MMO kit question
by Brian Irvin · in General Discussion · 10/06/2006 (6:41 pm) · 115 replies
Http://www.mydreamrpg.com/ is this realy worth geting? I am wanting input i may full around it but im not sure since I am currently in the process of designing a game
About the author
#42
Regards,
Dreamer
p.s. You can also run singleplayer RPGs and/or local lan servers using the exact same codebase!
10/09/2006 (5:18 pm)
Let me clarify, our Demo server has only a single 40GB HD No RAID, nothin fancy. We lease these things out for $50 per month and it's Just commodity server grade hardware, we are trying to make it cheap and easy for anyone with a vision a dream and some determination to make an MMORPG. We really don't feel that cost should be an inhibiting factor in any of this. :)Regards,
Dreamer
p.s. You can also run singleplayer RPGs and/or local lan servers using the exact same codebase!
#43
10/09/2006 (5:22 pm)
After my upgrade would it be sufficent to start out with. may turn my desktop into a temp. web server. and have another server as the data base server unless u think i can run the database and game on one server
#44
10/09/2006 (6:29 pm)
What program should i use to make the interior of a ship in which players move around in? modeling program or a level editor program?
#45
I'm not aware of any multithreading in Torque other than that used for Theora playback. In general, Torque uses way too many globals to be safely threaded. What specific kind of threading are you saying is built in? Built into what -- Torque or MMOKit? Does the MMOKit make Torque thread safe?
I also don't think it's fair to say "just run on a cluster if you need to scale more" and then say "but we haven't actually ported to MPI yet." That's like saying "let's take my Ferrari to go get ice cream. Of course, I haven't actually won the lottery yet, so we'll have to walk for a bit."
Regarding the Mosix cluster: a context switch for an in-RAM process is fairly cheap; migrating a process to another node is significantly more expensive. Even worse: if you use multi-threading, and have tight communication between the threads using local memory, the performance of a non-SMP cluster is going to plummet; easily by a factor of 100 slower. That's why an API like MPI exists.
To me, your answers have raised more questions than they have answered, and I'm starting to doubt how much systems programming knowledge you actually have, which in turn makes me doubt how useful the MMOKit really would be. I don't mean to be negative; I am honestly trying to understand. If you had some architecture documentation and/or whitepaper, like what Tim suggested, that might help shed some light on things.
10/09/2006 (7:53 pm)
Quote:Well hplus as your probably aware, the multithreading is built into the code comes out of the box that way, as for porting it to use the Message Passing Inteface natively no, we haven't done that yet.
I'm not aware of any multithreading in Torque other than that used for Theora playback. In general, Torque uses way too many globals to be safely threaded. What specific kind of threading are you saying is built in? Built into what -- Torque or MMOKit? Does the MMOKit make Torque thread safe?
I also don't think it's fair to say "just run on a cluster if you need to scale more" and then say "but we haven't actually ported to MPI yet." That's like saying "let's take my Ferrari to go get ice cream. Of course, I haven't actually won the lottery yet, so we'll have to walk for a bit."
Regarding the Mosix cluster: a context switch for an in-RAM process is fairly cheap; migrating a process to another node is significantly more expensive. Even worse: if you use multi-threading, and have tight communication between the threads using local memory, the performance of a non-SMP cluster is going to plummet; easily by a factor of 100 slower. That's why an API like MPI exists.
To me, your answers have raised more questions than they have answered, and I'm starting to doubt how much systems programming knowledge you actually have, which in turn makes me doubt how useful the MMOKit really would be. I don't mean to be negative; I am honestly trying to understand. If you had some architecture documentation and/or whitepaper, like what Tim suggested, that might help shed some light on things.
#46
Thanks for that.
10/09/2006 (10:10 pm)
Sold me guys, I'm gonna get the Titas one as I have the shader engine.Thanks for that.
#47
Regards,
Dreamer
p.s. By the way I want to thank everyone for chiming in!
10/09/2006 (10:23 pm)
@Hplus, the point is not so much to re-architect TGE from the ground up to utilize MPI, the point is to give people a product that they can develop serious MMORPG on today. With that said, I am interested in hearing your views on "proper" mmo design and I invite you to continue this particular discussion on our website so that we can take the combined wisdom of all of us and create a truely superior product.Regards,
Dreamer
p.s. By the way I want to thank everyone for chiming in!
#48
10/10/2006 (6:01 am)
Sold me to as far as im concerned its worth it by saving a hell of alot time other wise being spent on actualy adding an mmo engine to the tge. as far as titas goes Malcolm you may want to wait tell they can get the stability issues worked out with tse
#49
10/10/2006 (6:18 am)
You dont have to rebuild torque just to use the mmo kit to cause last time i did that with the tank pack it sucked cause it never did show up in the mountable shapes which as far as im concerned was a wast. Any way im allmost done with the design doc "please see my other post in need of programmers and more" for mor info. I will ride by the atm and do an inquiry supose to get a refund on 3d rad after which ill porbaly get the mmo kit. assuming it buiilds right into the tge under vidual c++ without me having to change this and that lol. does the gui use a standard torwue gui thingy.
#50
I have to be honest with you, I don't think that's a legitimate answer. If you look at the whitepapers I've sent you of the Multiverse architecture, you'll see that they are doing something quite different.
So, the question is, do you have an architecture in Titas to distribute 5,000 (or an arbitrarily large number of) client connections across multiple server instances which represent one zone/world, with the ability to dynamically divide a given area of the world when then density becomes too great? And with the ability for me to see you running even if you're on or about to be on a different server instance yet within my range of sight?
