multiplayer

[winged badger]

are all of them the same type by any chance, 100 floats?

[twin juniper]

@winged badger You know any way to optimize replicated variables

[winged badger]

replicate only what you need to, calculate other stuff during OnRep ?

avoid replicating Strings if you know the list of possibilities at compile time

don't replicate stuff more freqently then human eye can notice

replicating enums is your friend, only 1 byte

[merry pebble]

Okay so i just want my game to be Co-op... Where do i start and how do i do this?

Any help would be great, please DM

[winged badger]

read the pinned resources in this channel

[merry pebble]

Okay thnks m8

[twin juniper]

lol

deleted account?

[merry pebble]

Yep

[fresh saddle]

Should a users inventory exist on the Character itself or the Player State?

Having a few timing issues with it existing on the Character

[grand kestrel]

Player state is kept alive after DC, if that helps

[fresh saddle]

@grand kestrel I actually think this is an issue with the way I'm making my HUD now
How should player huds be created? Atm im just making a HUD actor spawn a widget and "add to viewport" but it's not yielding the results I expected

The HUD is spawned by the Player Controller, right?

Hmm. Still can't work this out. How should player huds be created for multiplayer? Everything I've tried has some odd results

[grand kestrel]

@fresh saddle Sorry I'm pretty busy atm so can't involve myself much, but you should have a master widget created from the HUD class, and that widget should handle everything under it, keep in mind that anything associated with the UI should only send requests, it should never directly manipulate data

The HUD class exists purely on the local client and nowhere else so you don't have to worry about authority/local checks

[fresh saddle]

@grand kestrel No problems!
Alright. So I have it setup correctly then. The timing issue is odd. When I reset the player from the Player Controller, the Character doesn't exist yet but the Widget's construct is called.

[fresh saddle]

Interestingly Get Owning Player returns the correct Controller but the Controller's "Controlled Pawn" is None. So the Widget is getting created before the new Character is possessed?

This is all while using the Restart Player at Player Start Node btw

[thin stratus]

Where exactly are you creating the Widget?

[fresh saddle]

Within a HUD class

Just a OnBeginPlay > Widget is valid then add to viewport, if not create widget then add to viewport

[hasty adder]

Anyone got tips for method of replicating a modular skeletal mesh to ensure current and new joining characters would know what should be showing up. Wasn’t sure if having 30 non visible skeletal references on a character and just a bunch of replicated booleonl to drive the setup is the way to go?

Or prob enums. eheadmesh eshouldermesh ect and onrep run the routine to hide and show

[winged badger]

i'd setup replication inside the SkeletalMesh component itself, not in the owning character

and if its simpler, replicate the values that cause the skeletal mesh to change instead of brute forcing the 30 or so variables over the network

[hasty adder]

Hmmms I watched a vid on that. So making your own skeletal mesh component class hmmm, unfortunately none of these go over replication :/

Then again is that as simple as ☑️ this component replicates

[winged badger]

well, if you are going to have a ton of replicated variables that drive that component

inherit from SkeletalMesh component, set it to replicate and add those replicated variables in it

[hasty adder]

TBH we’re talking heads and shoulder pads

[cedar aspen]

figure you guys making shooters might know this, were the fortnight input lag improvements put in 4.19? i can't tell the difference

[inland pond]

I want to overide the FindPlayerStart within the GameMode ... But unfortunately it will be called even before on construction on the game mode. Where to I have to search for the player starts on the map then?

