A7 network traffic

I have a question about A7 network traffic. Even when I set the ping rate in the multiplayer tutorial to 99999, A7 still sends 20 bps permanently even if nothing moves. Only when I also set the entity update rate to -1, then really nothing is sent.

What is causing the 20 bps traffic?

Second, has dplay more overhead than Enet, and causes more traffic?

The 20 bps are caused by synchronizing the system time from server to the clients. The time is needed for dead reckoning. I admit that this is sort of superfluous when nothing moves. 20 bps are not much, but we'll change that so that nothing is sent when nothing moves or dead reckoning is switched off.

Setting the ping rate to 99999 won't have any effect. The ping rate is only used when no entity updates are sent.

DirectPlay causes not more traffic than Enet. The "overhead" of DirectPlay is a programming overhead, not a traffic overhead. The "bad Directplay traffic" is one of the typical rumors circulating among newbie developers. Some time ago there was a forum uproar about the use of Directplay and subsequently we tested DirectPlay against Enet in the engine. It turned out that there was no difference in traffic and packet length. Still, we'll probably switch to Enet or Raknet some day for psychological reasons.

But why is DirectPlay not used by any well known Multiplayer games nowdays?

Because of the mentioned programming overhead. From a programmer's point of view, Directplay is the worst library that I've ever seen. No one would implement Directplay when there is any alternative. At the time we implemented it, there was none.

Hey JCL,

considering current TODOs and priorities of them, what would be the shortest time for GS to get a new mp system?(enet or raknet)[You may also think of dropping backwards compatiblity or you can make both dplay and raknet included or keep current mp system but use raknet as a core and add new funtions?]

We have already produced an Enet version for a customer who needed that for integration in his own system, and has paid for it. But changing the general engine to Enet would require lengthy compatibility tests. Although we'll certainly do that some day, it has low priority because it has no technical advantage whatsoever. Besides, I don't want to spoil the business of people offering external Enet libraries for Gamestudio .

yeah, Thanks, i understand that.

You are a real gentleman jcl!