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From: Colin F. <cp...@ea...> - 2003-01-28 16:09:09
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2003 January 28th Tuesday I have created an OpenGL-based application with video capture, image processing, and Artificial Intelligence, to play a variant of the video game Tetris running on another computer. http://www.colinfahey.com/2003jan_tetris/2003jan_tetris.htm All source code and a compiled executable can be downloaded. Finally I am getting around to finishing those wacky projects I envisioned in college! --- Colin cp...@ea... http://www.colinfahey.com |
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From: Jamie F. <ja...@qu...> - 2003-01-28 11:14:26
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hmm, there is no source license for our stuff. PC version is free for commercial purposes, then console version is (a mighty reasonable, imo, having looked at middleware at the last company i worked for) 50,000 euros per product. so our business model isn't really based on the technology either, we'd have to sell bucketloads of the stuff to make money at that price :) jamie -----Original Message----- From: gam...@li... [mailto:gam...@li...]On Behalf Of mike wuetherick Sent: 28 January 2003 07:07 To: gam...@li... Subject: Re: [GD-General] Level Editors it's just a matter of a different business model. the source is also closed, which gives them a considerable business market for serious developers (ie $$$) that can test the engine out for free and then decide whether they choose to dive into a considerable investment, ie the source license. often companies end up investing in technology that may or may not work for their particular purpose, but it's only after considerable financial expense that they discover the weaknesses in the software....i think this is a very brave move for them - gets people access to the tools (which look very nice indeed) and helps spread the word about the technology. any exposure is good exposure - let your engine speak for itself. my company, well, we just give it all away for free - our business model is based on 'uses' of the technology instead of the technology itself. mike w www.uber-geek.ca ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ivan Galic" <dea...@ga...> To: <gam...@li...> Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 4:29 AM Subject: Re: [GD-General] Level Editors > > QStudio is strongly led by the applications we're developing, so it > doesn't > > get the chance to not be useful :) > > I understand that, I have formulated my question wrong. What I wanted to ask > is why is it free? > But I quess I've already got my answer(selling it for consoles). > > Thanks anyway. > -Ivan > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.NET email is sponsored by: > SourceForge Enterprise Edition + IBM + LinuxWorld = Something 2 See! > http://www.vasoftware.com > _______________________________________________ > Gamedevlists-general mailing list > Gam...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gamedevlists-general > Archives: > http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_id=557 > ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.NET email is sponsored by: SourceForge Enterprise Edition + IBM + LinuxWorld = Something 2 See! http://www.vasoftware.com _______________________________________________ Gamedevlists-general mailing list Gam...@li... https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gamedevlists-general Archives: http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_id=557 |
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From: Jamie F. <ja...@qu...> - 2003-01-28 11:08:12
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ah :) basically, we think it's a good idea, in that it will get people interested in the engine. hobbyists can provide a useful pool of testers and enthusiasts which has some influence on professional developers (fingers crossed :). if people want to license the console version, then we make some money :) that's my understanding of it, anyway :) jamie -----Original Message----- From: gam...@li... [mailto:gam...@li...]On Behalf Of Ivan Galic Sent: 27 January 2003 12:30 To: gam...@li... Subject: Re: [GD-General] Level Editors > QStudio is strongly led by the applications we're developing, so it doesn't > get the chance to not be useful :) I understand that, I have formulated my question wrong. What I wanted to ask is why is it free? But I quess I've already got my answer(selling it for consoles). Thanks anyway. -Ivan ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.NET email is sponsored by: SourceForge Enterprise Edition + IBM + LinuxWorld = Something 2 See! http://www.vasoftware.com _______________________________________________ Gamedevlists-general mailing list Gam...@li... https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gamedevlists-general Archives: http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_id=557 |
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From: mike w. <mi...@ub...> - 2003-01-28 07:04:31
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it's just a matter of a different business model. the source is also closed, which gives them a considerable business market for serious developers (ie $$$) that can test the engine out for free and then decide whether they choose to dive into a considerable investment, ie the source license. often companies end up investing in technology that may or may not work for their particular purpose, but it's only after considerable financial expense that they discover the weaknesses in the software....i think this is a very brave move for them - gets people access to the tools (which look very nice indeed) and helps spread the word about the technology. any exposure is good exposure - let your engine speak for itself. my company, well, we just give it all away for free - our business model is based on 'uses' of the technology instead of the technology itself. mike w www.uber-geek.ca ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ivan Galic" <dea...@ga...> To: <gam...@li...> Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 4:29 AM Subject: Re: [GD-General] Level Editors > > QStudio is strongly led by the applications we're developing, so it > doesn't > > get the chance to not be useful :) > > I understand that, I have formulated my question wrong. What I wanted to ask > is why is it free? > But I quess I've already got my answer(selling it for consoles). > > Thanks anyway. > -Ivan > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.NET email is sponsored by: > SourceForge Enterprise Edition + IBM + LinuxWorld = Something 2 See! > http://www.vasoftware.com > _______________________________________________ > Gamedevlists-general mailing list > Gam...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gamedevlists-general > Archives: > http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_id=557 > |
