March 2002
- ADMIN: Sorry for the delays J C Lawrence
- progress quest matt hellige
- progress quest Frank Crowell
- Synchronizing Client and Server... Dan MacDonald
- Synchronizing Client and Server... Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- Synchronizing Client and Server... Vincent Archer
- Synchronizing Client and Server... Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
From: Vincent Archer [mailto:archer@frmug.org]
> The advantage of NTP is that it can get you to have synchronous
> client and server to accuracies of the order required, and I doubt
> anything else can be. If I remember right, NTP also detects "more
> or less" accurately assymetries in the link, i.e. it can correctly
> sync clocks when your packet takes 50ms to reach the server, but
> takes 150 to come back.
I don't doubt this is a very effective way of doing it, its just
more complex and possibly over engineered given that I don't know
any game that does this. I've forgotten EQs packet format, but I'll
have a dig later this weekend and see how they do it, I'm certain
its not anything complex. Not that I'm arguing EQ is particularly
sophisticated, but it passes the main criteria - it works. Of course
EQ isn't particularly syncronisation sensative, and now that I think
about it, they do have a bug where a client can get several seconds
out of syncronisation with the server and when you try to use a
special ability with a long refresh (e.g. 6 mins) it doesn't let
you, telling you that you have '0 seconds left before you can use
this ability'. From what I recall, they tried to fix it by setting
the client side refresh to 6mins and 6 seconds, but the problem
still appears every so often, implying 6 seconds of drift is in fact
possible. Maybe they aren't such an ideal case study ;)
>> As I mention above, you can be clever about this and piggyback
>> the timestamp onto packets with 'real' payloads etc. so that it's
>> a fairly transparent process. Try it, you'll be pleasantly
>> surprised at the results assuming your connection isn't lag
>> spiking.
> Real payloads and time-synchronisation don't go well together,
> unless for each payload, you are guaranteed an immediate
> response. When synchronising, you want to measure network time,
> not pathfinding time on the server :)
Well that depends on how you process incoming packets. I have
multiple threads servicing the socket, unpacking the packets and
putting them onto a queue to be processed by the main game loop. The
ping time is an attribute of the logical connection rather than an
actual game data payload, so its dealt with by the socket thread
pool threads rather than being deferred into the queue.
Even if your online game is twitch based, I suspect that advanced
ping routines with the ability to detect asymmetries etc. are over
kill. I feel the urge to go and look at the Quake 2 source code on
this. If I find time I'll have a dig and report any findings.
Dan - Synchronizing Client and Server... Fred Clift
- Synchronizing Client and Server... Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- Synchronizing Client and Server... Dan MacDonald
- Thank you from MudWorld ucmm@inetsolve.com
- [rpg-create] Female Gamers (fwd) J C Lawrence
- Time Theory David C.Z. Wacks
- Time Theory Marc Bowden
- Time Theory Travis Nixon
- Time Theory Marc Bowden
- Time Theory Koster, Raph
- Time Theory Freeman, Jeff
- Time Theory Eli Stevens
- Time Theory Matt Mihaly
- Time Theory Peter Tyson
- Time Theory Mats Lidstrom
- Time Theory Anderson, David
- Time Theory Mats Lidstrom
- Time Theory Vincent Archer
- Time Theory David Kennerly
- Time Theory Torgny Bjers
- [GameDesign] "How to tell if a game design is good or bad" (fwd) J C Lawrence
- [decentralization] time may have structure (fwd) J C Lawrence
- EQ RPG Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- Rapture Matt Mihaly
- Re:Time Theory Talies the Wanderer
- Re:Time Theory Travis Nixon
- Re:Time Theory Leland Hulbert II
- MMORPG Comparison Elia Mörling
- More Prevalent and Effective Emotes Paul Schwanz
- More Prevalent and Effective Emotes John Buehler
- Meridian 59 re-launched! Brian 'Psychochild' Green
- MUD-Dev GDC dinner and Pseudo-META BBQ J C Lawrence
- [Meta] EQ RPG J C Lawrence
- Blacksnow revisted Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- Blacksnow revisted Caliban Tiresias Darklock
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- [Meta] EQ RPG Brian 'Psychochild' Green
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- [Meta] EQ RPG Vincent Archer
- Blacksnow revisited John Robert Arras
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- Re Moved: [Meta] EQ RPG szii@sziisoft.com
- Re Moved: [Meta] EQ RPG Rogue_Buddha
- Re Moved: [Meta] EQ RPG Matt Mihaly
- Blacksnow revisited Robert A. Rice Jr.
- [PR] Skotos Releases Hegemony Strategic Game Christopher Allen
- Skotos Seven StoryBuilder Obstacles & Openings Christopher Allen
- NEWS: mooix beta 1 released (successor to perlmoo) Joey Hess
- NEWS: mooix beta 1 released (successor to perlmoo) Fred Clift
- NEWS: mooix beta 1 released (successor to perlmoo) F. Randall Farmer
- Prediction (Was: Quake II has gone GPL) T o F
- Emminent Wisdom Mike Povoski
- Emminent Wisdom shannona@skotos.net
- Schubert's law of player expections John Szeder
- Re Moved: [Meta] EQ RPG Jason Booth
- Money matters Jean, Yannick (îlot)
- Money matters eric rhea
- Alternatives to Permadeath Jon Leonard
- Alternatives to Permadeath Richard A. Bartle
- Alternatives to Permadeath Blane Bramble
- Alternatives to Permadeath szii@sziisoft.com
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- Alternatives to Permadeath Sasha Hart
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- Alternatives to Permadeath T o F
- User-created content ownership Edward Glowacki
- User-created content ownership Zach Collins {Siege}
- User-created content ownership Christopher Allen
- User-created content ownership Richard A. Bartle
- User-created content ownership Christopher Allen
- User-created content ownership Sean Kelly
- User-created content ownership Richard A. Bartle
- User-created content ownership Blane Bramble
- User-created content ownership Jon Lambert
- Black Snow Revisited Jessica Mulligan
- Black Snow Revisited Matt Mihaly
- Black Snow Revisited Jeff Cole
- Black Snow Revisited Jeff Cole
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- Black Snow Revisited Matt Mihaly
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- Black Snow Revisited Fred Clift
- Black Snow Revisited Norman Short
- Black Snow Revisited Kristen L. Koster
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- Black Snow Revisited amanda@alfar.com
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- Black Snow Revisited Norman Short
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- Conference of possible interest for commercial games Rayzam
- BIZ NEWS: Virtual kingdom richer than Bulgaria Kylotan
- HELP WANTED! Roger Hicks
- HELP WANTED! Shane Gough
- Black Snow Revisited Dave Rickey
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- Black Snow Revisited Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
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- GDC articles Koster, Raph
- GDC articles Koster, Raph
- TECH: Complex NPCs * * * * * *
- TECH: Complex NPCs Acius
- TECH: Complex NPCs Dave Rickey
- TECH: Complex NPCs tryguy74@hotmail.com
- TECH: Complex NPCs Sasha Hart
- TECH: Complex NPCs Sean Kelly
- TECH: Complex NPCs tryguy74@hotmail.com
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- TECH: Complex NPCs tryguy74@hotmail.com
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- TECH: Complex NPCs Madrona Tree
- TECH: Complex NPCs tryguy74@hotmail.com
- TECH: Complex NPCs Sasha Hart
- TECH: Complex NPCs Sean Kelly
- More GDC Koster, Raph
- My GDC talks Koster, Raph
- My GDC talks Koster, Raph