I know there was ONE topic...but It's quite old and long... I've been reading about poeple using SQL...but do you HAVE to use those type of programs/systems??? I was hopeing of someone make a database structure for my mmorpg using just C++ and maybe text files...or is this idea WAY over my head? Please...list a few DB programs if I should use those instead Thanks...

Of course it's possible. There's just absolutely no reason to do so when real databases have so many advantages. The previous thread you're referring to probably goes into detail.

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Original post by Anon Mike Of course it's possible. There's just absolutely no reason to do so when real databases have so many advantages. The previous thread you're referring to probably goes into detail.

Does SQL database have support for multithreading access?
Perhaps if you build a database specifically to your game it can be a lot more optimized then a generic database?

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Original post by The C modest god Quote: Original post by Anon Mike Of course it's possible. There's just absolutely no reason to do so when real databases have so many advantages. The previous thread you're referring to probably goes into detail. Does SQL database have support for multithreading access? Perhaps if you build a database specifically to your game it can be a lot more optimized then a generic database?

Large scale SQL databases (Oracle, MSSQL, the ones you would use for a project of this size) are specifically made to handle concurrent users gracefully, so multithreading is not an issue at all. Someone correct me if I am wrong here.

The actual design of a database leaves lots of room for customization, and database software is very good at what it does. I would suggest both 1)really knowing SQL and database design and 2)trying an SQL database before even considering making a similar "specialized" system.

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Original post by The C modest god Does SQL database have support for multithreading access?

Yes they do.

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Original post by The C modest god Perhaps if you build a database specifically to your game it can be a lot more optimized then a generic database?

I doubt it. Even if he could build a better database system than those who've been researching and working on these systems for decades, why would he want to? The return on investment would be negligble. I recommend having a look at sqlite. It's small and it's easy. Your database is just one file. There is only one library to link in. The api is dead-simple. You could look at it as if it were a text file on steroids.

Depending on the amount of data that your server needs you can do different options. For example you could use a flat text file for xml formated files for your server data. However, if you have a lot of data you will end up writing a system that does the same sort of things like MySQL so you might as well go that way from the start.

In our game we have maybe a couple dozen tables and hundreds of thousands of rows and trying to manage that in a flat file system would be a total pain in the butt. MySQL is dead easy to use, there are many tools out there for it and it works well with C++, ruby, php so they can all access the data in similar fashions. ( Fanboy of mySQL but somebody just wrote a PostgreSQL plugin which I will have to checkout )

with the amount of data that an MMO shuffles around you are absolutely going to want to use a database. as mentioned trying to manage that data through a custom written DB will take a looooong time. All the problems with multi-user synchronization and such are already solved in commercial DB apps. There are tons of problems you are likely unaware of and which you don't really need to think about that much if you pick an app that's already written.

-me

Ok,
So how come I heared people say that games like WOW are having problems dealing with a lot of users going into one place, not because of internet bandwidth limitations, but because of bad design of their server programs?
Does it has nothing to do with the fact they are using some database that they dont really know how it works and how it functions on extreme edge cases?
If everything is so good and dandy? why does the WOW server fails to provide the services it was built for?

What I am saying, it may be effort efficient to use an existing database, but the risk is that you might get into a problem you might not be able to solve just because you are unable to know all the smallest details of how this database works and behaves.

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Original post by The C modest god Ok, So how come I heared people say that games like WOW are having problems dealing with a lot of users going into one place, not because of internet bandwidth limitations, but because of bad design of their server programs? Does it has nothing to do with the fact they are using some database that they dont really know how it works and how it functions on extreme edge cases? If everything is so good and dandy? why does the WOW server fails to provide the services it was built for? What I am saying, it may be effort efficient to use an existing database, but the risk is that you might get into a problem you might not be able to solve just because you are unable to know all the smallest details of how this database works and behaves.

Unless you heard that from a developer at Blizzard I wouldn't trust that all. If I had to guess at the reason for this is not because of any database issues but processing issues. I have zero idea on how Blizzard does it but in our game we have something called a 'proximity list'. Which means that you only send updates to people near you. The more people that are near you the more updates the server has to send out and the harder it has to work to figure out who should go on which list.

What does it actually mean "a flat file for a database" and are there any references on creating such a database?