| WARNING: This crate currently depends on nightly rust unstable and incomplete features. |
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crystalorb
Network-agnostic, high-level game networking library
for client-side prediction and server reconciliation.
Quick start
You may copy the standalone example to use as a starting template, and build off from there. You may also want to check out crystalorb-mock-network and crystalorb-bevy-networking-turbulence, either to use directly in your projects, or as examples for you to integrate your own choice of networking layer.
If you prefer a more visual and interactive example, there is the demo shown above that uses the Rapier physics engine. Feel free to use the demo's source code as a starting template for your next project.
For more information about how to implement the required traits, refer to the docs.
About
Game networking is hard, because we usually want to give the illusion that the physics simulation is responsive, fair, and consistent between multiple game clients despite having significant network latency between the clients and the server. There are many different ways to solve the game networking problem. CrystalOrb tries implementing one of such ways.
CrystalOrb is a young networking library that implements:
- Client-side prediction. Clients immediately apply their local input to their simulation before waiting for the server, so that the player's inputs feel responsive.
- Server reconciliation. Server runs a delayed, authoritative version of the simulation, and periodically sends authoritative snapshots to each client. Since the server's snapshots represent an earlier simulation frame, each client fast-forwards the snapshot they receive until it matches the same timestamp as what's being shown on screen. Once the timestamps match, clients smoothly blend their states to the snapshot states.
- Display state interpolation. The simulation can run at a different time-step from the render framerate, and the client will automatically interpolate between the two simulation frames to get the render display state.
CrystalOrb does not (yet) implement "lag compensation" (depending on your definition of "lag compensation"), because crystalorb clients currently simulate all entities (including other players) in the present anyway. Some netcode clients would rather simulate entities in the past except for the local player. There are pros and cons to both methods:
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By simulating everything in the present, collision timings will be consistent across all clients provided that no player input significantly changes the course of the simulation. This might be beneficial for physics-heavy games like... Rocket League? This is what crystalorb does. If you have two clients side-by-side, and you issue a "jump" command for the player using the left client, then the right client will see a jump after a small delay, but both clients will see the player land at the exact same time.
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By simulating most remote entities in the past, remote entities require little correction in the client, so other players' movement will look more natural in response to their player inputs. If you have two clients side-by-side, and issue a "jump" command for the player using the left client, then the right client will not see any jerk in the movement, but the jump and the landing will occur slightly later after the left client.
Caveat: You need to bring your own physics engine and "mid-level" networking layer. CrystalOrb is only a "sequencer" of some sort, a library that encapsulates the high-level algorithm for synchronizing multiplayer physics games. CrystalOrb is physics-engine agnostic and networking agnostic (as long as you can implement the requested traits).
Is crystalorb any good?
Doubt it. This is my first time doing game networking, so expect it to be all glitter and no actual gold. For more information on game networking, you might have better luck checking out the following:
- Gaffer On Games articles.
- Gabriel Gambetta's Fast-Paced Multiplayer series.
- The GDC Talk It IS Rocket Science! The Physics of Rocket League Detailed by Jared Cone.
- The GDC Talk Overwatch Gameplay Architecture and Netcode by Timothy Ford.
(Yes, those were where I absorbed most of my small game-networking knowledge from. Yes, their designs are probably much better than crystalorb)
Unstable Rust Features
CrystalOrb currently uses the following unstable features:
#![feature(const_fn_floating_point_arithmetic)]
#![feature(map_first_last)]
#![feature(const_generics)]
#![feature(generic_associated_types)]
7 Dec 23, 2022
196 Dec 22, 2022
14 Dec 15, 2022
18 Nov 26, 2022
3 Mar 7, 2022
210 Dec 22, 2022
3 Aug 17, 2024
41 Dec 25, 2022
12 Jul 17, 2022
0 Feb 21, 2021
44 May 6, 2023
411 Jan 9, 2023
45 Dec 28, 2022
20 Nov 7, 2022
316 Dec 29, 2022
6 Jul 1, 2022
3 Dec 26, 2022
5 Nov 4, 2020
2 Apr 1, 2022