Despite problems with bandwidth, Microsoft seems to be creating a new technology code named “DonnyBrook”
This system allows people to play new fps games on a massive scale. We’re talking about hundreds to thousands of people all shooting at each other at the same time… Sound fun to you? Sounds fun to me!
The video below describes it as Helms Deep from Lord of the Rings but with every orc, every elf, every person on the battlefield being controlled by a real person online. Now this would be a huge problem because most people don’t have the upload bandwidth capacity to keep themselves up to date with everyone else on the map, but with this new system it is possible through “focus sets”
Focus sets refers to a new system by which the player gets more updates from players they have recently interacted with in the game. This way the players that you are fighting against will be lag free, while the players you aren’t fighting against will only be updating once every few frames.
This may lead to some questions, such as, Why aren’t the players who I am not focussing on lagging like crazy. This is fixed by another technique called “Guidable AI”
Guidable AI is a brilliant solution to this problem. At the most basic level, the Guidable AI emulates the people you are not focussed on in between the actual updates of the real player. Since this AI is locally being run, there will be no problems with bandwidth.
The paper has been publicly published citing how to use this tech, so it can be done on non-MS platforms.
Think of the games we could see do to this technology. Massive FPS wars with hundreds of players on each side all battling it out at once. 40 v 40 on resistance is cool, but what about 400 v 400 on say.....Killzone 2? This tech doesn’t stop at FPS’s either, what if Heavenly Sword implemented it and we had hundreds of player hacking and slashing it out in a massive battle.
This could be the next online evolution. People with Dial-up and other slow connections can enjoy lag-free games.
Many people are struggling a lot in understanding this new technology, here is an explanation and Q and A.
We all agree that Resistance can run 20 v 20 with very, very little lag. Every single one of those players (on both teams) is updated in real-time no matter where they are on the map in every frame. How many players do you see on your screen at once? 4 maybe 5 on average. If your next to the flag you’ll be lucky to see 10 at once, very lucky.
What this technique does is instead of updating every single player in real-time no matter where they are on they map, it recognizes which players are close enough to matter and updates those in real-time. The players that are too far away to matter, are updated every few frames instead of every frame (drastically reducing bandwidth needed!). So, instead of updating 40 players in real-time the system only updates 10, and uses the free bandwidth to periodically update 400 players instead of frequently updating 40.
In order to understand this you must realize that updating a player periodically takes a lot less bandwidth than updating it every single frame. If you do not get that, this entire technique will not make sense and you’ll just say “but TEH LAG”.
The players that are update periodically are not just left idle when not updating, they are run by the CPU as bots based on how the player who is controlling the character plays. It’s a lot like nexgenwars.com’s numbers. They are set to a timer to increase based on how sales are doing. Once an official release comes from Sony or MS, they’ll go back and change the numbers and reset the timer. The timer will continue until another statement comes, then update, then timer, then statement, then update etc etc etc. This is vital to understand.
Q & A:
Q: Ok, so the guy I’m shooting is being updated but what about the guy next to him?
A: If you actually watch the video, at least 5 people will be updated in real time.
Q: What if theres more than 5 guys?
A: Show me a twitch FPS that has more than 5 guys consistantly on the screen and I’ll show you an FPS with an over packed map. Gears, Halo, Warhawk, Socom, Resistance all those games will hardly ever have more than 5 people on screen at once.
Q: Won’t the guys far away LAG?
A: Does it matter, you can’t see them. That’s point, you can’t see them so they aren’t crucial to update. Only people near you can hurt you, so only they matter. Once that guy comes close enough to hurt you, the program will realize this and update him in real time.
Q: What about sniper rifles?
A: Well to use a sniper rifle you have to zoom in right? So the guys in your screen will change to those you can see in the scope. It’s just a matter of changing your “focus” zone.
Q: What if a bot wonders into your zone?
A: The bot is update way to frequently to “wonder” into your zone. The bots are updated based on how far away they are from you. So that guy 10 miles away, yea he won’t be update every second...but he’s 10 MILES AWAY. That guy hovering just outside your zone, he’ll be update much more frequently, not as frequent as your zone but close. There is a proportion in the programming that says the further away you are, the less you’ll update. The closer your are the more you’ll update.
People, we could have hundreds of people all on one map, imagine an RTS, except your 1 soldier, and all the other hundreds of enemies are humans.
The ultimate online.
People, we could have hundreds of people all on one map, imagine an RTS, except your 1 soldier, and all the other hundreds of enemies are humans.
The ultimate online.
*thinks of Halo Wars*
cool......o and RFoM doesn’t have 40 vs 40 online. It’s 40 Free-For-All.
no i’m just mocking u because u chose Rome total war over Medieval 2 Total war. I know ur point.
O and even the creaters admitted that every soildier didn’t look the same. They built each person’s face differently. U prbly saw one that kinda looked the same but had some facial feature that differed them.
I understand how ur saying 1000 vs 1000 Actual ppl Not AI (liek in Rome/Medieval total war) i was just makign fun of u cause u choose Rome TW instead of Medieval 2 Total War
I’d never want to see a massive online battle like that. Cause you’d need everyone with perfect internet connections for it to work. Just won’t work in this day and age. Need more people with high speed internet and need more people with faster and better connections from their providers.
--- It’s not about money. It’s about sending a message. Everything burns.
Zucas wrote:
I’d never want to see a massive online battle like that. Cause you’d need everyone with perfect internet connections for it to work. Just won’t work in this day and age. Need more people with high speed internet and need more people with faster and better connections from their providers.
well according to M$ they made a way where if u have DSL or a highspeed internet u can do this. B4 if u reached this number it would lag but according to M$ tehy found a way to fix it so that no one lags.
I’ll believe it when I see it. Games on consoles can hardly handle 32 player online. 40 being the max to work. PC’s really have only gone up lag free to 64. Now all of sudden we are talking about 2,000.
Yea we need to take baby steps not superjumps. How about we work on a 50 vs 50 first then. Instead of this craziness.
--- It’s not about money. It’s about sending a message. Everything burns.
Yea but if you try to go up to fast you get games like Black Hawk Down on the Xbox that was extremely laggy. We need to take reasonable steps first. Not 64 online games to 2,000.
--- It’s not about money. It’s about sending a message. Everything burns.
From what I read is that it does lag. But only when they are far away. Which really wouldn’t go over well with many. I still doubt that 1000 vs 1000 can be done right now. They’ll just have to prove me wrong. Plus what kinda game would need so many. I mean at the most I’d be content with a 100 vs 100 for a war styled game. Have divisions and what not and move on like that.
--- It’s not about money. It’s about sending a message. Everything burns.
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