I think the larger issue here is that you do, in fact, have to change some fairly fundamental things about Torque if you want the kind of system that can do this kind of load balancing, zone transitioning, dynamic world splitting (quad trees), etc.
Otherwise, you've got a different solution, with a different set of features, and the answer to "how do you handle 5,000 client connections for players all in one tiny part of the world?" is "You don't", because there is always a limit to how much one piece of hardware can do (and it's considerly less then 5,000, it's even considerably less then 1,000 for the most minimal of zone designs). That's not to say that design is wrong or anything of the sort... it's a different design with a different set of plusses and minuses.
It's not a hardware question... it's a question about software design and architecture.
In any case, I still think producing some white papers or some other fancy little web pages showing how your system works would help you sell more.
10/10/2006 (9:41 am)
Quote:
Quote:
If so, how do you connect 1,000 or 5,000 clients to it?
Your only limitation here is your hardware, if your hardware is physically capable of providing service to that many clients the software will allow it.
I have to be honest with you, I don't think that's a legitimate answer. If you look at the whitepapers I've sent you of the Multiverse architecture, you'll see that they are doing something quite different.
So, the question is, do you have an architecture in Titas to distribute 5,000 (or an arbitrarily large number of) client connections across multiple server instances which represent one zone/world, with the ability to dynamically divide a given area of the world when then density becomes too great? And with the ability for me to see you running even if you're on or about to be on a different server instance yet within my range of sight?
Quote:
@Hplus, the point is not so much to re-architect TGE from the ground up to utilize MPI...
I think the larger issue here is that you do, in fact, have to change some fairly fundamental things about Torque if you want the kind of system that can do this kind of load balancing, zone transitioning, dynamic world splitting (quad trees), etc.
Otherwise, you've got a different solution, with a different set of features, and the answer to "how do you handle 5,000 client connections for players all in one tiny part of the world?" is "You don't", because there is always a limit to how much one piece of hardware can do (and it's considerly less then 5,000, it's even considerably less then 1,000 for the most minimal of zone designs). That's not to say that design is wrong or anything of the sort... it's a different design with a different set of plusses and minuses.
It's not a hardware question... it's a question about software design and architecture.
In any case, I still think producing some white papers or some other fancy little web pages showing how your system works would help you sell more.
#51
10/10/2006 (10:04 am)
While I realize it won't be able to show thousands-- or even hundreds -- of people online at the same time, it's a shame there's no public demo of the MMOkit.
#52
There is currently no demo for the MMOKIT, however there is a community driven effort to get a demo showing all the features of the MMOKIT built, with the ability to directly interface with the Developers to get any needed features, alterations, or other things added, and bugs fixed. However this is currently "MMOKIT Owners Only" access to the demo while it is still in the stages of being developed, later on the developers hope to allow others to access script only parts of the demo to test it out and fix any bugs before it is released.
Thanks,
- Tom.
10/10/2006 (10:13 am)
Eric,There is currently no demo for the MMOKIT, however there is a community driven effort to get a demo showing all the features of the MMOKIT built, with the ability to directly interface with the Developers to get any needed features, alterations, or other things added, and bugs fixed. However this is currently "MMOKIT Owners Only" access to the demo while it is still in the stages of being developed, later on the developers hope to allow others to access script only parts of the demo to test it out and fix any bugs before it is released.
Thanks,
- Tom.
#53
10/10/2006 (10:23 am)
Tim or tom when yall started out with the mmo kit what program did yall use as the database server and was it on the same one as the game server? Was it mysql?
#54
Now the MMOKIT uses a local (to the server) SQLite database. However there are plans to put back in the database connectors so that such databases as MySQL databases can be used.
Thanks,
- Tom.
10/10/2006 (10:27 am)
When I got the MMOKIT it was using a database connector that connected to a MySQL database. However it could also connect to other databases such as Oracle.Now the MMOKIT uses a local (to the server) SQLite database. However there are plans to put back in the database connectors so that such databases as MySQL databases can be used.
Thanks,
- Tom.
#55
10/10/2006 (10:29 am)
So another words it kinda has a built in database on the server side?
#56
10/10/2006 (10:56 am)
Yes it has a built in SQLite database for server side use, and can be used client side too, to store information if necessary. We will be adding in ODBC support in a future upgrade!
#57
10/10/2006 (11:00 am)
Cool. i made a post in my "looking for help topic" that if anyone one wanted to see my design doc to send me ur email the only reason im posting again is so yall can take a look at it and help me decide what i need mmo kit or titus. So just give me ur email addy and ill mail it ot you its in word format. and if yall decide yall want to help after reading it feel free to let me know
#58
10/10/2006 (3:21 pm)
Hey Brian I'm not seeing your post bud... Could you link to it here?
#59
howerver if u want the design document im gonna email that out to keep others that dont have tge get it
10/10/2006 (3:25 pm)
Http://www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=51971howerver if u want the design document im gonna email that out to keep others that dont have tge get it
#60
Here why don't you repost asking for help over at MyDreamRPG.com's Collaboration Forum
The whole point of that place is to do team building for MMO's and MMO scale projects.
Who knows you might even find a role to fill and help someone else as well as possibly making a little money to help subsidize development of your game :)
Regards,
Dreamer
10/10/2006 (3:30 pm)
Ahh ok thats why I didn't find it.Here why don't you repost asking for help over at MyDreamRPG.com's Collaboration Forum
The whole point of that place is to do team building for MMO's and MMO scale projects.
Who knows you might even find a role to fill and help someone else as well as possibly making a little money to help subsidize development of your game :)
Regards,
Dreamer
Torque 3D Owner Brian Irvin