actually understand Nintendo's position on online gaming," said Paulson." Many criticize the company, but they are traditional Japanese business conservatives. In many ways, they are geniuses in business development and feature requests."

　　For a complete breakdown on how Warp Pipe works, check out the technical information page on the official Warp Pipe site and the ongoing coverage of the project on Game Cube Advanced.

　　Currently Kirby Air Ride is available for the GameCube, while Mario Kart: Double Dash!! is due November 11 and 1080 Avalanche is set to ship on December 1.