Re: [GD-General] Re: Basic questions regarding networking games...

[Colin F. <cp...@ea...>]

2002 September 23rd
Monday

>>> This sounds more complicated than necessary.  Why do you need sync 
>>> times that tightly?

I don't know!  Crazy, huh?

I guess I thought I might be to tell the precise
sequence of all of the client events (across all players)
and support a tiny bit of "revisionist history" --
re-simulate a few past time steps if new "evidence"
(client events that should have changed history but
weren't previously considered due to brief lag) was
later received.

But, frankly, I can't remember what ever made me think
that synchronization (or determining precise time differences
between each client and the server) would be worthwhile.

I guess one of my other ideas was that the server would
leave most deterministic things unspecified -- and so
if a client was precisely synchronized, then both client
and server would essentially have the same impression
of the deterministic aspects of the environment.
So, if you jump on to a rising elevator platform,
the server doesn't need to send authoritative feedback, since
both client and server know exactly how your jump will
turn out.  If the client simulation of deterministic
processes was out of synch with the server simulation,
then we're forced to send more update information.
The client always sends player actions, but we just don't
need to send so many authoritative updates about the
outcome of those actions.
(NOTE: This example doesn't include the effects of
non-deterministic factors: constantly changing 
movements of other players, and other player-initiated
events, like firing weapons.  But we just have to
determine how these events "screw up" the deterministic
aspects of the game, and notify/update affected clients.)

Well, I think I have enough feedback to get me started
with an initial design.  I'll restrain myself from asking
more silly questions until I attain the next level of
insanity.

Thanks to all for the very enlightening comments.

--- Colin
cp...@ea...
www.colinfahey.com