[sweet spire]

@cedar aspen define what sort of input lag

fortnite uses char movement comp, root motion & the GAS system's prediction system

[cedar aspen]

UT4 was averaging 20ms input lag on low settings, so I was wondering if this https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/unreal-engine-improvements-for-fortnite-battle-royale now applies

[sweet spire]

You mean ping?

input lag and ping are two different thing with the way fortnite functions

you need to be a lil more specific in what your asking, do you mean input from physical hardware to client side?

from a quick read over what u linked, by the looks of it maybe they mean on 30 ticks /sec games the input was sloppy to client maybe? so they made improvements to it

[manic pine]

While working on Battle Royale we identified some issues with input latency in the engine that particularly affected 30Hz games. We were able to make improvements to thread synchronization, reducing latency by around 66ms (the reduction will be around half that in a 60Hz title) to address this problem. These changes make a noticeable improvement to the feel of the game, making it more responsive and easier to aim. (Will be in 4.19)

[sweet spire]

dont quote me on that tho as they are not being 100% specific with what they say

im assuming they mean hardware to > client do thing

[manic pine]

cant say ive noticed anything, but im running 100hz server and high client fps

didnt notice it as a problem before 4.19 either though, and im usually sensitive to stuff like this

[sweet spire]

il take a shot in the dark and say this might be aimed towards consoles

locked on 30hz

and low end pc's

[manic pine]

yah

vsync stuff maybe?

[sweet spire]

perhaps

u ever played overwatch on xbox or ps4?

and played it on the pc

u can feel the input difference massively compared to pc

menu feel's how do i put this, heavy?

so i assume the console / 30hz games where feeling heavy

[manic pine]

ahh, yeah i know the feeling you refer to

as if somethings going in slow motion

[sweet spire]

yeah ima guess its that

yes lmao

[manic pine]

there are some engines like that

must be related to separate graphics thread

[sweet spire]

cant comment as i dont understand the low end of the engine enough

[manic pine]

yeah, and settings definitely enter into it too

[sly basin]

@inland pond queue the joins into an array until construction is complete

[cedar aspen]

i also think input lag is reduced using the forward renderer

[sweet spire]

wat

im pretty sure its a separate thread

[cedar aspen]

yeah just personal experience

i come from Q3 based games so i'm sensitivie to it

[inland pond]

@sly basin So you mean to not override the function FindPlayerSpawn and instead spawn them by myself?

[twin juniper]

So for some reason, my server is allocating memory to blueprints and foliage

is this normal? lol

Even widgets are being packaged lol

[twin juniper]

Servers have feelings and eyes too y'know

[dreamy rampart]

Hello friends. someone available to help me in my video game (payment in between) if you have enough knowledge in programming

[sly basin]

@inland pond yes you'd have to build your own logic for when to spawn who - in my case iirc it was as simple as making the default pawn a spectator pawn that had rules placed on it (you could lock it's movement, blank the camera, or whatever you like) and when conditions were met (player joined a team and a new round starts or type was a free for all whatever conditions you like) find the spawn locations and spawn the regular player character. There's probably many ways to come at it.

in any case firing up a bunch of preview instances at once usually exposes a flaw where queuing multiple joins into an array and dealing with them one by one was necessary to make it work as expected

[slender cloud]

Just upgraded my project to 4.18 and server travel stopped working for some reason? I have tried running it through game instance, player controller, and game mode. Anyone else have this issue before?

[inland pond]

@sly basin okay thanks 😄

[sly basin]

It came down to this on my end: Doing any action that requires any amount of time (for example searching player starts) would fail when multiple preview windows were launched at once. The event triggered too fast and needs some logic to handle this case. As well issues where clients were loaded before the server was "ready", (eg, begin play didn't happen yet etc.) So threw in some logic for that too. Whether this is necessary for real world implementation I'm not sure but it doesn't hurt to handle these kinds of things in a bulletproof way.

[twin juniper]

Anyone have a good method for testing steam create/join/find sessions?

im unable to find the session on another computer running steam (under a diff steam acc)

[summer nova]

@twin juniper 2 pcs

sadly its this horrible

[twin juniper]

I know that?

[slender cloud]

He said he’s using 2 pcs though. @twin juniper is the game actually loaded onto steam? If it is there may just be something wrong in your logic

[twin juniper]

I have an actual steam app id (not the Spacewars test id)

I have that in my defaultengine config

[slender cloud]

May just be a logic issue then

[twin juniper]

i'm launching the game through steam (the steam "shift-tab" feature works)

Well, I followed the official ue4 blueprint multiplayer tutorial

@summer nova I'm using 2 pcs

[summer nova]

2 acounts

[twin juniper]

Thomas - Today at 5:44 PM
Anyone have a good method for testing steam create/join/find sessions?
im unable to find the session on another computer running steam (under a diff steam acc)

[slender cloud]

Oh, did you download the example? Try copy pasting the logic in to make sure noting was missed.