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From: Ivan G. <dea...@ga...> - 2003-01-28 06:57:41
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> QStudio is strongly led by the applications we're developing, so it doesn't > get the chance to not be useful :) I understand that, I have formulated my question wrong. What I wanted to ask is why is it free? But I quess I've already got my answer(selling it for consoles). Thanks anyway. -Ivan |
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From: Jamie F. <ja...@qu...> - 2003-01-27 11:25:26
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geometry, skinning, etc. are done in Max and Maya, along with initial guesses at lighting and shader properties. then in QStudio we: - author particle effects - tweak shaders to get them just right - tweak lighting, fogging, etc. - place game entities (creatures, doors, switches, etc.) - test and tweak the state machines for skinned characters (you can build them entirely within QStudio, but once you get used to the file format it's easier to write it by hand) - tweak LODs - add designer-level objects to the world (e.g. cameras for cut scenes) it's capable of quite a lot more, and eventually it will be our world builder, and we will only use max and maya for building the components for the worlds. you can use it for that already, it just hasn't got all the productivity features we'd like quite yet :) it's also the easiest way to navigate our databases :) QStudio is strongly led by the applications we're developing, so it doesn't get the chance to not be useful :) jamie -----Original Message----- From: gam...@li... [mailto:gam...@li...]On Behalf Of Ivan Galic Sent: 25 January 2002 13:18 To: gam...@li... Subject: Re: [GD-General] Level Editors > our engine (which is free for commercial use on PC) comes with an editor. it > has a robust plug-in architecture, although i'm not sure any third party has > yet used it in anger (but it's what all the supplied features use). > http://www.qubesoft.com/q/studio.php > we have a fair pedigree, as our core team was the core rendermorphics and > d3d team way back when. > Thanks so much for this! It's very well documented, and well designed, which I appreciate the most. I'm just curious - what use do you make of this? -Ivan ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.NET email is sponsored by: SourceForge Enterprise Edition + IBM + LinuxWorld = Something 2 See! http://www.vasoftware.com _______________________________________________ Gamedevlists-general mailing list Gam...@li... https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gamedevlists-general Archives: http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_id=557 |
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From: Tom H. <to...@3d...> - 2003-01-26 19:56:57
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At 04:25 PM 1/24/2003, you wrote: >There seems to be a lot of information on true Client/Server architectures >on the net, but no tmuch devoted to P2P, which is a shame really as I'd >imagine with most PS2Online/Xbox Live games they take the P2P approach. Probably the biggest problem with P2P these days is that many (most?) of the clients are behind NATs and therefore can't act as servers without configuring their NAT to support port forwarding of the ports your game uses. This is beyond a great many end users and ends up generating a lot of support headaches. I don't know how true this is of consoles, though my own PS/2 is behind a NAT ;) Tom |
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From: Pierre T. <p.t...@wa...> - 2003-01-26 15:12:52
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Hello, I have this warning in VC++ 6.0 in various places : Contact.lib(IceCore.dll) : warning LNK4006: __NULL_IMPORT_DESCRIPTOR already defined in Contact.lib(IceMaths.dll); second definition ignored What is this "null" descriptor ? How can I get rid of this ? Thanks, Pierre |
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From: Thatcher U. <tu...@tu...> - 2003-01-25 17:25:30
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On Jan 25, 2003 at 12:25 +0000, Andrew Sharpe wrote: > I'm interested in the concept of P2P with one client acting as the > server, as Mick and Phil mentioned, with the others running their > own logic and physics but bowing to the results obtained from the > server-client. [...] > There seems to be a lot of information on true Client/Server > architectures on the net, but no tmuch devoted to P2P, which is a > shame really as I'd imagine with most PS2Online/Xbox Live games they > take the P2P approach. For the networking of VR Bikes/Climbers (see http://tulrich.com/tectrixvr) which were basically embedded PC's hooked together in a serial loop with no possibility of a dedicated server, we used a sort of "distributed server". Each object in the world has one machine that is authoritative for it. The authoritative machine sends periodic updates for each of its objects. All machines simulate all objects locally. When an object update is received over the network from an authoritative machine, it is pushed into the local state. The object partitioning basically works like this: 1. Every machine was the server for the player-object on that machine 2. The machines were ranked from 0 to (N-1) (we did this with serial numbers, but IP addresses should work), and the objects all had integer IDs. A machine was the server for an object if machine_rank == (object_id % N) It's all self-organizing; machines can enter or leave the simulation at will, and things behave extremely robustly. There is no one machine that bears a disproportionate share of bandwidth. If a machine drops out, the rest of the simulation proceeds, and the object responsibilities get automatically reshuffled once the machine has been missing for a few seconds. Everybody has an independent notion of the world-state, so there's no one point of failure. If machines *do* drop in and out frequently, there's definitely a chance of objects popping around, although machines first entering the network go into a "listen" mode for a few seconds in order to get their objects synced to the rest of the network's state, to keep new machines from disrupting existing distributed state. There is the possibility for "inconsistent" interactions, although in practice I don't think it's much worse than any networking model. You have to trust the clients though, and it can be more complicated to program some object types. -- Thatcher Ulrich http://tulrich.com |
