Networked Graphics - Building Networked Games and Virtual Environments

Front Cover

Networked Graphics: Building Networked Games and Virtual Environments

Copyright Page

Contents

PART I: GROUNDWORK

CHAPTER 1 Introduction

1.1 What are NVEs and NGs?

1.2 The Illusion of a Shared Virtual Environment

1.3 Some History

1.3.1 Internet

1.3.2 Simulators

1.3.3 Multiuser Dungeons (MUDs)

1.3.4 Electronic Games

1.3.5 Virtual Reality Systems

1.3.6 MMORPGs

1.3.7 Social Spaces

1.4 Scoping the Software Architecture

1.4.1 Software Roles and Responsibilities

1.4.2 Differences to Other Network Code

1.5 Structure

CHAPTER 2 One on One (101)

2.1 Boids

2.1.1 Boid Rules

2.1.2 Standalone Implementation

2.2 Distributed Boids: Concepts

2.3 Distributed Boids: Implementation

2.3.1 Revised Simulation and Data Model

2.3.2 Network Concepts

2.3.3 Network Protocol

2.3.4 Implementation of the Network Component

2.3.5 Sending UDP Data Packets

2.3.6 Sending TCP Data Streams

2.4 Reflection

CHAPTER 3 Overview of the Internet

3.1 The Internet

3.2 Application Layer

3.2.1 Application Layer Protocols

3.2.2 Application QoS

3.2.3 Common Applications and Ports

3.2.4 RFCs

3.2.5 DNS

3.2.6 Telnet and HTTP

3.3 Transport Layer

3.3.1 Implementing UDP

3.3.2 Basics of TCP

3.3.3 Reliability in TCP

3.3.4 Opening and Closing TCP Connections

3.3.5 Flow Control and Congestion Avoidance in TCP

3.4 Network Layer

3.4.1 Network Address Translation

3.4.2 IP Packets

3.4.3 Ping, Traceroute and ICMP

3.4.4 Routing on the Internet

3.4.5 DHCP

3.5 Link and Physical Layer

3.5.1 Ethernet

3.5.2 Comparisons

3.6 Further Network Facilities

3.6.1 Multicast

3.6.2 Network QoS

3.7 Summary

CHAPTER 4 More Than Two

4.1 Boids

4.1.1 Architecture

4.1.2 Protocol

4.1.3 Codebase Refactoring

4.2 Simple Peer to Peer

4.2.1 System Architecture

4.2.2 Data Model

4.2.3 Network

4.2.4 Protocol

4.3 Peer to Peer with Master

4.3.1 System Architecture

4.3.2 Datamodel

4.3.3 Network

4.3.4 Protocol

4.4 Peer to Peer with Rendezvous Server

4.4.1 System Architecture

4.4.2 Datamodel

4.4.3 Network

4.4.4 Protocol

4.5 Client/Server

4.5.1 System Architecture

4.5.2 Datamodel

4.5.3 Network

4.5.4 Protocol

4.6 Multicast

4.6.1 System Architecture

4.6.2 Datamodel

4.6.3 Network

4.6.4 Protocol

4.7 Extensions

4.7.1 Protocol design

4.7.2 Network Compensation

4.7.3 Scale

4.7.4 Binary Protocols

4.8 Conclusions

PART II: FOUNDATIONS

CHAPTER 5 Issues in Networking Graphics

5.1 Architecture of the Individual System

5.1.1 Engines and Engine Framework

5.1.2 Modules

5.1.3 Content

5.1.4 Behavior

5.2 Role of the Network

5.2.1 Device I/O Sharing

5.2.2 Data Model Sharing

5.2.3 Command/Event Streaming

5.2.4 Coping with Scale

5.3 Initialization

5.3.1 Case Study: Disney's Toontown

5.4 Server and Peer Responsibilities

5.5 Critical and Noncritical

5.6 Synchronized or Unsynchronized

5.7 Ownership and Locking

5.8 Persistency

5.9 Latency and Bandwidth

5.10 Conclusions

CHAPTER 6 Sockets and Middleware

6.1 Role of Middleware

6.2 Low-Level Socket APIs

6.2.1 Main Functions

6.2.2 Name Helper Functions and Options

6.2.3 Network Byte Order

6.2.4 Examples

6.2.5 Socket Usage Patterns

6.2.6 Windows

6.2.7 Synchronous I/O

6.2.8 Critique and Discussion

6.3 C and C++ Middleware for Networking

6.3.1 HawkNL

6.3.2 SDL_Net

6.3.3 ACE

6.4 Conclusion

CHAPTER 7 Middleware and Message-Based Systems

7.1 Message-Based Systems

7.2 DIS

7.2.1 PDUs

7.3 X3D and DIS

7.3.1 Basics of X3D

7.3.2 Dataflow and Animation

7.3.3 Scripting and Interfaces

7.3.4 VRML/X3D Networking Strategies

7.3.5 X3D and DIS

7.4 X3D, HawkNL and DIS

7.4.1 Sending a DIS Packet

7.4.2 Receiving DIS Packets