[twin juniper]

@slender cloud Which example?

[slender cloud]

https://forums.unrealengine.com/unreal-engine/announcements-and-releases/asset-sharing/90535-steam-blueprint-multiplayer-project-files

[twin juniper]

Didn't know it had a download for it

Downloading now, but it will take awhile to download

[inland pond]

Should I store my health of the character in playerstate? And is it better to call the ApplyDamage function on the PlayerController or PlayerCharacter same thing to the eventanydamage PlayerController or PlayerCharacter? :S

[twin juniper]

playerstate imo

That's how i store health

[inland pond]

Okay yeah that makes sense. And for the ApplyDamage if I have understand it correclty pawns are only living on the server and were replicated like the PlayerCharacter so using ApplyDamage would be fine there?

[twin juniper]

Now, storing it highly depends on what you plan on doing

Do you want health to be stored when you switch through characters? (I.e you have 3 pawns, and one client.. if you switch to pawn 2, do you want health to be seperated)

In that case, I'd use player pawn to hold health

[inland pond]

It is a fps like battlefield or cod where I only posses one pawn within the match.

[twin juniper]

I'd use playerstate then

[inland pond]

Okay thanks for you advise 😉

[slender cloud]

We just do health in the player pawn. It’s owned by the server

[inland pond]

Good to know! ... While I was implementing this on the playstate I have noticed a replication delay of ~1 second. So I have checked that and it turns out that the "Net Update Frequency" was set to 1 and on the PlayerCharacter to 100 times per second 😮 So either I switch to the playercharacter or increase the frequency on the playerstate. Maybe the playerstate should only be used for things which arent sooo important 😯

[brittle sinew]

What you said above strikes me as a little off though: "It is a fps like battlefield or cod where I only posses one pawn within the match"

Don't you get a new pawn when you die? 😄

[severe widget]

Naaaah, just reset all the things that may have changed

[brittle sinew]

I mean, that's another way to go about it, but personally the pawn vs PlayerState question boils down to what's unique to the pawn versus what's unique to the player.

Score is unique to the player. Health is unique to the pawn.

[inland pond]

@brittle sinew 😂 Thats definitly true and also should be the case 😉

thats cedrics statement on playerstate. I think Ill use the playercharacter 😮

[twin juniper]

Lethal, have you seen this issue?
Fatal error: unreal engine is exiting due to d3d device being lost

[brittle sinew]

Hmm...just looks like a generic "lost the rendering device" type of error...not a ton to go off of there

[twin juniper]

It just started happening on my laptop, not my pc

[brittle sinew]

What version are you on on your laptop?

[twin juniper]

I'm making my game & packaging it on my computer

then giving it a packaged file

It was working fine, like 2 hours ago

[slender cloud]

@brittle sinew in our respawn we don’t destroy any player pawns, just teleport and reset up the gear. Cheap and easy and it stays 1 pawn all match

[twin juniper]

Hey guys, I'm looking into building a multiplayer game with ue4, and am wondering how is the performance of the dedicated server, how many matches can and run concurrently on one box

Let's assume the game is DotA-like, running on a AWS compute optimized instance like c5.large

[twin juniper]

Hey guys. I'm sorry if this is coming off as asking to be spoonfed, but I've got some confusion regarding the proper use of GameState and GameInstance classes. I'm aware that GameState is meant to be functional and keeping track of a particular match, and that GameInstance is meant to be persistent data. However, I'm working on a sandbox game with a long-term, persistent world (think month-long wipe cycles), and I'm a little confused as to what this would mean for me. In particular, reading about GameState lead me to believe it's fashioned to be used mainly with round-based games. Am I meant to be rewriting this class to fit my own needs, or is there another accepted way of achieving the result I'd like?

