Networking and Online Games

1. Auflage 2006
ISBN: 978-0-470-01857-6
Verlag: Wiley-Blackwell

Buch, Englisch, 240 Seiten, Format (B × H): 174 mm x 252 mm, Gewicht: 600 g

The computer game industry is clearly growing in the direction of multiplayer, online games. Understanding the demands of games on IP (Internet Protocol) networks is essential for ISP (Internet Service Provider) engineers to develop appropriate IP services. Correspondingly, knowledge of the underlying network's capabilities is vital for game developers.

Networking and Online Games concisely draws together and illustrates the overlapping and interacting technical concerns of these sectors. The text explains the principles behind modern multiplayer communication systems and the techniques underlying contemporary networked games. The traffic patterns that modern games impose on networks, and how network performance and service level limitations impact on game designers and player experiences, are covered in-depth, giving the reader the knowledge necessary to develop better gaming products and network services. Examples of real-world multiplayer online games illustrate the theory throughout.

Networking and Online Games:

- Provides a comprehensive, cutting-edge guide to the development and service provision needs of online, networked games.
- Contrasts the considerations of ISPs (e.g. predicting traffic loads) with those of game developers (e.g. sources of lag/jitter), clarifying coinciding requirements.
- Explains how different technologies such as cable, ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) and wireless, etc., affect online game-play experience, and how different game styles impose varying traffic dynamics and requirements on the network.
- Discusses future directions brought by emerging technologies such as UMTS (Universal Mobile Telephone Service), GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), Wireless LANs, IP service Quality, and NAPT/NAT (Network Address Port Translation/Network Address Translation)
- Illustrates the concepts using high-level examples of existing multiplayer online games (such as Quake III Arena, Wolfenstein Enemy Territory, and Half-Life 2).

Networking and Online Games will be an invaluable resource for games developers, engineers and technicians at Internet Service Providers, as well as advanced undergraduate and graduate students in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Multimedia Engineering.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Armitage, Grenville

Claypool, Mark

Branch, Philip

Fachgebiete

• Mathematik | Informatik EDV | Informatik Programmierung | Softwareentwicklung Spiele-Programmierung, Rendering, Animation
• Mathematik | Informatik EDV | Informatik Programmierung | Softwareentwicklung Webprogrammierung
• Mathematik | Informatik EDV | Informatik Digital Lifestyle Computerspiele, Internetspiele

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Author Biographies xi
Acknowledgements xiii

1 Introduction 1

2 Early Online and Multiplayer Games 5
2.1 Defining Networked and Multiplayer Games 5
2.2 Early Multiplayer Games 6
2.3 Multiplayer Network Games 12

3 Recent Online and Multiplayer Games 15
3.1 Communication Architectures 15
3.2 The Evolution of Online Games 17
3.3 Summary of Growth of Online Games 27
3.4 The Evolution of Online Game Platforms 29
3.5 Context of Computer Games 32

4 Basic Internet Architecture 41
4.1 IP Networks as seen from the Edge 42
4.2 Connectivity and Routing 47
4.3 Address Management 60

5 Network Latency, Jitter and Loss 69
5.1 The Relevance of Latency, Jitter and Loss 69
5.2 Sources of Latency, Jitter and Loss in the Network 70
5.3 Network Control of Lag, Jitter and Loss 75
5.4 Measuring Network Conditions 79

6 Latency Compensation Techniques 83
6.1 The Need for Latency Compensation 83
6.2 Prediction 86
6.3 Time Manipulation 93
6.4 Visual Tricks 97
6.5 Latency Compensation and Cheating 98

7 Playability versus Network Conditions and Cheats 101
7.1 Measuring Player Tolerance for Network Disruptions 101
7.2 Communication Models, Cheats and Cheat-Mitigation 108

8 Broadband Access Networks 121
8.1 What Broadband Access Networks are and why they Matter 121
8.2 Access Network Protocols and Standards 123
8.3 Cable Networks 125
8.4 ADSL Networks 127
8.5 Wireless LANs 128
8.6 Cellular Networks 132
8.7 Bluetooth Networks 134
8.8 Conclusion 135

9 Where Do Players Come from and When? 137
9.1 Measuring Your Own Game Traffic 138
9.2 Hourly and Daily Game-play Trends 142
9.3 Server-discovery (Probe Traffic) Trends 145
9.4 Mapping Traffic to Player Locations 148

10 Online Game Traffic Patterns 151
10.1 Measuring Game Traffic with Timestamping Errors 152
10.2 Sub-second Characteristics 153
10.3 Sub-second Packet-size Distributions 156
10.4 Sub-Second Inter-Packet Arrival Times 162
10.5 Estimating the Consequences 167
10.6 Simulating Game Traffic 168

11 Future Directions 175
11.1 Untethered 175
11.2 Quality of Service 178
11.3 New Architectures 180
11.4 Cheaters Beware 181
11.5 Augmented Reality 182
11.6 Massively Multiplayer 182
11.7 Pickup and Putdown 183
11.8 Server Browsers 183

12 Setting Up Online FPS Game Servers 187
12.1 Considerations for an Online Game Server 187
12.2 Wolfenstein Enemy Territory 188
12.3 Half-Life 2 198
12.4 Configuring FreeBSD's Linux-compatibility Mode 206
References 208

13 Conclusion 209
13.1 Networking Fundamentals 209
13.2 Game Technologies and Development 210
13.3 A Note Regarding Online Sources 211

Index 213

Über Autor(innen)

Grenville Armitage Editor and contributing author Grenville Armitage is Director of the Centre for Advanced Internet Architectures (CAIA) and Associate Professor of Telecommunications Engineering at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. He received his Bachelor and PhD degrees in Electronic Engineering from the University of Melbourne, Australia in 1988 and 1994 respectively. He was a Senior Scientist in the Internetworking Research Group at Bellcore in New Jersey, USA (1994 to 1997) before moving to the High Speed Networks Research department at Bell Labs Research (Lucent Technologies, NJ, USA). During the 1990s he was involved in various Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) working groups relating to IP Quality of Service (QoS). While looking for applications that might truly require IP QoS he became interested in multiplayer networked games after moving to Bell Labs Research Silicon Valley (Palo Alto, CA) in late 1999. Having lived in New Jersey and California he is now back in Australia – enjoying close proximity to family, and teaching students that data networking research should be fascinating, disruptive and fun. His parents deserve a lot of credit for helping his love of technology become a rather enjoyable career.

Mark Claypool Contributing author Mark Claypool is an Associate Professor in Computer Science at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, USA. He is also the Director of the Interactive Media and Game Development major at WPI, a 4-year degree in the principles of interactive applications and computer-based game development. Dr. Claypool earned M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota in 1993 and 1997, respectively. His primary research interests include multimedia networking, congestion control, and network games. He and his wife have 2 kids, too many cats and dogs, and a bunch of computers and game consoles. He is into First Person Shooter games and Real-Time Strategy games on PCs, Beat-’em Up games on consoles, and Sports games on hand-helds.

Philip Branch Contributing author Philip Branch is Senior Lecturer in Telecommunications Engineering within the Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies at Swinburne University of Technology. Before joining Swinburne he was a Development Manager with Ericsson AsiaPacific Laboratories and before that, a Research Fellow at Monash University where he conducted research into multimedia over access networks. He was awarded his PhD from Monash University in 2000. He enjoys bushwalking with his young family and playing very old computer games.