An efficient synchronization mechanism for mirrored game architectures

  • Authors:

  • Eric Cronin;Burton Filstrup;Anthony R. Kurc;Sugih Jamin

  • Affiliations:

  • University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI;University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI;University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI;University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

  • Venue:
  • NetGames '02 Proceedings of the 1st workshop on Network and system support for games
  • Year:
  • 2002

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Existing online multiplayer games typically use a client-server model, which introduces a single bottleneck and point of failure to the game. Distributed multiplayer games remove the bottleneck, but require special synchronization mechanisms to provide a consistent game for all players. Current synchronization methods have been borrowed from distributed military simulations and are not optimized for the requirements of fast-paced multiplayer games. In this paper we present a new synchronization mechanism, trailing state synchronization (TSS), which is designed around the requirements of distributed first-person shooter games.We look at TSS in the environment of a mirrored game architecture, which is a hybrid between traditional centralized architectures and the more scalable peer-to-peer architectures. Mirrored architectures allow for improved performance compared to client-server architectures while at the same time allowing for a greater degree of centralized administration than peer-to-peer architectures.