Custom Game Server Questions

Question

question

schweizerbenjamin97 asked May 31, '17

Custom Game Server Questions

Hi Brendan,

I would like to use a Custom Game Server, but I have a few questions about it.

First I hope I am right that the server runs Unity instances?? If yes then:

1. Whats happening if lets say 5000 Users want to play at the same time. Does the server run multiple instances automatically? Can players find each other in matchmaking if there are on different instances?

2. Can i create matchmaking with statistics? For example i want that player with ca. the same stats can play against.

3. If the server is a full authoritative server with custom game logic is it possible to use unity assets on the server? For example the A* Pathfinding?

4. How can the server talk to the clients? It is a tick like the photon realtime that every 0.1 seconds the client gets a update with new position and other data? Can a client send some messages to other clients?

5. Can i use something like a RPC-Call? For example i want to trigger if the client can shoot a bullet.

6. Is the custom game server suitable for a fast paced game? What protocols can use to communicate? Is it suitable for a mobile game?

7. If many players want to play my game can i adjust a limit that i dont get a bill over thousands of euros?

I believe that were all the questions I have :D

Thanks for your help :)

Custom Game Servers

10 |1200

Attachments: Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.

Answer 1 · 2017-06-01T02:16:18Z

brendan answered Jun 1, '17

It actually doesn't matter what engine you use to build your executable. As long as it can run on a Windows 2K12 R2 machine, it can run on our server hosting. We have a number of Unity developers using custom game servers, so yes, that is an option.

1) The way our server hosting works is that you specify how many instances of your executable can run on a server host (a machine in EC2) and how many free instance slots you need to have available at all times, to handle a "surge" of folks looking to join games (as it takes a few minutes to provision a server, image it, and get your exe set up on it). We then scale up and down the number of running servers based on availability (the number of available instances). You can read more on this here: https://api.playfab.com/docs/tutorials/landing-tournaments/custom-game-servers.

2) You can include a statistic as part of a call to matchmaking. What we do is find an available player slot in a game running in the region, and with the game mode and build you specify, where the statistic for the server (based on the players in the server) matches the player's as closely as possible.

3) It's your build, running anything you like. As long as it runs on a Windows 2K12 R2 machine, it's all good.

4) However you like. We provide the IP Address and Port for the client to connect to the server. But whether you use UDP, TCP, or something else is up to you. And for player-to-player messaging, you can certainly pass information on player IP Address/Port between players, but it's sometimes more reliable to pass those messages via the server itself.

5) It's your custom server logic, so it's whatever you want to do.

6) Yes, we have a number of fast-paced shooter games using custom game servers. For the most part, they use reliable UDP as their communication protocol, since that's the best compromise of speed and reliability.

7) You decide how many server hours you want to pay for, maximum. There's a setting for that in the game manager. We'll never run more server hours than you specify for your title.

10 |1200

Attachments: Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.

question