P2P, Games & Online *spin-off
- Thread starter patsu
- Start date
I think people who don't see lag in CoD4 either think smoothness means absence of lag, or simply don't care -which is weird to me because it effects the strategy significantly.
The situation is worse in CoD4 too.
Killing takes less time than amount of lag, and game doesn't bother to balance it, meaning the host "proximity" pretty much decides the outcome of any kind of duel, knife battle, etc.
In Resistance for example, two snipers can always kill each other at the same time, despite being an instant kill and lag being unavoidable however small.
I'll take that bet. First, IW doesn't hide p2p nature of the game (on consoles at least).
Second, it's not even clear CoD4 bothers to send noncritical stuff (such as stats) to a server.
Third, when I'm behind a reguler NAT without any port forwarding, I'm unable to host a game.
Really? I know the Xbox 360 has a pretty low limit. Where as dedicated servers on the PC version often have 50 player limits, and most of the popular servers have around a 32 player limit or so. I also don't think its a rendering power issue for the console versions, just latency.
Anyway, back to Resistance Dos. I'm going to keep my eye on this title, the change in art direction for an overall look impresses me and the lighting model really does. I would like to see how it's multiplayer works out. Did the original have vehicles? Any plans for such with this sequel? Please tell me no.
I'll take that bet. First, IW doesn't hide p2p nature of the game (on consoles at least).
Second, it's not even clear CoD4 bothers to send noncritical stuff (such as stats) to a server.
Third, when I'm behind a reguler NAT without any port forwarding, I'm unable to host a game.
I simply don't believe you'd use P2P for a FPS when you're talking about 8, 12, 16 players. You'd pick one player to host the game and make everyone else a client, just like Halo 2 and 3 (and countless other Xbox live games). P2P would mean that even the player with the worst upload would (try to) upload roughly as much data as the best uploader. You'd also end up sending replicated game state data to countless other peers instead of just the once to the host.
You balance latency and upload and give the hosting duties to the player with the best connection. You could still use P2P for chat (for example) if you wanted, transmitting only to the other players in range (for example).
Have IW actually described how their network code works, and confirmed that every player sends their game state data to everyone else, and that every player has to synchronise with every other player? Just because something isn't using a dedicated server doesn't mean it's simply P2P.
If clients trying to connect to a host can't see the hosts ports I'd guess that could stump hosting attempts ...
Skrying said:
Most PC custom servers aren't running off someones 128 kbps upload home broadband connection though. As an experiment, set up a PC server and host a 50 player game from a typical home connection and get 50 of your friends to connect from around the world. See how they report their experience.
As a further experiement, start a bit torrent download on the server's coonection and see how things deteriorate.
The beauty of Xbox Live is that MS don't have to pay for expensive game hosting hardware and bandwidth, and that the service scales with the number of users of each game.
Which is still called p2p.
Wrong, p2p simply means absence of a centralized server, it doesn't put any constraints on communication between peers, meaning symmetry and balance are not required.
Yes
Perhaps I'm using terminology incorrectly - my experience of online game programming is very limited. When I was learning using Java and Direct Play (particularly Direct Play) it appeared that in the documentation and "how to" books a "server" was a machine that ran the game and received connections from the clients. The server maintained the game state and was responsible for adding or removing players.
You could decide amongst a group of computers which would host, and then one would, to all intents and purpose, begin a server. This host machine could also have a player, and would be the host. Despite most of the server options being hidden from user, it is this model that Xbox Live appears to use, and I imaging PS3 games will be similar.
Despite Xbox Live being a network of peers, I think it is misleading to describe the way games operate on it when they're up and running as P2P. With P2P based netcode for your game if a host leaves the game has no need to dump every player out, or keep every player waiting ages while a new player is set up as the host (meaning, in terms of actual game operation, the server).
A none dedicated server is still a server. A host maintaining the game state and handling connections is, in actual fact, a server for that instance of the game.
If you feel any of this is wrong, or that in your experience the user hosted games (on Xbox PS3) are doing something different, it'd be nice to hear!
[Edit: OMG, this post is an appalling mess]
Last edited by a moderator:
Yeah, I think you're right.
I'd guess that P2P best describes the general relationship between Xboxes on Xbox Live, but that client/server might usually best describe the relationship between machines involved in a specific instance of an online game.
To be clear about what I mean, I'm talking about when a host:
- Decides if you can connect to the instance and talk to other players
- Has the power to boot you and end your connection to the game
- Maintaines the game state that all other players' machines must bow down to
- Takes other player updates, updates the One True Version of the world, and broadcasts The Way Things Are to the other systems
- etc
... then your relationship to the host is not that of a peer. It's the same as to a server (dedicated or otherwise) in your typical PC game. The reason I bring this up is that Xbox Live's problems often get blamed on it being "P2P", when the reason Xbox Live can suck so badly is actually that the games are normally hosted (i.e. the server is running) on a relatively flaky connection.
I actually like the idea of user hosted games (prefereably in addition to professionally hosted servers which can support huge numbers of players!) and don't think it's anything to worry about in itself, even if it requires reduced player numbers (as is the norm with Xbox Live games). A combination of user and professionally hosted games is a strong point for the PS3 IMO.
Sixty player Resistance sounds excellent and would definitely be something impressive for the PS3 to bring into the online battle against the Xbox.
Nah, P2P means no one is the server, rather all connections are peers in determining the game state, like we had back in the early days of network gaming. Modren games use client/server networking, though the vast majorty of 360 games use listen servers rather than dedicated ones.
Forza 2 and I think both PGRs use a type where all clients have a direct connection to all other clients. Of course still one of them needs to set up game parameters and those have to be gotten from somewhere, but other than that, while the game is running, it seems largely P2P. There's a post about this from Turn10 somewhere I think, where he explains why some people have connection issues and how to deal with them.
Fortunately I'm still good at googling (and it helps of course that the very helpful post is still up there ... che is great. He's the best thing about Forza)
http://forums.forzamotorsport.net/forums/thread/232491.aspx
chespace said:
Interesting find! I'd guess that racing games face a big problem with people quitting once they've finished the face (before others may have finished) and people quitting once they think they can't win. Relying on one player to act as server would probably result in a high frequency of aborted races, effectively destroying the game's online component. P2P is much more robust!
Similar threads