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From: Ivan G. <dea...@ga...> - 2003-01-25 13:18:06
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> our engine (which is free for commercial use on PC) comes with an editor. it > has a robust plug-in architecture, although i'm not sure any third party has > yet used it in anger (but it's what all the supplied features use). > http://www.qubesoft.com/q/studio.php > we have a fair pedigree, as our core team was the core rendermorphics and > d3d team way back when. > Thanks so much for this! It's very well documented, and well designed, which I appreciate the most. I'm just curious - what use do you make of this? -Ivan |
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From: <ash...@ya...> - 2003-01-25 00:25:38
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Hi, First thanks a lot to Mick for the info about Tony Hawk, it makes a lot of sense that due to the game (and lack of interactive objects!) that you can offload the authorative collision detection and gameplay to a server. Not something that would work for a lot of gametypes but if it works, it works! I'm interested in the concept of P2P with one client acting as the server, as Mick and Phil mentioned, with the others running their own logic and physics but bowing to the results obtained from the server-client. I actually coded a very simple P2P application today out of interest, two bouncing balls controllable by keys (there's advantages to homenetworks!). At the moment everything is running lockstepped where all inputs are sent and each client performs the same calculations in the same order at roughly the same time. Works well but not, I'd imagine, something you'd want to run with high latency. So, my next approach (and shout if you see anything wrong!) will be; One client is designated the server Each client sends all non-movement updates (e.g chat, which i don't have but you get the point!) to all other clients All control inputs are sent to the server client which performs physics for the entire world and sends updates out Individual clients run physics based on their input and extrapolated (or interploated if you run a frame or two behind. I can't decide which is best) Individual clients should see next to no difference in their vehicle/player/whatever providing they are not interacted with by other players. All other physical entities are updated based on the results of the server I suppose all clients could send their inputs to all other clients so they could act upon these inputs before bowing to the server, but I'm not sure that'd be much more effective and would increase the bandwidth needed by all clients. The bonus to having one client perform the duties of a server would be that slow or narrow band connections will perform much better than a true P2P structure I'd imagine. There seems to be a lot of information on true Client/Server architectures on the net, but no tmuch devoted to P2P, which is a shame really as I'd imagine with most PS2Online/Xbox Live games they take the P2P approach. Thanks, Andrew phi...@pl... wrote: AFAIK SOCOM is a classic client/server model, with centralised servers, while TMB online is P2P, although only in that one of the clients also acts as a server. Another client can become the server, if the host-client drops out (AKA host migration), I believe that this means that each client is running full physics and logic, but discarding results upon receipt of data from the server. I think the more direct client interaction a game recquires, the worse the network experience generally is. Both of those games suffer on that front, but it could be worse. I once worked on an online 1-on-1 fighting game. Lag's kinda fatal in that environment... Cheers, Phil "Mick West" Sent by: To: gam...@li...urc cc: eforge.net Fax to: Subject: RE: [GD-General] Online Gaming 01/23/2003 03:25 PM Please respond to gamedevlists-general c) it's not really P2P. Clients are deterministic, and ignore what's happening on other clients. One "client" is also a "server", which arbitrates scoring and collision between clients. The server tells the clients when they have been hit, and they fall over. The clients tell the server where they are and what they look like, and the server relay this to the other clients, who just display the other skaters at a few frames before their last known good position, extrapolating only if data fails to arrive in good time. It only works because there is very little interaction between clients (they don't shoot each other, and most of our online games don't rely on skater-skater interactions). Also there are no moving objects in mutli-player games, so we dont have to worry about crates or vehicles. It's pretty specific to our type of game, and is probably not what they use in SOCOM. MIck -----Original Message----- From: gam...@li... [mailto:gam...@li...] On Behalf Of Andrew Sharpe Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2003 1:43 PM To: gam...@li... Subject: [GD-General] Online Gaming After getting my PS2 network adaptor I've been playing SOCOM online for the past few days. Today though I put on a copy of Tony Hawk4 and was pretty surprised with how it played online. Even on what I'd consider to be laggy servers (200-250 ping) the game seemed remarkably fluent and consistent, i.e no warping players. Although I've played lots of FPS games which usually use a client/server architecture I'd never really played a fast-paced peer-to-peer game and always assumed that on anything other than LAN or fast broadband the game would suffer. Although I'm familiar with how C/S architectures work and how the effects of latency can be compensated for, I've never really given P2P much thought before in terms of how games can achieve a smooth playing experience, or even how their network update is structured. Possibilities I can think of for fast action games using P2P: a) Clients are fully deterministic and perform a lock-stepped update based on inputs from all clients. For instance all clients perform their physics update based on inputs from clients during frame 180 and obtain identical results. Problems: this means that there's a delay between input & response, even on the local client, of around half the ping time to the slowest machine. Not too good I'd imagine on a slow connection. b) All clients send their essential information (position, orientation, etc) and run their physics based on the last, or extrapolated details of other players. Problems: clients may come up with slightly different results due to extrapolated data for other players (e.g the client coliding with another vehicle). There's also the problem of non-player entities in the world, for instance a crate, which may end up with different positions on different machines if some form of correction is not performed to remove errors due to the above problem. There's probably other problems or solutions I've not thought of though! I'd be very interested in comments from people who've implemented P2P solutions in games aimed at the online market though, especially to do with how they handled gameworld physics and physical non-player entities. Very fascinating subject. Thanks, Andrew With Yahoo! Mail you can get a bigger mailbox -- choose a size that fits your needs ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.NET email is sponsored by: SourceForge Enterprise Edition + IBM + LinuxWorld = Something 2 See! http://www.vasoftware.com _______________________________________________ Gamedevlists-general mailing list Gam...