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Ask HN: What is the ops architecture like for AAA multiplayer game servers?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the ops architecture like for AAA multiplayer game servers?

#11

Post by [deleted] »

Slartie wrote: post #9
dijit wrote: post #6

This question sounds like it's pointed directly at me. However, I can only speak for one AAA gaming company, and my team operate a bit differently than most in the company. My team operates the infrastructure for "Tom Clancy's The Division" video game series (1&2). Most of the programming approach is spent on doing the cheapest (in terms of CPU) possible thing, everything is C++ Things like: matchmaking will happen i…

What is the rationale behind using Windows on the servers? I'm wondering because the argument I usually hear is that someone high up in the ops team hierarchy declares "but we need everything in the AD, including all the servers, otherwise I can't sleep well". In your case however this apparently doesn't apply, as you do not register them in the AD. Is it so the game devs don't need to write cross-platform server cod…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What is the ops architecture like for AAA multiplayer game servers?

#12

Post by speedplane »

dijit wrote: post #10
Slartie wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the rationale behind using Windows on the servers? I'm wondering because the argument I usually hear is that someone high up in the ops team hierarchy declares "but we need everything in the AD, including all the servers, otherwise I can't sleep well". In your case however this apparently doesn't apply, as you do not register them in the AD. Is it so the game devs don't need to write cross-platform server cod…

Real reasons for: * One platform to develop on; back-end coders tend to go back and forth between client and server programming. * Faster iterations. (just hit F5 in visual studio) * IOCP Stupid reasons for: * Old IT Director denied the use of virtualisation software. (mac address randomisation wasn't great and it caused a switch crash if two people had the same mac) * Windows licenses are really cheap compared to de…

I no longer do windows development, but I miss it. It's strengths are greater than you portray.

The C# / .NET libraries are really beautiful and well thought out. I most often program in Python, and while the Python language is more concise and elegant than C#, the Python libraries are not nearly as well organized and consistent as C# / .NET. Java libraries are better than Python but worse than C#, and the Java language is worse than both C# and Python. As far as dev enivronments, Visual Studio is far better than Eclipse and roughly equal to Python's PyCharm. Because C# is compiled, it's far more performant than Python and a bit better than Java.

The downside of course, is that once you start down that road, you are pretty locked into the MS world.

If I was starting a new project, and I was a scrappy startup, I'd probably go with Python. But if I had resources (ie $$$) to support MS licenses and performance actually mattered, I'd go with MS. Side projects for experimentation may lead to node or rust. But sorry Java, can't really imagine a scenario where I'd start with you.

Re: Ask HN: What is the ops architecture like for AAA multiplayer game servers?

#13

Post by yomly »

dijit wrote: post #6

This question sounds like it's pointed directly at me. However, I can only speak for one AAA gaming company, and my team operate a bit differently than most in the company. My team operates the infrastructure for "Tom Clancy's The Division" video game series (1&2). Most of the programming approach is spent on doing the cheapest (in terms of CPU) possible thing, everything is C++ Things like: matchmaking will happen i…

What is AD? Sorry - hard to google...

Re: Ask HN: What is the ops architecture like for AAA multiplayer game servers?

#14

Post by lubos »

yomly wrote: post #13
dijit wrote: post #6

This question sounds like it's pointed directly at me. However, I can only speak for one AAA gaming company, and my team operate a bit differently than most in the company. My team operates the infrastructure for "Tom Clancy's The Division" video game series (1&2). Most of the programming approach is spent on doing the cheapest (in terms of CPU) possible thing, everything is C++ Things like: matchmaking will happen i…

What is AD? Sorry - hard to google...

Active Directory

Re: Ask HN: What is the ops architecture like for AAA multiplayer game servers?

#15

Post by [deleted] »

yomly wrote: post #13
dijit wrote: post #6

This question sounds like it's pointed directly at me. However, I can only speak for one AAA gaming company, and my team operate a bit differently than most in the company. My team operates the infrastructure for "Tom Clancy's The Division" video game series (1&2). Most of the programming approach is spent on doing the cheapest (in terms of CPU) possible thing, everything is C++ Things like: matchmaking will happen i…

What is AD? Sorry - hard to google...