It'd be neat if you could give me various examples of how GameState and GameInstance are meant to be used together. I'm just a little confused and I don't know where to even start with this at the moment.

Thanks in advance 😃

[fleet sluice]

@twin juniper This is quite a good description for how the engine works in general:
In particular, reading about GameState lead me to believe it's fashioned to be used mainly with round-based games.
Imagine it constantly switches between levels. Every time a new level is opened (either locally or by joining a server), the entire "regular" gameplay framework from the docs gets re-created. AGameMode comes first, AGameState comes second. In contrast, the UGameInstance object gets created exactly once, at the start of the process (same for client and server), before even the first level gets loaded, and gets destroyed after the last level is unloaded.

In multi-player, the AGameState class is meant to offer easy data access to clients, from the server, because it's replicated and clients can read whatever shit is on the server's copy of the same AGameState actor at any time. This is where UGameInstance may come in handy: if the connection to the server is lost or the server switches to a new level, whatever data was kept in the AGameState actor will be lost. Maybe the clients want to save something for themselves, their stats etc. and maybe the server wants to save a summary of that game for itself? (long-term, persistent world just means this regular gameplay cycle lasts that long, but it's still going to work the same way)

In single-player, even though the exact same framework is used, UGameInstance, AGameState and AGameMode can be used interchangeably quite often because the process owns them all (it's wrong to call it a client now since it's not connected to any server) and can read/write to any of them. For example, you're in an AGameMode class representing a menu. Wherever you save the data, you have access to it. When you load a new level, you lose the data if you store it in AGameMode/AGameState, but you keep it if you store in the UGameInstance object.

[twin juniper]

That's wonderful. Thank you!

I feel like I understand much better now.

@fleet sluice Thanks!

[fleet sluice]

Anytime ✅

[heavy marlin]

also, gameinstance lasts the whole time you have UE4 open, gamemode only lasts as long as you have the map open (and its server-only), and gamestate is server & client

i have a team game and i use game state to store team score seeing as everyone can see it

thats it

when dealing with multiplayer, gamemode may as well be called ServerGameMode

and game instance in theory shouldnt have anything to do with your map

i store factories in it that both the server and client need

and UI management stuff

all my database management crap is in GameMode because the client doesnt have to know about it

[heavy marlin]

does an Unreliable RPC keep trying if it fails?

or is just fire and forget

[bitter oriole]

Fire and forget

Reliable will retry & keep sequencing

Unreliable might or not be received and maybe at the correct time

[fleet sluice]

Off-topic to the above, I'm curious: related to networking, what do people feel is most needed in UE4? What kind of objectives are hard or impossible to achieve with the current infrastructure and tools?

[bitter oriole]

Mostly I think documentation and tutorials would be nice

Networking is huge, it's hard to get into even when you know what you need and I believe most beginners don't

Dedicated servers shouldn't need a source engine build, other than that it's not bad

[fleet sluice]

I'm referring to potential technical improvements, not docs and tutorials (i.e. I know at least a few people asking for host migration as a feature)

[grand kestrel]

I wouldn't mind if they put in a shooting template, but I've already developed all that myself anyway, with fully predictive shooting etc

Can't wait for the day I'm allowed to show it off on that point

It would need to be tied to CMC though

Well, mine is

Since it has to track the player's location/rotation/shots and its integrated with the movement

Mostly I just need better debugging for dedi server, but evidently 4.19 had just that, no chance to test it yet

I think the biggest thing that is a specific answer to your question though, is world origin rebasing that's per client per actor not just per actor

I'm going to have to write that myself I suspect

Bring on the nightmare

[heavy marlin]

oh i know vlad!

choosing what replicates to who

controlling when it replicates is done, but to who - its either the owner or everybody

[thin stratus]

Well yeah we had that discussion once

Basically a way to say "Send the RPC or Variable etc. to exactly this Connection."

Instead of working with OwningConnection.