@li... https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gamedevlists-general Archives: http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_idU7 --------------------------------- With Yahoo! Mail you can get a bigger mailbox -- choose a size that fits your needs |
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From: Brian H. <bri...@py...> - 2003-01-24 21:26:27
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>These are good and do hit some of the high spots. What I need= is >more of the basics. A (game) client can't just post a query and= then >block waiting for the reply from the server. I'm also trying to >utilize the new zero config (rendezvous) stuff (which is easy >compared to streams. ;-). The canonical reference book on this is Unix Network Programming= by Stevens. It's pretty much the de facto bible on TCP and UDP programming and it covers a lot of the really basic stuff. Brian |
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From: mike w. <mi...@ub...> - 2003-01-24 20:41:11
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i have a few that i've found to be useful - directx complete has a section on directplay with basic applications, pretty useful... and there's another that is more platform inspecific, but not related to games though called 'programming the win32 api and unix system services' that is pretty good - covers the basics of sockets and whatnot for all platforms, plus has sections on multithreading and memory management...found it pretty useful doing what limited network hacking i attempt...by hacking i'm refering to my programming ability, not the intent ;} mike w www.uber-geek.ca ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Rabin" <St...@no...> To: <gam...@li...> Sent: Friday, January 24, 2003 11:50 AM Subject: re: [GD-General] Online Gaming > > The book Game Programming Gems 3 contains 9 articles in the "Network and Multiplayer" section that span about 90 pages... Since I'm not a networking expert, I can't really attest to the quality of the articles - but my guess is that they are fairly good and written from real game experience. > > Blatant Plug (that might save you money): > If anyone was thinking of buying any of the GPG books or my own AI Wisdom book, I keep an up-to-date list of the cheapest prices, complete with coupons codes for Barnes and Noble and such: > > GPG series: http://www.aiwisdom.com/bookshelf_gpg.html > AI Wisdom: http://www.aiwisdom.com/bookshelf_aiwisdom.html > > Note that none of my links are hooked to kickbacks from any of the booksellers and I take no ad revenue. These unbiased lists will help you to get the cheapest price... which at the moment is $43.37 for these $69.95 books. > > -Steve > > > >>> bri...@py... 01/24/03 11:15AM >>> > >Can anyone recommend any good "Programming Network Games" books? > > There are none. There's one book published by PRIMA called > Multiplayer Game Programming that is fairly close to useless. There > is another book out that I can't remember that _sounds_ like it's > really good, but it's very expensive and the authors don't have much > street cred so I'm a little leery of recommending it. > > I've been meaning to write a basic document on the fundamentals of > multiplayer game programming, but it's such a complicated topic that > it's hard to really describe. Each piece is easy, but you can't get > it working until ALL the pieces are in place at once. > > Brian |
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From: Steve R. <St...@no...> - 2003-01-24 19:51:02
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The book Game Programming Gems 3 contains 9 articles in the "Network and = Multiplayer" section that span about 90 pages... Since I'm not a networking= expert, I can't really attest to the quality of the articles - but my = guess is that they are fairly good and written from real game experience. Blatant Plug (that might save you money): If anyone was thinking of buying any of the GPG books or my own AI Wisdom = book, I keep an up-to-date list of the cheapest prices, complete with = coupons codes for Barnes and Noble and such: GPG series: http://www.aiwisdom.com/bookshelf_gpg.html AI Wisdom: http://www.aiwisdom.com/bookshelf_aiwisdom.html Note that none of my links are hooked to kickbacks from any of the = booksellers and I take no ad revenue. These unbiased lists will help you = to get the cheapest price... which at the moment is $43.37 for these = $69.95 books. -Steve >>> bri...@py... 01/24/03 11:15AM >>> >Can anyone recommend any good "Programming Network Games" books? There are none. There's one book published by PRIMA called Multiplayer Game Programming that is fairly close to useless. There is another book out that I can't remember that _sounds_ like it's really good, but it's very expensive and the authors don't have much street cred so I'm a little leery of recommending it. I've been meaning to write a basic document on the fundamentals of multiplayer game programming, but it's such a complicated topic that it's hard to really describe. Each piece is easy, but you can't get it working until ALL the pieces are in place at once. Brian ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.NET email is sponsored by: SourceForge Enterprise Edition + IBM + LinuxWorld =3D Something 2 See! http://www.vasoftware.com=20 _______________________________________________ Gamedevlists-general mailing list Gam...@li...=20 https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gamedevlists-general=20 Archives: http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_idU7 |
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From: <phi...@pl...> - 2003-01-24 19:45:02
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...and this is somehow different from quoting the entirety of the email
you're repling to?
