Reducing Network Latency on Consistency Maintenance Algorithms in Distributed Network Games

Abstract

Network latency and bandwidth are important factors in online games for satisfying users' playability. On one hand, the development of networking technology enables the spread of broadband Internet connection, which is now common in developed counties. Therefore, the bandwidth problem is less significant than the network latency problems. On the other hand, due to the physical properties of data transmission it is hard to solve the network latency problems. Consistency is another important factor in online games for state update and player action fairness. Event ordering is one of the methods for maintaining consistency in traditional multi-process environments. The network latency and consistency maintenance are mutually exclusive relationship. Therefore, we will examine various consistency maintenance algorithms and suggest transmission schemes which can reduce network latency without increasing bandwidth requirement significantly. Our experimental results also show the effects of transmission schemes with consistency maintenance algorithms on game sessions of various numbers of players.