A question regarding P2P. Question! Not gripe!

[mr_grumpy_man]

Just a quicky really, but I wanted to clarify something. When you play (for example) an FPS like UT, you do this by connecting to a server in a location. To do this at Gameplay, you use one of Gameplay's servers, through GP's netfeed, yes?

But when you start a P2P game, all that happens is a script is run on the WP3 server which tells the machines involved how and when to talk to each other, yes? Then the communications between machines go on without necessarily going near any Gameplay hardware (unless you're using WP Direct, of course).

Can anyone at GP tell me if that's correct? Or am I being a :bonce:?

Cheers.

[vite]

My thoughts precisely. I don't believe netfeed did anything for p2p, t'was just a red herring to enable better quake/halflife/UT performance.

Pressure from BW perhaps ?

They're are the wrong targets blokes. They're none comercial an can accept low usage figures,

you can't cause your raison d'etre is to sell games and that demands high user levels.

P.S. HL-CS is great :) :)

[Terra]

Vite thats not true. P2P is a lot harder to setup than FPS.

And to say that they done this on purpose is silly.

grumpy that is correct

[mr_grumpy_man]

So, I'm correct when I say that (unless you're using Wireplay Direct) the netfeed is not the issue with Peer-to-peer games, it's just that they're difficult to set up?

The reason I ask is I've heard a lot of people blaming the netfeed for the problems with P2P - I thought the netfeed had nowt to do with P2P games. So I thought maybe a direct question, rather than a general winge could help clear things up a little.

Cheers.

:cheese:

[Kaylin]

Vite's correct when he says that we should be concentrating on P2P (as it's much cheaper and supports loads more players without putting the strain on our stuff :))
But, we had to choose one or the other to do first of all and we chose Server based. And Server based is a lot easier to do.

As Terra has said, yep, grumpy you are correct, but...
the netfeed did have an impact on P2P. As was said once you are in game P2P games don't use our netfeed, but up to that point you do, you accept/deny, challenge etc... within the WP client, this is done through our netfeed, and if the netfeed is slow you'll have problems with proposals and players joining etc...

Hope this helps,
Kaylin

[mr_grumpy_man]

Oi getchya :cheese:

Thanks for the reply.

[Cacker]

Hi,

You're all pretty much correct.

(1) Whilist the Wireplay 3 client is being used to set up a proposal, netfeed (ie packet loss, delay) is important.
(2) When the game is launched, netfeed is not important, only the netfeed between the players is important
(3) I've fixed a problem which should cure 3 symptoms that p2p users were experiencing (check my Latest On Wireplay 3 post)

If Wireplay experience problems with the netfeed, it can interrupt the Wireplay 3 service (logon, updates, web server) and hence interrupt script execution etc which is required for Peer 2 Peer.

Chairs,

/Cacker