Anyway, cut me some slack, I have to use Notes as an email client. Any time
you see me doing that funky > prefixing, I did it by hand.
Cheers,
Phil
George Warner <ge...@ap...>
Sent by: To: <gam...@li...>
gam...@li...urc cc:
eforge.net Fax to:
Subject: [GD-General] Can we cut the #$%#$@#?
01/24/2003 10:31 AM
Please respond to gamedevlists-general
Lot's of posters here (I won't name names but you know who you are) feel
that it's necessary to include the entire email that they're responding to.
And then when someone replies to that they include the response and the
original email. And so on and so on until I get a digest with one post in
it
that includes response, reply, response, reply, response, reply, etc.
(ad-nasisum). Cut the @#$@#$ already! It's bad enough that I get the
MIME/unMIME'ed dups without repliers re-posting everything that we've
already read.
Please! (There! I asked nice! ;-)
--
Enjoy,
George Warner,
Mixed Mode Magic Fragment Scientist
Apple Developer Technical Support (DTS)
-------------------------------------------------------
This SF.NET email is sponsored by:
SourceForge Enterprise Edition + IBM + LinuxWorld = Something 2 See!
http://www.vasoftware.com
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From: Matthijs H. <mat...@al...> - 2003-01-24 19:41:01
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>Can anyone recommend any good "Programming > Network Games" books? I have a book called Networked Virtual Environments, Design And Implementation by Sandeep Singhal and Michael Zyda. It deals with most of the basics and I found it a worthy read. Of course, I have never written a real networked game and I did not try out any of the techniques they describe. If I were you, I'd search around on the net first, because there are many free tutorials covering the same ground. -- Matthijs Hollemans www.allyoursoftware.com |
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From: Brian H. <bri...@py...> - 2003-01-24 19:15:57
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>Can anyone recommend any good "Programming Network Games"= books? There are none. There's one book published by PRIMA called Multiplayer Game Programming that is fairly close to useless. = There is another book out that I can't remember that _sounds_ like it's= really good, but it's very expensive and the authors don't have= much street cred so I'm a little leery of recommending it. I've been meaning to write a basic document on the fundamentals= of multiplayer game programming, but it's such a complicated topic= that it's hard to really describe. Each piece is easy, but you can't= get it working until ALL the pieces are in place at once. Brian |
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From: George W. <ge...@ap...> - 2003-01-24 18:31:12
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Lot's of posters here (I won't name names but you know who you are) feel that it's necessary to include the entire email that they're responding to. And then when someone replies to that they include the response and the original email. And so on and so on until I get a digest with one post in it that includes response, reply, response, reply, response, reply, etc. (ad-nasisum). Cut the @#$@#$ already! It's bad enough that I get the MIME/unMIME'ed dups without repliers re-posting everything that we've already read. Please! (There! I asked nice! ;-) -- Enjoy, George Warner, Mixed Mode Magic Fragment Scientist Apple Developer Technical Support (DTS) |
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From: George W. <ge...@ap...> - 2003-01-24 18:22:06
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On Thu, 23 Jan 2003 21:42:43 +0000 (GMT), =?iso-8859-1?q?Andrew=20Sharpe?= <ash...@ya...> wrote: > After getting my PS2 network adaptor I've been playing SOCOM online for the > past few days. Today though I put on a copy of Tony Hawk4 and was pretty > surprised with how it played online. Even on what I'd consider to be laggy > servers (200-250 ping) the game seemed remarkably fluent and consistent, i.e. > no warping players. Although I've played lots of FPS games which usually use a > client/server architecture I'd never really played a fast-paced peer-to-peer > game and always assumed that on anything other than LAN or fast broadband the > game would suffer. Although I'm familiar with how C/S architectures work and > how the effects of latency can be compensated for, I've never really given P2P > much thought before in terms of how games can achieve a smooth playing > experience, or even how their network update is structured. Possibilities I > can think of for fast action games using P2P: a) Clients are fully > deterministic and perform a lock-stepped update based on inputs from all > clients. For instance all clients perform their physics update based on inputs > from clients during frame 180 and obtain identical results. Problems: this > means that there's a delay between input & response, even on the local client, > of around half the ping time to the slowest machine. Not too good I'd imagine > on a slow connection. b) All clients send their essential information > (position, orientation, etc) and run their physics based on the last, or > extrapolated details of other players. Problems: clients may come up with > slightly different results due to extrapolated data for other players (e.g. > the client colliding with another vehicle). There's also the problem of > non-player entities in the world, for instance a crate, which may end up with > different positions on different machines if some form of correction is not > performed to remove errors due to the above problem. SOCOM rules! ;-) I've had several times when it looked like I missed a jump (actually started falling down cliff or building, etc.) but then suddenly flashed to the "made it!" position. I would definitely say it's case A (deterministic, lock-step). > There's probably other problems or solutions I've not thought of though! I'd > be very interested in comments from people who've implemented P2P solutions in > games aimed at the online market though, especially to do with how they > handled game world physics and physical non-player entities. Very fascinating > subject. Thanks, Andrew I'm also interested in client/server solutions. How are packets bundled/unbundled into/out of streams? Do developers use sync or async code? Callbacks or runloops? Do you open separate pipes for different queries or is there one client/server stream that all transactions go thru? Inquiring minds want to know! ;-) Can anyone recommend any good "Programming Network Games" books? -- Enjoy, George Warner, Mixed Mode Magic Fragment Scientist Apple Developer Technical Support (DTS) |
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From: <phi...@pl...> - 2003-01-24 17:38:09
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AFAIK SOCOM is a classic client/server model, with centralised servers,=
while TMB online is P2P, although only in that one of the clients also =
acts
as a server. Another client can become the server, if the host-client d=
rops
out (AKA host migration), I believe that this means that each client is=
running full physics and logic, but discarding results upon receipt of =
data
from the server.
