I was thinking of a game where hundreds, or even thousands of players can connect to a server, and play/watch a game. Now that I think about it though, I guess having this many players on one server would be impossible. Basically, a good example would be for a football game. Like if I wanted to have a server host a game, where many people can come on and watch. What would be the best way to do this? Would I need multiple servers or what? Right now, I was thinking of something where it runs off a web site. Like, the host program would keep the web site "files" updated with the latest information, and the client program would then be able to download this info from the site. This, however, doesn''t seem like the most efficent way to do it. Any input is appreciated! Thanks.

Multi-server systems are typically used. A primary server would send the necessary information to a number of other machines on a regular basis. These other machines are what the users will connect to, diverted by a login process that determines the best machine to connect to. That way, a number of machines are handling the communication work, cutting down on what one machine needs to do.

Say, I wanted to be able to host a MAX of 10,000 people. How many servers do you think would be required?

[edited by - Gf11speed on August 22, 2003 1:06:03 PM]

No game has ever had 1 million people on at once...

I meant around 10,000.

It would depend on the amount of data being transfered and the bandwidth of the servers. Say A is the amount of data per second required for a given game. And one server can send 10A and another can send 100A, then it really doesn''t depend on servers but rather the bandwidth they have.

It also depends and the processing power. If the second server has 100A but can only send out 60A due to precessor memory restriction...

Well you get the picture.

Would you recommend using DirectPlay, or perhaps Sockets?? Sorry, I''m new to internet programming... but thanks for the help.

directplay vs winsock seems to be almost like direct3d vs opengl (but not as controversial). Personally I prefer windows sockets because I prefer more control, but I can''t say anything really because i''ve never used directplay. I suppose it''s best you just choose one and go with it. I get the idea from what i''ve read that directplay gives you alot of statistics that it would take you a while to accomplish with winsock, and winsock is better for bigger games because of the control.