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What is the ops architecture like for AAA multiplayer game servers?

#16

Post by dom96 »

dijit wrote: post #6

This question sounds like it's pointed directly at me. However, I can only speak for one AAA gaming company, and my team operate a bit differently than most in the company. My team operates the infrastructure for "Tom Clancy's The Division" video game series (1&2). Most of the programming approach is spent on doing the cheapest (in terms of CPU) possible thing, everything is C++ Things like: matchmaking will happen i…

What I'd be curious to hear about is how your servers handle simulating the game world. How many players are simulated per world and what are some of the tricks that you use to ensure the simulation doesn't fall behind, or if it does how do you make sure the clients don't notice?

I'm currently writing a (much much simpler agar.io-like) multiplayer game and finding it quite challenging to make the experience smooth, I haven't implemented any lag compensation yet though so maybe that's why but I wonder if that is the only problem. Do you or anyone else have any resources that could help me?

Re: Ask HN: What is the ops architecture like for AAA multiplayer game servers?

#17

Post by exlurker »

dom96 wrote: post #16
dijit wrote: post #6

This question sounds like it's pointed directly at me. However, I can only speak for one AAA gaming company, and my team operate a bit differently than most in the company. My team operates the infrastructure for "Tom Clancy's The Division" video game series (1&2). Most of the programming approach is spent on doing the cheapest (in terms of CPU) possible thing, everything is C++ Things like: matchmaking will happen i…

What I'd be curious to hear about is how your servers handle simulating the game world. How many players are simulated per world and what are some of the tricks that you use to ensure the simulation doesn't fall behind, or if it does how do you make sure the clients don't notice? I'm currently writing a (much much simpler agar.io-like) multiplayer game and finding it quite challenging to make the experience smooth, I…

I found this article very enlightening: https://www.gabrielgambetta.com/client-server-game-architect...

Re: Ask HN: What is the ops architecture like for AAA multiplayer game servers?

#18

Post by godelmachine »

ptrott2017 wrote: post #4
efokschaner wrote: post #3

Not FPS specifically, but you might enjoy Riot Games' tech blog https://technology.riotgames.com/ which has articles on a variety of game technology things such as service deployment, network infrastructure, game performance monitoring etc. (Disclosure: I work there)

Riot games tech blog is an awesome read. The fps (as in frames per second) performance monitoring on league of legends post recently was a great example of why its worth a read.

I thought by FPS, the OP meant First Person Shooter

Re: Ask HN: What is the ops architecture like for AAA multiplayer game servers?

#19

Post by godelmachine »

Not related, but relatable.

I often wonder between Games and Enterprise Software, who has a more complex backend architecture?

At the outset, it seems like Games are complex as hell, in the sense that when a gamer shoots another gamer dead, there has to be freeing and re-allocation of processes/ resources, and with tens or hundreds of persons playing the same game over the internet , both the gaming architecture and network infrastructure’s gonna be complex.

Would someone help me out here?

Re: Ask HN: What is the ops architecture like for AAA multiplayer game servers?

#20

Post by godelmachine »

dijit wrote: post #10
Slartie wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the rationale behind using Windows on the servers? I'm wondering because the argument I usually hear is that someone high up in the ops team hierarchy declares "but we need everything in the AD, including all the servers, otherwise I can't sleep well". In your case however this apparently doesn't apply, as you do not register them in the AD. Is it so the game devs don't need to write cross-platform server cod…

Real reasons for: * One platform to develop on; back-end coders tend to go back and forth between client and server programming. * Faster iterations. (just hit F5 in visual studio) * IOCP Stupid reasons for: * Old IT Director denied the use of virtualisation software. (mac address randomisation wasn't great and it caused a switch crash if two people had the same mac) * Windows licenses are really cheap compared to de…

>>(until we went to cloud, where Microsoft charges insane amounts for licensing)

Did you move to Azure?

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