[grand kestrel]

Any idea what that would involve off the top of your head? Out of curiosity

[thin stratus]

Not really. I haven't looked into how the actual last steps of sending the data work

But I mean, the Server has all connections. It should be possible to target a specific one

[grand kestrel]

Mm

I think the reason Epic don't consider it any priority is because the bottlenecks occur from CPU not network bandwidth

And the fact that the vast majority of the load is on a single core

[fleet sluice]

No clue about origin rebasing (yet) but UNetDriver (and extensions) can be configured to use a particular UNetConnection class. Whether or not it's possible to decide when to drop packets and when not to, I don't know yet. I hard-coded this config in the last UWorks version because my UNetDriver makes no sense without the associated UNetConnection class

But also, wasn't it possible to set relevancy and achieve exactly that effect?

[grand kestrel]

Ohh you're the guy behind UWorks

[fleet sluice]

I am

[thin stratus]

Well, most people route their calls through the PlayerController

[grand kestrel]

We're considering using it, we want something to make Steam simpler anyway

[thin stratus]

Imagine a Chest that you can interact with but not own, as everyone needs to use it at the same time.

Sending exact callbacks for UI updates on the inventory usually go through the PlayerController

[fleet sluice]

And after the last 2 versions digging through networking at the lowest possible levels, it increased my curiosity ✅

[thin stratus]

Or any other owned actor/component

Being able to target a connection to send an RPC would be nice for that

Well or you Multicast "UpdateUI" and filter it on the receiving end if it's needed to update or not

[grand kestrel]

Maybe inventories that are relevant to your team only, as well

You only need to send that info to half the players

Y'know, give or take

But yeah, inventory is a good example

[fleet sluice]

Sounds interesting and possible

Also, let me know if you have any questions about the plugin! Finally made multiple listen servers and multiple clients work on one machine

[grand kestrel]

I don't know much at all about it yet, since we're still deep in development

Pretty much looked at it and 'yep that should help with steam integration'

[thin stratus]

@fleet sluice Haven't looked into it lately, but did you get the Subsystem Integration going?

Client considers it, but also wants future console subsystems. And having the interface working would help with a few things

[fleet sluice]

@thin stratus Not yet. I'm doing it in this next version. I couldn't get it to work as easily or as reliably as I wanted to, much less test it easily because I needed the NetDriver and sockets I added in the last 2 versions.

[thin stratus]

Alrighty. Will keep in eye on your updates

[summer nova]

@thin stratus any recomended way of debugging online sessions?

im adding sessions to my coop game

essentially im making the game host a match "by default", and then other players can join into the map of the host to kill monsters and stuff

got it working via ip, now sessions

[thin stratus]

Well, ListenServers won't give you much headache

[summer nova]

last time i did something like this i used 2 pcs

does null subsystem sessions (LAN) work locally?

for testing

[thin stratus]

Yes

[summer nova]

then i change to steam subsystem with 2 pcs

[thin stratus]

Yeah

[summer nova]

i have your tutorial + shootergame at the side XD

[thin stratus]

Well, generally there isn't much to debug

[summer nova]

last time i just did it with blueprint fairly shitty

[thin stratus]

You can enable the Logs for LogOnline I assume

That should give you some prints to the log files

[Core.Log]
LogOnline=VeryVerbose
LogOnlineGame=VeryVerbose

Maybe even LogNet? idk. I doubt that you'll have a lot of trouble anyway

Create the Session for the Host

Or just for all players

And if someone wants to join you first destroy his session and join the one he found

If you do c++ you can add some settings to the session

I once did a Dark Souls system for a client

Seems to work quite fine

(For invading other players)

@summer nova

[summer nova]

thats kinda what i want to do

just with coop

well, more like the player will have an option in a menu of joining a player from his friend list

and then he pops up in the game of the other guy

[thin stratus]

That's harder to test with NULL subsystem though

As you don't have any friendlists in that

[summer nova]

im going to use sessions search first

[thin stratus]

But you can follow the Video tutorial I made for the Steam friendlist stuff

[summer nova]

for this prototype

friendlist will be done once i can test MP in PS4

[thin stratus]

There is a function to send invites and also a delegate to listen to that

[summer nova]

with PSN online subsystem

[thin stratus]

Giving you the ability to search for the friend session and join it

[summer nova]

i think a server browser could work well. Just show your friend sessions and some "open" public sessions

player session will default to "friends only"

but you would be able to create a match that is "everyone invited"

think something like Warframe

[manic agate]

Guys, I'd like to replicate an object with physics (it's my first time with networking). Can you point me to any articles or something?