I think the more direct client interaction a game recquires, the worse =
the
network experience generally is. Both of those games suffer on that fro=
nt,
but it could be worse. I once worked on an online 1-on-1 fighting game.=
Lag's kinda fatal in that environment...
Cheers,
Phil
=
=20
"Mick West" <mi...@ne...> =
=20
Sent by: To: =
<gam...@li...> =20
gam...@li...urc cc: =
=20
eforge.net Fax to=
: =20
Subjec=
t: RE: [GD-General] Online Gaming =20
=
=20
01/23/2003 03:25 PM =
=20
Please respond to gamedevlists-general =
=20
=
=20
=
=20
c) it's not really P2P. Clients are deterministic, and ignore what's
happening on other clients.=A0 One "client" is also a "server", which
arbitrates scoring and collision between clients.=A0 The server tells =
the
clients when they have been hit, and they fall over.=A0=A0 The clients=
tell
the server where they are and what they look like, and the server rela=
y
this to the other clients, who just display the other skaters at a few=
frames before their last known good position, extrapolating only if da=
ta
fails to arrive in good time.
It only works because there is very little interaction between clients=
(they don't shoot each other, and most of=A0our online games don't rel=
y
on=A0skater-skater interactions).=A0 Also there are no moving objects =
in
mutli-player games, so we dont have to worry about crates or vehicles.=
It's pretty specific to our type of game, and is probably not what the=
y
use in SOCOM.
MIck
=A0-----Original Message-----
From: gam...@li...
[mailto:gam...@li...] On Behalf Of
Andrew Sharpe
Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2003 1:43 PM
To: gam...@li...
Subject: [GD-General] Online Gaming
After getting my PS2 network adaptor I've been playing SOCOM online for=
the past few days. Today though I put on a copy of Tony Hawk4 and was
pretty surprised with how it played online.
Even on what I'd consider to be laggy servers (200-250 ping) the game
seemed remarkably fluent and consistent, i.e no warping players. Althou=
gh
I've played lots of FPS games which usually use a client/server
architecture I'd never really played a fast-paced peer-to-peer game an=
d
always assumed that on anything other than LAN or fast broadband the g=
ame
would suffer.
Although I'm familiar with how C/S architectures work and how the effec=
ts
of latency can be compensated for, I've never really given P2P much tho=
ught
before in terms of how games can achieve a smooth playing experience, o=
r
even how their network update is structured.
Possibilities I can think of for fast action games using P2P:
a) Clients are fully deterministic and perform a lock-stepped update b=
ased
on inputs from all clients. For instance all clients perform their phy=
sics
update based on inputs from clients during frame 180 and obtain identi=
cal
results. Problems: this means that there's a delay between input &
response, even on the local client, of around half the ping time to the=
slowest machine. Not too good I'd imagine on a slow connection.
b) All clients send their essential information (position, orientation,=
etc) and run their physics based on the last, or extrapolated details o=
f
other players. Problems: clients may come up with slightly different
results due to extrapolated data for other players (e.g the client
coliding with another vehicle). There's also the problem of non-player=
entities in the world, for instance a crate, which may end up with
different positions on different machines if some form of correction i=
s
not performed to remove errors due to the above problem.
There's probably other problems or solutions I've not thought of thoug=
h!
I'd be very interested in comments from people who've implemented P2P
solutions in games aimed at the online market though, especially to do=
with how they handled gameworld physics and physical non-player entiti=
es.
Very fascinating subject.
