Unet standalone simulation server (dedicated server)?

Hello,

I was wondering if Unity has released a standalone simulation server yet, as I keep reading that Unity was planning on releasing one "in the future", but that was 2015. Now that it is 2016, I was wondering if this had been implemented yet?

I'm simply looking for a way to have a truly authoritative dedicated server setup for multiplayer using Unet (i.e. where the game is simulated on the server, and all of the clients are basically receivers of the information).

 

If you check out the Roadmap you'll see that the server library has drifted out of 5.4. Hopefully it makes it to 5.5 which I guess will be towards the end of the year. I'm having some good success with the NetworkServerSimple class which is new to 5.3 and seems to be pretty good.

 

Ah okay. So still a "no" right now officially.

Are you able to basically have an authoritative/dedicated server with the way you're doing it then? Or is it kind of a hybrid somehow?

 

It's pretty good. My setup is dedicated authoritative server. Not done any heavy load testing yet, but I'm liking the workflow when using NetworkServerSimple and NetworkClient. Made my own NetMsgs and handlers - seems good so far.

 

Someone from Unity can maybe give an official comment about the status of the simulation server development?

 

+1 to Whippets. I'm using NetworkServer & NetworkClient classes and for the moment it works well. You can build something nice with this.
However I don't trust higher level classes like NetworkTransform. Gave a look 3-4 months ago and I would't even call them pre-alpha...

 

Thanks richard - just keep us in the loop not in the dark for months at a time

 

any update on this?

 

https://blogs.unity3d.com/2017/03/17/update-on-unity-multiplayer-current-and-future/

 

I think they ended the development and is not anymore in the Roadmap you can check if want

 

Tell us more, this is a key component of Unity for many of us. We'd love to see it bolstered/changed/whatever. Don't keep up in the dark

 

Awesome. Let us know when you can. Even drip feed info. Multiplayer + Unity is definitely where we're at.

 

Glad to see a fire is being lit under Unity's networking feature development. Good news!

 

Wow, fabulous! I cannot wait until we can hear more. This could help a lot of us with our development and especially our testing. Thanks.

 

@richard-lee Any new updates?

 

I too am interested in any new news.

 

None of them mentioned standalone servers (LAN) at all. It seems to have dropped off the roadmap as well, is it still a thing? Is there a progress report?

 

Standalone LAN servers? LAN (Local area network, I.E your local network. Not the internet)

 

A server executable people can run on their own machine to host small networked parties, like Minecraft and the like. Wasn't that what the server library was supposed to be? Like Zeus from Photon (which seems to have quietly disappeared). There is quite a lot of interest if you look online, for LAN standalone support. Bolt (from Photon) is the closest big project you'll get, but according to them, every connection someone does offline counts towards your CCU.

 

@richard-lee, from very high level view, I would like to see a highly optimized scalable server that able to store and update player data and able to play with other player in real time. The lowest possible fee will be charged dynamically based on how much it's used. There will have a free tier for people to try out. Seems like you guys are working on L3 and will slowly approarch to L4 after done L3.

I also would like to imagine how the future of standalone simulation server will look like. It will deeply integrated into Unity that provides seamless development environment between game client and server. So, it will have one is client project and another one is Server project in Unity Editor. When create a project, it will ask you to choose network architecture such as first person shooter, fighting game, real time strategy and etc. Then, it will automatically configure the chosen network architecture for you. The game client and server will code in ECS way that makes adding and removing feature easier than before.

For player data, it will have a set of tools and APIs that provide super efficient data serialization and deserialization between client and server by default that have super high performance and low memory of flatbuffer and beyond. The tools will have something that able to setup the data layout of the game and it will generate the required code automatically to client and server. So, you will no longer need to write a lot of code just to make it able to exchange data between client and server. What you only have to write is when and what kind of data you want to send and receive between client and server . For server database, it will also have the tool to setup what kind of data needs to be stored into database. So, developer dun need to learn and understand a lot of low level details of networking and database knowledge before they can start developing networked game. For developers that dun want to use all these tools, they still able to do all kind of custom solution if developer choose to not using the tools as they have the full access to server.

For real time simulation, it will have better tools and APIs that able sync player and another player through network better than before. By default, it already solve most the networking problem that u will see both clients have smooth movement and not like old unet that it's not sync nicely. It will have the ability to tweak how both client sync the game state but by default it already provide production ready result. It will also have simulation tool that able to simulate good or bad network environment to debug the game.

 

Hello Velo222 try our network sollurion RUN its based on Unity3D Networking and we use it for our project. We update it permanently for future. Interesting planing update is "Web Admin" and much more..

https://forum.unity.com/threads/run-unity-networking-windows-linux-osx-support.525993/

 

@richard-lee

Awesome. Ya. The ability to set cost limit is a must have feature. I also would like to see server profiler just like current Unity profiler that able to observe and optimize performance of server. So, there's also have a tool to tweak the server performance just like how Google App Engine works.

There's still a problem when you want to develop hybrid archetypes. What if you want to create MMORPG + RTS?

I dunno whether I understand it correctly but seems like u guys focusing on L1 - L4 features kind of direction. What I hope to see is it will become modules that developers can mix and match to meet their specific requirement. Just like how package manager works currently that only add the feature u want to use.

 

Cloud hosted solutions is not really interesting for us.
Will it be possible to use the standalone "simulation" server and host it on your own infrastructure?
Wasn't that the original plan for the standalone server: that you can deploy it on your own hardware?

 

Hi @richard-lee, didn't hear from you for a while. I have 2 more questions want to ask.

1) I see ECS Multiplayer preview is planned at 2018.3. Will it able to use standalone simulation server that have full access so I can do almost anything I want?

2) Are u guys still working on server library for people who want to do self hosting server?