[summer nova]

@thin stratus sneaky, you copypasted the session stuff from shootergame XD

[manic agate]

I'm using a plugin which handles some of the stuff (it simulates physics on the server and not the client), but with ReplicateMovements on true it looks very laggy for a client, since there is no interpolation or anything involved

[summer nova]

its exactly the same naming and flow, except shootergame has no coments

[thin stratus]

@summer nova Yes and no. I learned it from there. But you can't really reinvent the wheel

[summer nova]

that too

[manic agate]

The thing is, I don't know how to start and where to put that interpolation, and oddly enough I can't find any decent article about this online

[thin stratus]

Well, "ReplicateMovement" does the Location Replication for you.
If that doesn't interpolate, then you'd probably want to disable that and send the location yourself

It also kinda depends on your using a MovementComponent or not

They could be used to interpolate it

[summer nova]

@thin stratus you have compiler errors

[thin stratus]

Interpolation is always kinda the same: You have to create a smooth transition between old and new location

[summer nova]

due to changing functions

in 4.19

[thin stratus]

:D I didn't touch that tutorial for the last 2 years or so

It can totally be

[summer nova]

Join Session has no SessionName paramt

[thin stratus]

That#s why the supported engines are listed

I will rework that in the future. Currently too much to do

[summer nova]

shootergame to the rescue

[manic agate]

@thin stratus I think that it doesn't interpolate at all. So the best thing is just to make the server send the position with a multicast and interpolate myself? In that case, how should I interpolate? I mean, how can I determine the "alpha" value for the interpolation?
Also, no, I'm not using a MovementComponent. Basically it's just an object attached to a Motion Controller (it's a VR app), which follows it around

[thin stratus]

Well, that's probably a bit of math needed

You'll have an old and a new Location. They have a specific distance to each other, based on how long the last location update is ago

And based on that distance you can decide what to do

[grand kestrel]

Do you guys ever make something really awesome and want to show it but NDA 😦

Makes me crazy

[thin stratus]

Working as a freelancing contractor, yes, all the time.

[grand kestrel]

Haha 😢

[thin stratus]

:P

[manic agate]

Thanks Cedric, I'll try 😃

[summer nova]

@thin stratus sessions all working

nice

[manic agate]

One other thing, @thin stratus. What if the object has physics? Do you think that it's ok to just make the client stop simulating it altogether and just let the server do it and replicate the position?

[twin juniper]

someone want to explain to me

why textures are being cooked

into dedi servers?

i have 400mb of ResExcKB

which I believe to be "resources" for that mesh

doesnt make much sense

coonsidering the model is only 150 tris

[bitter oriole]

Dedicated servers need the information too

Since they also run physics and traces

You need the meshes and I'd guess you need the textures too ? Not sure if "visibility" traces account for texture masking, opacity etc.

[twin juniper]

why do they need textures tho

lel

seems lame

[bitter oriole]

Literally what I just said

Textures might drive opacity which has an effect on traces

Or you might have complex game logic that depends on the dimensions of a texture - for a menu or something ? If you're doing a 2D game you might rely on texture size for gameplay, etc

Overall it just makes sense to have all the data on the server

[thin stratus]

@manic agate I think I have it on on both

But tbh that's still a refactor point in two projects of mine

Just haven't had the time to tackle it

[twin juniper]

hey cedric

do you know why dedi's cook textures

[thin stratus]

Generally they include all needed information.
Materials are used for all kinds of traces, physics etc. and I'm half sure that if the Material is cooked, it also cooks the used texture

