Mana Games

how far are you?

Hello,

I spent a good part of the last week dealing with DirectPlay init and building the needed menus to config everything.
Now, the connection and initial settings are almost done, I only need to let the player choose the amount of lag, and then actually code the network protocol within the game.
Hopefully, it should be done soon, and you should see a beta to test on these forums before the end of the week...

connection done !

now, need to code the game communication protocol that should be a bit more simple than the connection protocol !

i dont understand the differents about that protocols , i am a noob :d is this the official page then for online gaming = www.tenniselbow.be.tt ??? and how far are you now :d ?

a protocol is just a standardized way to communicate.

For Tennis Elbow connection, it gives something like this :
for Host :
- I send your my local players
- I receive your players
- I ping you
- I send you the Lag setting
- start game

for Client :
- I send your my local players
- I receive your players
- I ping you, while waiting you send me the Lag setting
- start game

actually, the in-game protocol is quite more complex than the connection protocol.
But for the connection protocol, I had to do all the basic network init, so it was longer.

Now, I just played my 1st network game without desynchronization for 4 games ! So I guess it's alright...
Tomorrow, I'll check the protocol when some packets are lost, and then add many needed little things (for example : the end of game & connection loss during the game)

www.tenniselbow.be.tt is a fan site, not the real official page for TE online.
But let say it's the official fan site ..!

BE FAST, WHEN ARE YOU DONE? TENNIS ELBOW UPDATED
WWW.TENNISELBOW.BE.TT

Follow-up :

ok, the network game seems to work reliably with or without packet loss.
But having both a high ping ( > 30 ms) and a high packet loss ( > 5%) will be probably a fun killer.

Without packet loss, a ping of 30 ms will give a great play experience, a ping of 60 ms a good one (but can already feel a bit the lag), a ping of 100 ms a decent one (but the lag is very noticeable).

Still have to handle the end of game, connection loss during the game, and a few other little things like that. The beta test version should be ready for next Monday or Tuesday !