Hi, I am writing a master thesis on how to hide/handle the network delay in games. more specifically how to: keep illusion of real-time provide fairness between competitors hide synch problems from players Focus is on fast-paced action games (client-server) with strict timing requirements. I would like some info on how game developers have solved the problems so far and what the "academic world" has done, perhaps some documents/papers. Could you guys please help me out in any way? // Tobias

Have a look in the Articles&Resources section of this site under Network. There's even an article titled "Dead Reckoning: Latency Hiding for Networked Games". They should give you an idea of the terminology to research (Dead Reckoning, Client-side prediction, etc..)

If you want practical examples, look for the source to quakeworld and articles on id's Quake(1/2/3) based games. From my experience, they do the best job of dealing with network latency. Other games like those based on the unreal engine just don't feel right unless you have a really low ping (<50ms).

[edited by - jermz on August 6, 2003 12:05:43 PM]

Look at the book by Zyda on NVEs and articles by Bernier on "lag compensation."

There is a section on this in "Game Programming Gems 3". I just got it used for pretty cheap on Amazon.

Feel free to email me personally on martinp@replicanet.com if you want to ask some questions about http://www.ReplicaNet.com not covered in the online documentation.


--
Martin Piper
Network programming made easy with ReplicaNet
http://www.ReplicaNet.com/


[edited by - martinpiper on August 7, 2003 4:48:34 PM]

Thanks,

that book by Zyda looks great, I''ll try to get it through my local library somehow. Bernier''s articles are an excellent source on how half-life did it, thanks.

I have searched around for articles about quake #, but found none about the network code, could someone point me in the right direction, please?. I''d love some articles/papers on quake 2 and 3, I understand they changed the network code quite a bit between them and it resulted in big improvements.

What I want all this for is some kind of ''previous work'' chapter in my paper, so I only need brief big-picture explanations from articles that I can put in my references list.

This means that I would appreciate some articles on Unreal as well, even if they suck network-wise, to highlight differences between games. Also something on a real-time strategy game would be appreciated.

Also, I recall that the network code for counter-strike is improved over half-life''s, true? Any articles/info about that?

thanks for your help.

// Tobias

Here''s an article discussing Unreal''s network architecture. Probably only the first few sections are relevant for you though.

http://unreal.epicgames.com/Network.htm

quote:

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What I want all this for is some kind of ''previous work'' chapter in my paper, so I only need brief big-picture explanations from articles that I can put in my references list.

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Thanks for clearing that up... I was hoping that you were planning to implement something new as part of your research rather than just compiling existing data. Also check gamasutra.com. They post ''master thesis'' work all the time. You can find additional information there, including an article about the networking of Age of XXX (describes the RTS networking model through three generations of games). The article is called something about 10,000 archers...

I can''t find the link in my bookmarks, but there''s a GREAT one on Gamasutra posted by the lead developer of "X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter", and the humongous network problems/lag they encountered..

Definitely worth the read even if you''re not doing a master''s thesis..

One of these days I wanna go back to school to do my Master''s as well, and would love to tie in some "real-world game stuff" with Academia..

There''s also another article on Gamasutra from some of the Age of Empires devs regarding what they did to smooth the delays out of the user experience... should be an easy search to find the URL.

Dave "Dak Lozar" Loeser