Thanks,
Andrew
With Yahoo! Mail you can get a bigger mailbox -- choose a size that fi=
ts
your needs
=
|
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From: mike w. <mi...@ub...> - 2003-01-24 17:32:38
|
what we do with our engine is read the coordinates differently based on whether they are positive or negative values. so if you have a hud or menu item that has a positive coordinate, then the item is positioned that far from the top or left hand side of the screen. if it is a negative value, then it's from the bottom or right hand side of the screen. so a layout like this gives us something that is 10 pixels from the left hand side of the screen, 35 pixels from the bottom... [health] type = numeric frame = healthindicator.bmp framealpha = a_healthindicator.bmp framex = 10 framey = -35 indicatoroffsetx = 35 indicatoroffsety = -10 font = 14 width = 3 and this entry gives me a hud indicator that is 100 pixels from the right hand side of the screen, and -35 pixels from the bottom. works well, and your hud auto-scales to all resolutions (within reason). [pistol_shell] type = numeric style = magazine frame = bulletindicator.bmp framealpha = a_bulletindicator.bmp framex = -100 framey = -35 indicatoroffsetx = 10 indicatoroffsety = -10 font = 14 width = 3 active = false you can get the source code that details how this is done (as well as the rest of our engine) from our project site at http://rfactory.uber-geek.ca hope this helps cheers mike w www.uber-geek.ca ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Brodie" <Chr...@ma...> To: <gam...@li...> Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2003 4:14 PM Subject: [GD-General] GUI Design > I've been building a GUI for my game but from day 1 have had a design issue I've been ignoring. From the beginning I've coded the coordinate system to OpenGL's bottom left origin. This is a minor pain as I'm the only one who needs to worry about the coordinates in the menu xml files (for now). > > The problem however is when I resize the screen everything remains squished in the bottom left corner of the screen. The only ay I can think of solving the problem so it looks 'normal' is to provide some kind of virtual scaling system that the menu is designed against that is then translated in to screen coordinates. For example I could use something simple like 100% equalling the width of the screen, so a box might be 20% wide 15% high at position 5%,5%. > > How have you guys solved this problem? My solution presented seems like it'll add a whole lot more math to the GUI to do all the translations for the virtual screen space. > > Thoughts? > > Chris Brodie > > > NOTICE > This e-mail and any attachments are confidential and may contain copyright material of Macquarie Bank or third parties. If you are not the intended recipient of this email you should not read, print, re-transmit, store or act in reliance on this e-mail or any attachments, and should destroy all copies of them. Macquarie Bank does not guarantee the integrity of any emails or any attached files. The views or opinions expressed are the author's own and may not reflect the views or opinions of Macquarie Bank. > > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.net email is sponsored by: Scholarships for Techies! > Can't afford IT training? All 2003 ictp students receive scholarships. > Get hands-on training in Microsoft, Cisco, Sun, Linux/UNIX, and more. > www.ictp.com/training/sourceforge.asp > _______________________________________________ > Gamedevlists-general mailing list > Gam...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gamedevlists-general > Archives: > http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_id=557 > |
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From: Nicolas R. <nic...@fr...> - 2003-01-24 13:04:47
|
Helo, Our engine is defining "windows" which look like a mix between MFC CWnd and HWND :) Any time a window is receiving a "size" event (from windows when the window is the top-most backbuffer, or from the engine for child-windows) a "OnSize" method is called. The first thing OnSize does is to call each child's OnParentSize (leaving them a chance to resize themselves), finally the OnSize may "re-position" child windows as wanted. A "glue" mechanism is supported to help in most cases. A "glue" tells that a border should be "glued" to a parent's border with a given amount. For exemple, window A left-border should be glued to parent's right-border - 100 pixels. Pixels can be replaced w/ width relative values. You should keep pixels because of UI designers usually given you nice 49x71 buttons (not speaking about window backgrounds :) ) that usually cannot be resized at all :) Nicolas. -----Original Message----- How have you guys solved this problem? My solution presented seems like it'll add a whole lot more math to the GUI to do all the translations for the virtual screen space. |
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From: Mick W. <mi...@ne...> - 2003-01-23 23:28:46
|
c) it's not really P2P. Clients are deterministic, and ignore what's happening on other clients. One "client" is also a "server", which arbitrates scoring and collision between clients. The server tells the clients when they have been hit, and they fall over. The clients tell the server where they are and what they look like, and the server relay this to the other clients, who just display the other skaters at a few frames before their last known good position, extrapolating only if data fails to arrive in good time. It only works because there is very little interaction between clients (they don't shoot each other, and most of our online games don't rely on skater-skater interactions). Also there are no moving objects in mutli-player games, so we dont have to worry about crates or vehicles. It's pretty specific to our type of game, and is probably not what they use in SOCOM. MIck -----Original Message----- From: gam...@li... [mailto:gam...@li...] On Behalf Of Andrew Sharpe Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2003 1:43 PM To: gam...