But can't say for sure

Didn't really bother me yet

[twin juniper]

But my little ferns are using 400mb of memory

It seems like it's not even "instancing" it

its literally loading those textures

hundreds of thousands of times

which makes no sense

400mb, 4k textures, instanced, onto 300,000 models (isms) only 150 tris

thats absurd

[bitter oriole]

So optimize them

Reduce the texture size to something that makes sense

Or look into forcing specific LODs for your server

[hasty adder]

So I have an event where a goal happens the goal then tells game state to get all players ps who then tell there pc to run an event to blend their camera and load a umg.. works fine if everyone is a client on a server, if it’s a hosted listen server, the host will only get the call to add the umg via his pc if he is alone other wise only clients do

[thin stratus]

Show the code

It's easier to debug

[hasty adder]

Go figure I can’t at the moment had to run to work. I’ll see if I can rdp some screens in a few

[twin juniper]

@bitter oriole yeah but why are "instanced static meshes" not instancing textures as well

is this a bug?

it should only need 1 set of the textures

to load ALL instances

[bitter oriole]

@twin juniper Textures are always instanced, whether it's a static mesh or a skeletal of anything

[twin juniper]

then why would it be using

400mb of memory

for these instances

[bitter oriole]

Well, how many instances do you have ? Where do the values come from ? etc

[twin juniper]

its like 300,000 instances

the values of memory?

i got that from memreport

[bitter oriole]

Got a screenshot ?

[twin juniper]

i have two mem report files lol

sec

[bitter oriole]

In any case, a 4K texture weights 67MB uncompressed, so 400MB would be the equivalent of 7-8 such textures. But they would be in the texture streaming pool, not in an ISM report.

[twin juniper]

Before:
Bullrushes_01_C 13 145815.22 175459.97 400975.53 400975.53 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Now:
Bullrushes_01_C 13 38663.12 39661.25 400975.53 400975.53 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

or wait

thats backwards lol

[bitter oriole]

And what's the header for that table ?

[twin juniper]

Class Count NumKB MaxKB ResExcKB ResExcDedSysKB ResExcShrSysKB ResExcDedVidKB ResExcShrVidKB ResExcUnkKB

this lol

ResExcKB = 400975.53 mb

which is like all textures i think

[bitter oriole]

No idea what ResExcKB is, so maybe check that first

Very doubtful it's textures

Might be distance field

[twin juniper]

it has no distance fields

[bitter oriole]

Open the mesh in the editor and be sure to display all statistics

"additional data" IIRC

[twin juniper]

yea

its 0kb

[bitter oriole]

And what's the size of the .uasset itself ?

[twin juniper]

like

25kb?

lemme see

yeah

about that much

[bitter oriole]

Try window -> Statistics in your level too

Look for your mesh and see what it says

Should have a "size" column

There is also right click on the asset -> size map

Maybe your material uses 5 4K textures ? If that's the case, the 400MB reading would be pretty normal

(and you would bring it down a lot by moving to 2K)

[twin juniper]

@bitter oriole its using 4k textures in the base material

but im using a material instance

and overriding it with 1k textures

is it still going to load those tho?

@bitter oriole https://i.imgur.com/xdtEPjl.png

this is the sizemap

[bitter oriole]

Well, your size map says you're using three large textures

[twin juniper]

yeha but

i just changed it tho

to these 512x512 textures

so im wondering if its not updating?

[bitter oriole]

Not in real time no, you need to recreate the map

[twin juniper]

is there any way to force it to update?

to use the new textures?

[bitter oriole]

Close it and do right click -> size map again

[twin juniper]

i did already

it just doesnt update fml

[bitter oriole]

Well, is the instance correctly applied to all LODs of your mesh ?