7.5 Conclusions

CHAPTER 8 Middleware and Object-Sharing Systems

8.1 Object-Sharing Systems

8.2 RakNet

8.2.1 Object Lifecycles

8.3 Boids using Object-Sharing

8.3.1 Boid Definitions

8.3.2 Main Application

8.3.3 Discussion

8.4 General Object-Sharing

8.4.1 Sharing Policy

8.4.2 Visibility and Sampling Rates

8.5 Ownership

8.6 Scene-Graphs, Object-Sharing and Messages

8.7 Conclusions

CHAPTER 9 Other Networking Components

9.1 Remote Method Call

9.1.1 RPC

9.1.2 XML-RPC, etc.

9.1.3 CORBA

9.1.4 Discussion

9.2 DIVE

9.2.1 DIVE Overview

9.2.2 DIVE Entities

9.2.3 Events

9.2.4 Scripting and Event Scoping

9.2.5 Networking

9.2.6 Discussion

9.3 System Architectures

9.4 Conclusions

PART III: REAL SYSTEMS

CHAPTER 10 Requirements

10.1 Consistency

10.1.1 System Perspective

10.1.2 Plausibility and Fairness

10.1.3 Consistency-Throughput Tradeoff

10.2 Latency and Jitter

10.2.1 Sources of Network Latency

10.2.2 Jitter

10.2.3 Clocks and Measurement of Latency and Jitter

10.2.4 User Tolerance

10.2.5 Latency Impact in Specific Systems

10.3 Bandwidth

10.3.1 Measurement

10.3.2 Traffic Patterns

10.3.3 Congestion

10.4 State of the Internet

10.5 Connectivity

10.5.1 NAT

10.6 Case Study: Burnout™ Paradise

10.6.1 Car "Mechanics"

10.6.2 Game Phases and Time Synchronization

10.6.3 Game Hosting and Peer-to-Peer Networking

10.7 Conclusions

CHAPTER 11 Latency and Consistency

11.1 Latency Impact

11.2 Dumb Client and Lockstep Synchronization

11.2.1 Dumb Client

11.2.2 Lockstep Synchronization

11.3 Conservative Simulations

11.4 Time

11.5 Optimistic Algorithms

11.6 Client Predict Ahead

11.7 Extrapolation Algorithms

11.7.1 Basic Dead-Reckoning

11.7.2 Dead-Reckoning Variants

11.8 Interpolation, Playout Delays and Local Lag

11.9 Local Perception Filters

11.10 Revealing Latency

11.11 Conclusions

CHAPTER 12 Scalability

12.1 Service Architectures

12.1.1 Awareness

12.1.2 Cohorts, Groups and Service Architecture

12.2 Overview of Interest Management

12.3 Spatial Models

12.3.1 Zone Models

12.3.2 Dynamic Spatial Models

12.3.3 Visibility Models

12.4 Interest Specification and Interest Management

12.4.1 Interest Expressions

12.4.2 Interest Management

12.4.3 Examples of Distributed Interest Management

12.5 Separating Interest Management from Network Architecture

12.5.1 Message Routing and Message Filtering

12.5.2 Filtering as a Pipeline

12.5.3 Routing and Filtering Examples

12.5.4 Delegating Group Communication to the Network Layer

12.6 Server Partitioning

12.6.1 Server Tasks and Static Partitionings

12.6.2 Seams and Handovers

12.6.3 Load Balancing and Dynamic Partitioning

12.7 Group Communication Services

12.7.1 Reflectors and Tunnels

12.7.2 Automatic Overlay Multicast

12.7.3 Gossiping for Peer-to-Peer Communications

12.7.4 Specific Group Communication Routing Service

12.8 Peer to Peer

12.8.1 Unstructured Peer-to-Peer Systems

12.8.2 Structured Peer-to-Peer Systems

12.8.3 Peer-to-Peer Support Using DHTs

12.8.4 Local Interest Systems

12.8.5 Update-Free Regions and Frontier Sets

12.9 Conclusions

CHAPTER 13 Application Support Issues

13.1 Security and Cheating

13.1.1 Client-Side Attacks

13.1.2 Network Level

13.1.3 Server Side

13.1.4 Social

13.1.5 Repercussions

13.2 Binary Protocols and Compression

13.2.1 Binary Encodings

13.2.2 Compression

13.3 Streaming

13.3.1 Audio and Video

13.3.2 Geometry and Animation

13.3.3 Mixing and Grouping

13.4 Revisiting the Protocol Decision

13.5 Persistent and Tiered Services

13.6 Clusters

13.6.1 Multidisplay Systems

13.6.2 Massive Models

13.7 Thin Clients

13.8 Conclusions

Index

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