The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication (한국인터넷방송통신학회논문지)

The Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication (한국인터넷방송통신학회)
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Reduction Method of Network Bandwidth Requirement for the Scalability of Multiplayer Game Server Systems

멀티플레이어 게임 서버 시스템의 규모조정을 위한 통신 대역폭 요건 감소 기법

  • Kim, Jinhwan (Dept. of Multimedia Engineering, Hansung University)
  • 김진환 (한성대학교 멀티미디어공학과)
  • Received : 2013.03.08
  • Accepted : 2013.08.16
  • Published : 2013.08.31
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Abstract

Multiplayer games typically organized based on a client-server(CS) or peer-to-peer(PP) architecture. The CS architecture is not scalable with the number of players due to a large bandwidth requirement at the server. The PP architecture, on the other hand, introduces significant overhead for the players, as each player needs to check the consistency between its local state and the state of all other players. We then propose a method that combines the merits of CS and PP. In this method, players exchange updates with lower priority in a peer-to-peer manner but communicate directly with a central server for the other updates. As a result, the proposed method has a lower network bandwidth requirement than the server of a CS architecture and the server bandwidth bottleneck is removed. For another important issue about multiplayer games, this method always maintains state consistency among players correctly. The performance of this method is evaluated through extensive simulation experiments and analysis.

전형적으로 멀티플레이어 게임은 클라이언트-서버 구조 혹은 peer-to-peer 구조를 기반으로 구성된다. 클라이언트-서버 구조는 플레이어의 수가 증가할 때 서버에서 대역폭 요건이 커지기 때문에 규모조정이 어렵다. 반면 peer-to-peer 구조는 각 플레이어마다 자신의 상태와 다른 모든 플레이어들의 상태 간의 일관성을 점검해야 하기 때문에 상당한 오버헤드가 수반된다. 본 논문에서는 두 구조의 장점을 결합하는 기법을 제시한다. 이 기법에서는 플레이어들이 우선순위가 낮은 갱신 작업은 peer-to-peer 방식으로 상호 교환하며 우선순위가 높은 갱신 작업에 대해서는 중앙 서버와 직접 통신하게 된다. 결과적으로 제시된 기법은 클라이언트-서버 구조 보다 통신 부하 요건이 감소되며 서버의 대역폭 병목 현상도 제거된다. 멀티플레이어 게임의 다른 중요한 사항인 플레이어 간의 상태 일관성도 이 기법에서 항상 정확히 유지된다. 제시된 기법의 성능은 분석과 다양한 실험을 통하여 평가되었다.

Keywords

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