Thursday, August 29, 2013

TCP or UDP with networked games!

     With the goal of making a networked game over the coming semester the of the first major options to look at and consider is what type of protocol to use when making connections between clients.  After a little research looking specifically at the fast paced action title for the Xbox, Halo. Halo as well as most if not all other high paced shooters use UDP in order to set packets to their clients. This way the clients can listen on specific ports or any/all information that comes its way, while UDP can keep spitting out packets of information to the users which will receive them hopefully in order but not guaranteed. TCP on the other hand needs a secure connection and demands order, high paced games would lag as they waited and waited for all of the necessary packets to get to their destination.  So while data might be lost it's a much better trade off then having an unplayable game. UDP seem to be the answers,  at least for fast pace action games such as Halo.

      However  TCP still has its place world of Networked games.  It can be used in turn based games which can take the time to make sure the connection is there and all packets arrive safely.  As well as for other services in the online game itself.  League of Legends for example while using UDP for actual game play uses TCP for things like statistics, rankings, analytics, and their lobby/store client.  But when it boils down to actually game play the clear answer seems to be the UDP way or the highway.