@li... Subject: [GD-General] Online Gaming After getting my PS2 network adaptor I've been playing SOCOM online for the past few days. Today though I put on a copy of Tony Hawk4 and was pretty surprised with how it played online. Even on what I'd consider to be laggy servers (200-250 ping) the game seemed remarkably fluent and consistent, i.e no warping players. Although I've played lots of FPS games which usually use a client/server architecture I'd never really played a fast-paced peer-to-peer game and always assumed that on anything other than LAN or fast broadband the game would suffer. Although I'm familiar with how C/S architectures work and how the effects of latency can be compensated for, I've never really given P2P much thought before in terms of how games can achieve a smooth playing experience, or even how their network update is structured. Possibilities I can think of for fast action games using P2P: a) Clients are fully deterministic and perform a lock-stepped update based on inputs from all clients. For instance all clients perform their physics update based on inputs from clients during frame 180 and obtain identical results. Problems: this means that there's a delay between input & response, even on the local client, of around half the ping time to the slowest machine. Not too good I'd imagine on a slow connection. b) All clients send their essential information (position, orientation, etc) and run their physics based on the last, or extrapolated details of other players. Problems: clients may come up with slightly different results due to extrapolated data for other players (e.g the client coliding with another vehicle). There's also the problem of non-player entities in the world, for instance a crate, which may end up with different positions on different machines if some form of correction is not performed to remove errors due to the above problem. There's probably other problems or solutions I've not thought of though! I'd be very interested in comments from people who've implemented P2P solutions in games aimed at the online market though, especially to do with how they handled gameworld physics and physical non-player entities. Very fascinating subject. Thanks, Andrew _____ <http://uk.yahoo.com/mail/tagline_xtra/?http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/mail_st orage.html> With Yahoo! Mail you can get a bigger mailbox -- choose a size that fits your needs |
|
From: <ash...@ya...> - 2003-01-23 21:42:43
|
After getting my PS2 network adaptor I've been playing SOCOM online for the past few days. Today though I put on a copy of Tony Hawk4 and was pretty surprised with how it played online. Even on what I'd consider to be laggy servers (200-250 ping) the game seemed remarkably fluent and consistent, i.e no warping players. Although I've played lots of FPS games which usually use a client/server architecture I'd never really played a fast-paced peer-to-peer game and always assumed that on anything other than LAN or fast broadband the game would suffer. Although I'm familiar with how C/S architectures work and how the effects of latency can be compensated for, I've never really given P2P much thought before in terms of how games can achieve a smooth playing experience, or even how their network update is structured. Possibilities I can think of for fast action games using P2P: a) Clients are fully deterministic and perform a lock-stepped update based on inputs from all clients. For instance all clients perform their physics update based on inputs from clients during frame 180 and obtain identical results. Problems: this means that there's a delay between input & response, even on the local client, of around half the ping time to the slowest machine. Not too good I'd imagine on a slow connection. b) All clients send their essential information (position, orientation, etc) and run their physics based on the last, or extrapolated details of other players. Problems: clients may come up with slightly different results due to extrapolated data for other players (e.g the client coliding with another vehicle). There's also the problem of non-player entities in the world, for instance a crate, which may end up with different positions on different machines if some form of correction is not performed to remove errors due to the above problem. There's probably other problems or solutions I've not thought of though! I'd be very interested in comments from people who've implemented P2P solutions in games aimed at the online market though, especially to do with how they handled gameworld physics and physical non-player entities. Very fascinating subject. Thanks, Andrew --------------------------------- With Yahoo! Mail you can get a bigger mailbox -- choose a size that fits your needs |
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From: Jamie F. <ja...@qu...> - 2003-01-23 11:56:43
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it's really up to the user to decide how they want to deal with widescreen (or other aspect ratios). the engine also provides the physical aspect ratio. i found that our gui looked fine in widescreen (even though it was scaled to the wrong aspect ratio), so left it alone. however, i played tricks with the field of view when we move to widescreen (we don't do what most apps do). the bars and springs that brian mentioned seem an excellent way of doing a more general solution, but for most game apps i'm sure a few boxes in the right places would do the job well enough. jamie -----Original Message----- From: gam...@li... [mailto:gam...@li...]On Behalf Of Noel Llopis Sent: 23 January 2003 11:38 To: gam...@li... Subject: Re: [GD-General] GUI Design On Thu, 23 Jan 2003 10:51:36 +0000 Jamie Fowlston <ja...@qu...> wrote: > our engine lets the user specify a virtual coordinate system within which > they can work, independently of the actual display resolution. works fine :) > > what you do as regards multiple monitors and positioning / scaling > components within that virtual space is up to you :) How does that work for varying aspect ratios? If the designer creates a GUI with a certain aspect ratio in mind, and then you switch to HDTV mode, are components rearranged correctly? I'm thinking more along the lines of those Java-style layouts, that way they can put a left box with a bunch of stuff inside, a bottom box, etc. Then changing the screen ratio would make everything work perfectly. --Noel ll...@co... ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.NET email is sponsored by: SourceForge Enterprise Edition + IBM + LinuxWorld = Something 2 See! http://www.vasoftware.com _______________________________________________ Gamedevlists-general mailing list Gam...@li... https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gamedevlists-general Archives: http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_id=557 |
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