PPU online?

H

Hartz

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 15, 2005
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Is it just me or does it look impossible for a game like cellfactor to work online? I'm sure the video they are showing around was made on lan and it does indeed look hella fun but will we ever be able to do this online even when every gamer has a PPU?

In the source engine the physics that effect game play(Picked up by gravity and shot at opponent) are all held server side so that every player is part of the same physical action and reaction. The non-gameplay physics such as ragdolls are not held server side and do look different on everyones computer.(I noticed this in lan parties) I'm wondering how much of an improvement can cellfactors network code really be. The source engines physics seem to get stressed very easily online. In BF2 I think all the physics are client side.

Does this mean that there will have to be a server side PPU? Can a PPU on the server calculate everything for everyone first and then send it off to all the other ppu's so that they recreate it?
 
To me the biggest issue has to due with bandwith when talking about online play. Although there will always be the "rich kids" who have the fastest internet connection, and for them large numbers of game-play physics objects might not be a problem. But for a large number of people out there right now, current online games are pushing the amount of bandwith that is available and that's without lots of extra objects.

IMO:
I think as far as online games go, what we're going to see initially is games that only use "effects physics" (i.e. eye candy) as this type realy wouldn't requires syncronisation and there could be cheap&ugly alternatives for those without any physics acceleration. True "game-play" physics would then be slowly added to games over an extended period of time as the average user bandwith increases, and more people have physics acceleration.

I think that server based physics acceleration is probably the best way to syncromize game-play physics in an online game, but even with this there is a lot of issues.

In the short term, I don't think there will be any revelutionary changes in online gameplay just becasue of physics acceleration. LAN base gameplay may be different, but since theres tends to be a very close link between LAN and online modes in most games I'm not sure game makers are going to make a single player game, and a online version, AND a lan version.
 
pj-schmidt said:
To me the biggest issue has to due with bandwith when talking about online play. Although there will always be the "rich kids" who have the fastest internet connection
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What is the average US internet connection speeed?

Here in DK we start at 256/128 Kbit/s uncapped and goes up to 20/20 Mbit/s..with the norm being around 512Kbit/1Mbit uncapped

56K is dead, ISDN to expensive comapred to broadband, ADSL is the norm here in DK.

Terra - They are promoting 20/20Mbit via the powergrid everywhere soon too :D
 
I would guess the average from what I see is anywhere from 1.5mbps DSL to 6mbps Cable.
 
Menelmarar said:
I would guess the average from what I see is anywhere from 1.5mbps DSL to 6mbps Cable.
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I agree, that seems to be the norm in most areas.
 
I don't see why some physics wouldn't work. Take the following examples:

1. Ghost Recon. We have the truck blowing up in one instance and the shrapnel taking out the guy. In the non PPU video, the guy lives. I chalk that up to the randomness. Would it really be bad that the guy in the PPU video dies and didn't physically SEE the particular piece of shrapnel that hit him? They would know there was an explosion, and assume it was the shrapnel.

For the reverse situation, I would think there would be some randomness if the non-PPU shot the truck. Sometimes it would say shrapnel hit, and othertimes not, like how current grenades in games are.

2. Driving game. The car handles much more realistically. Why would anything but the car's location be have to be transmitted? If the two cars collide, there would be some randomness of how it affects each car, but still only location status updates transmitted. In this case, the PPU computer might be at a disadvantage with more realistic physics but I think they would take it for a better experience.

3. First Person Shooter. Again, realistic physics for the PPU. Bullet drop, material penetration, etc. For the non PPU, a randomness. If I was the non PPU, and got killed by a PPU computer, I would feel better that I got killed, knowing that the bullet actually hit me and was realistic. Sure, they might have an advantage of pieces of brick coming off or holes in a door, but so did those that could see clearly in Quake's water instead of dirty water.

I think it can be done with the better experience for the PPU yet at the same time without being too unfair to the non-PPU and not as much an increase in bandwidth. You just have to think beyond PPU = more pretty objects.

And yes, for a game like Cellfactor, this wouldn't work since it's based on just more objects to play with.
 
Thats sad to hear, I assumed they had network issues figured out in cell factor, I mean being able to play the game is a big issue to some people. ;o)

I still have faith in cell factor though, I can think up a few ways to help keep bandwidth down off the top of my head, but have no idea how well it will work in reality. Hopefully they can find a method that works.
 
Client server mismatches occur sometimes and your machine must be corrected when they do happen. [Stupid anecdote] Say you're playing super fun freeze tag with your bud and you both have 25ms ping times. You see and shoot your friend with your freeze gun, 50ms later your friend sees that you've shot the freeze projectile at him, he hesitates and puts up his insta reflection shield 10ms before it hits him. This event is being sent to the server while on your machine you actually see him frozen for 40ms before it's received. If this mismatch is never corrected you are now out of sync with eachother, (One game shows him frozen, while the other game shows both alive and warm) but fortunately 40ms later you see whats really happening according to the server.
 
mashie said:
See my response here for a very similar question.
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The thing about physics is that it includes the chaos theory. Every PPU will generate the same projectile at the same object from the same location differently no matter what. In a game like cellfactor every one of those 2,000 objects(or other) have to be in sync/corrected on every computer playing.

Your racing game example. What if on one PPU the PPU thinks that one of racing cars should spin around because of the impact? A server has to sync the impacts.

The Ghost Raccoon example is the worst. If another player has no PPU and he just dies from seeing nothing he will be really pissed. Its mad enough when you get shot from the back image dieing from projectiles you can't even see. Either way this example would need a server side PPU to calculate that he died.

It looks to me like until Agiea shows us differently the PPU is a single player entertainment device.
 
Its not that each computer is using a different algorithm, its that each client can manipulate an object at a certain time that you wont know about until the round ping time has elasped and this small change will affect the final outcome of the debris.
 
Hartz said:
The Ghost Raccoon example is the worst. If another player has no PPU and he just dies from seeing nothing he will be really pissed. Its mad enough when you get shot from the back image dieing from projectiles you can't even see. Either way this example would need a server side PPU to calculate that he died.
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I don't think you get the Ghost Recon example. Do you play BF2 or any FPS? Do the artillery strikes (or grenades) show the shrapnel that kills you? No, you only see an explosion (sometimes at a good distance) and then you die. You know it was the explosion that killed you. So why if on my PPU computer I see every single bit of shrapnel is it any different?

Also, isn't a lot of the hit calculating done on the client? (This is a question, I'm not a net guru). I know it differs by game and I think games that support PPU/NonPPU might have to be coded differently.
 
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