Link-Dead running the QoS network emulator with 400ms ping and 50% packet loss!
Written by MM. Posted at 7:01 am on July 31st, 2009
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Pfeh!
*Real men* code P2P decentalized server-less multiplayer, with neural-net auto-organizing dynamic distributed mesh gamestate graphs.
Only whiney pussies and women run back to their “central servers”.
If Conan was a coder, I’m sure he’d code a P2P server.
archont: I take the challenge.
Haha, so we won’t be seeing the game for another couple of months. But that’s okay, this is just what it needed. Great challenge archont!
If you actually make it, it means you’re good.
P2P multiplayer is both inherently superior as well as harder to implement. On one hand it allows for substantial ping drop, survivability in case of server disconnect and smoothness, on the other it creates problems like what to do with a lagging client and the overal complexity.
Are my eyes deceiving me? Is it the sprite on the right that’s lagging (400ms behind)? At the end of the clip he throws down his weapon first, but it seems like the left sprite is the home sprite or main one. If that is the case, then the emulator dropped the ping down to -20 ping (which is going back in time at that point) when the you dropped the weapon, and that made the right one drop it first.
If you made a game that can actually go back in time, please share the code with me. I have an idea for lotto numbers. Lol.
Hey, incredible progress.. =)
Snow: LOL!!!
Hey, incredible progress.. =)
Snow: LOL!!!
Hey, I really didn’t see that before SNOW pointed it out. Good observation!
How the heck can the player on the right receive an image before the actual command was given on the left??
Easy. Throwing the gun away isn’t instant, just like in soldat. I’m assuming there’s no animation yet and the gun is simply ejected some time after the user initiated the action. Which would imply the lagged instance ejected the gun as soon as it got the message, without waiting for the server to finish the animation countdown.
Damn I’m smart.
MM, you should ask for donations. Or have some donate button on your website.
im actually fine with how this is turning out. Can somone explain to me how this P2P netcode works. Is it where players download other players info or somehing like that. I see it in alot of online games, even games on PSP.
In the traditional server architectureevery client connects to the server and the server holds the actual gamestate. Clients send updates to the server, the server modifies it’s game state and then sends messages to all other clients to sync them with the current gamestate.
Let’s suppose we have two players from Somalia playing on a polish server. As per their tradition, sandnigger nr1 decides to stick half a mag worth of 7,62×93 up his fellow countryman’s bunghole. However before sandnigger nr2 can feel the effects of the extreme lead poisoning, the message has to travel to Poland and then back again to Somalia. The result is a miss caused by severe lag and as seen on Black Hawk Down, clear lack of marksmanship skills to boot.
Now a P2P architecture first and foremost avoids a central hub server, meaning the lead pebbles of joy can travel directly to their recipent without having to stop by Poland first. A smart P2P architecture can dynamically assign computers that have the best connection the role of enforcing sync or relaying messages. What this means in practical terms is that lag is reduced to the smallest value that is physically possible achieve in the given network.
It complicates and is rather needless for LAN games where ping is so deliciously low, but is the technology of the future for internet games. It’s hard to do and requires a genius on crack, but it’s scalable, it’s resistent, it’s optimally fast and gives massive bragging rights, along with a great pick-up like for the ladies.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH! I get it. it does make more sence. But I think that coding this again will pospone the game tramendously. Im going to leave this site and not coming back for atleast another 3 months so…you ppl better have something done lol. I would be happy do donate to you MM. But im not rich so…
its going to be really tough to program…
il donate if i get to see some goddamn graphics π im all into the soldier vs cyberpunk thingy and the mechs ofcourse : O is that implented yet michal ??
i will donate when i see the game working and kicking asses π
Hey, take a look at this guy’s implementation of the background, it just blends in nicely, you almost think you’re there.
But what I really enjoy are the the lightnings and the flying planes in the background, I think it adds to the game atmosphere, Michal please make this kind of animations a possibility.
Silly me…forgot the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq1thGLpbKs&NR=1
Yeah throwing a weapon is server side thats why it happens first on the right.
archont: Maybe I dont know something but a P2P model doesnt seem that hard to do with my current netcode implementation. Is there any game already done like that?
I imagine preventing hacking would be ridiculously hard. Unless there is one client assigned as an ‘authority’.
“along with a great pick-up like for the ladies.”
Come back to my house, we’ll peer together all night long.
MM, I imagine RTS games already use the technology… thus why some games *coughEAcough* are really annoying to play online, because if you get ONE player with a firewall, you’re fucked.
there we got a point lol, unless michael programs something that either negates a firewall or goes right thru the fucker.
i vote both.
mmm how about creating a virtual LAN alike like hamachi? i figured/noticed hamachi tries to make everyone have the fastest/best connection by p2p. im off for holiday now, 2,5 weeks less jabbing from another goddamned fan. its gonna get silent here lol.
Good luck with LD.
Hamachi still falls over, I think, if two people both have firewalls.
If you send a packet first the firewall allows the response to come. This wouldn’t be a problem P2P programs work this way. There must be one master server at least to keep all the IP addresses that’s all (like eMule or Torrent).
If Dark Reign 2 had P2P-based online play I’d still be playing it.
The master server (mother of all other servers) got shut down long time ago so online play is impossible.
R.I.P Dark Reign 2.
This will happen to Link-Dead too if it doesn’t have P2P.
why dont we all just try the game with his netcode and see if we like it…
Dear, mm – next time you’ll post some clips of your game, would yo please add some Metallica as a background sound to them ? Orion has something in it that fits perfectly to this game. Kthnxbai
MM: A good example is Supreme Commander. They’re developing their.. lessee.. *fourth* game on the same engine and it’s quite possible that they’ll finally move to beta of their netcode here.
Also yes, cheating is a problem for P2P networks. Since the packet size is tiny, by today’s standards, there’s nothing against having an verification server that only receives messages without sending updates, and if it sees possible cheating (or signs of it, such as cosmic ping) it then rewrites the boot sector, thumbnails all image and video files along with name and size of all *.mp3’s and sends the the local police dept whilst disabling thermal throttling and overclocking both CPU and GPU. Or it just kicks the player. But that would be pretty boring.
Soldat is a game that runs pretty smooth. I think that whatever MM did with his netcode, its fine the way it is. The problem I think everyone should worry mostly about is #1. Hackers and #2. Douchebags.
ZeroG001: Hackers ARE douchebags.
Cerv: but douchebags aren’t always hackers π
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