The main difference, besides the 4 user limit, is you can't do a "session_connect" call which would allow you to move a user from one game server to another (called zones).

So for the Commercial vs Professional, yes everything is basically the same. Any code that you write now will work perfect in the professional version with the added availability of zones and unlimited players.

Keep in mind that unlimited players doesn't mean click together a game and have it capable of handling 600 users at a time... You will need to dig in and optimize your game to handle how many players you want in each "zone".

If you are just going for an 8 or 16 multiplayer game then you should be absolutely fine working with commercial and then upgrading when you are ready to compile with pro for the added users.

What type of game are you wanting to develop? Just curious. Not looking for details, just something like FPS, RPG?

Oh yeah, almost forgot there are other differences between Com and Pro such as mirrors, physics etc... but I assumed you were asking specifically about Multiplayer. I am sure you also know that you can visit the main page to see all the differences between editions, but just incase:

http://www.conitec.net/a4info.htm


Good Luck!

VU hit it on the head.
Let me add that session_connect IS what makes a MMO*. Without it, you'd be limited to having ALL your users in one level or rather in one machine. This will kill system performace and game performace if like VE said, you go much more beyond 20 ppl with no optimization. You could double or triple that number with some easy opts., but you'll still never hit or exceed 100 users.

SEssion_connect allows you to distribute your load across diffrent zones and thus diffrent servers and ever diffrent computers; critical for a MMO*.

I also have a few questions about the multiplayer.

Our team have 3D Game Studio A5 version 5.2 Professional
We dont really want to spend more on the A6 Professional, htough may do in the future.
We want to create a MMORPG, and using sql files ont he server, have the game interact with the database to pick out information, and use it in the game.
Is this possible?

100% unreal.

Thanks dude :-D
So, it can conenct to a SQL databse fine yeah?

you will need to access your SQL database with a DLL that is external to A5... But yes it is 100% possible. There are some great resources on writing your own DLL... check out the information in the SDK on the main 3DGS site.

Actually there is a DLL that was written specifically for A5 for accessing ADO databases...

unrealfragmaster , while I am looking for it, tell me the exact version of your A5.... There are different versions of the ADO DLL that work with different versions of A5... I want to refer you to the right one.

Good Luck!

unrealfragmaster,

Quote:

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Our team have 3D Game Studio A5 version 5.2 Professional

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The first thing you would want to do is download the latest free update of A5 Pro. You have version 5.2, but there is a much newer version. Multiplayer was drastically improved in the latest version as well. So to avoid running into bugs in multiplayer (and other places) I would recommend you get the latest A5 update.