Re: A few thoughts on client/server in multi-player games

[Kjetil Torgrim Homme <kjetilho>]

Ah yes, a persistent cache is nice, perhaps even a must. That doesn't
necessitate always referring to images by name, though. If we keep the
"pixmap array" in the server for every connection (~10kB), we can have
this communication:

Server doesn't yet know whether the client has the images a firewall
or fireorc:

Server -> client
  have? firewall fireorc
Client -> server
  send fireorc
  have 2123 2788
Server -> client
  transmit fireorc 567
  .... 567 bytes of arbitrary 8-bit binary ....
  map 1,1 1,2 2123
  map 2,2 2788

The above isn't perfect, and introduces even more state in the server
-- it needs to keep a queue of names it has asked for with "have?".

Datapoint: the average length of a bitmap name is currently 12
characters.

I look forward to seeing your proposal. It will be good to have a
concrete protocol to comment on. We could even calculate the number of
bytes needed :-)


Kjetil T.