Try restarting the editor if you think it's a bug

[twin juniper]

@bitter oriole ill check

it is applied to all lods

same one

[hasty adder]

Hmm taking screen shots is impossible but I think I know my problem. My ball casts to gamestate which multicasts a call to get all pc and have them run an event I suspect I should be running the event on PlayerState to ref there own controller

[thin stratus]

If you multicast

You can just do "GetPlayerController0"

Well if you Multicast in the GameState

Just be aware that a Multicast only calls for the connected players

So if you want all to get that you have to make sure everyone is connected

[hasty adder]

Yeah game state runs the show for most of these event driven gameplay ui stuff I just want the local pc to bring up the ui of course

Yeah these are like 5 second informational things not relevant to new joining players 😃

[thin stratus]

Yeah then Multicast -> GetPlayerController0 -> Show UI

[hasty adder]

I’ll give that a try when I get home. Strange a gs event using get actors of class mypcclass works so oddly 😃

[west rapids]

Does anyone here have 10 minutes for me? Just need some clarification for ownership

[twin juniper]

So I don't get it

sometimes I boot my dedicated server

it only uses 2gb of memory

and others it uses 5gb

wtf is this?

[hasty adder]

Sounds like a Minecraft server

[twin juniper]

i know right

makes no fucking sense

[twin juniper]

https://i.imgur.com/lSQIH8O.png 2gb
https://i.imgur.com/eCnxZK2.png 3.3gb?
https://i.imgur.com/GU50Kaf.png 4.5gb?
https://i.imgur.com/FT8bupt.png 5gb

So why is the amount of memory being used so greatly different

when no code changes were made

Is this the engine just being shit?

2.8 gb, 3.8gb, 5gb

fully loaded each time

and no code was changed

unreal seems to have a pretty massive problem

this is not how software is supposed to perform

It only seems to occur when loading the map

[west rapids]

My guess is that you're not using seamless travel, in other words, instead of loading an empty travel map that uses virtually no memory, you load the next map. But that means that both maps have to be in memory, since you can't have players not existing on nothing.

[twin juniper]

this is just loading a server

using world composition

[west rapids]

so ur streaming levels?

[twin juniper]

im not

world composition is

world composition does the work for u

[west rapids]

yeah but what i mean is that ur loading all levels into the persistent one

ur not using volumes

[twin juniper]

i dont know what world composition does

i know that it loads and unloads levels on the client

and that

when u enable world composition

level streaming volumes

are actually turned off

like u just cant use them anymore

[west rapids]

aye thats for phat worlds

[twin juniper]

yea

my map

is massive

[west rapids]

mebbe ur tiling is too big?

[twin juniper]

but it shouldnt be using 5gb of memory

when games like rust only use 2gb

and have equally sized maps

this isnt even something under my control it seems like its an engine bug

[west rapids]

yeah but whats ur tiling

have u tried reducing it?

[twin juniper]

what are u talking about

tiling of what

[west rapids]

of ur world

u read the docs right?

here

https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-us/Engine/LevelStreaming/WorldBrowser

[twin juniper]

are u trying to be disrespectful?

[west rapids]

read layers

no

[twin juniper]

just have to ask

yeah i know about this

but it shouldn't matter

[west rapids]

so ur not loading the whole world

[twin juniper]

the server loads all tiles, always

no it is

wtf man

[west rapids]

oh, i thought it was client, mah bad man

[twin juniper]

no lol

the client

is absolutely fine

never goes above 2gb memory

the server goes up to 5gb~ just booting

which is absurd

and its an engine bug

i swear i never had this many engine bugs using unity

[west rapids]

it stays constant tho right?

[twin juniper]

it goes up to 7gb

when players connect

but thats fine

the issue is that the base line should not be 5gb

it shohuld be more like 2gb

or 3

at max

[west rapids]

well it doesnt sound like a memory leak, pretty cryptic

[winged badger]

that is a listen server or dedicated server loading textures and such?

[twin juniper]

dedicated

there is absolutely no reason

why a dedi server should be using 5gb

just to load

with 0 players

thats actually insane

[west rapids]

have you used memreport to see whats loaded?

[twin juniper]

yep

and its useless

i read that whole blog article

not only is it out dated

but it doesnt give u a full amount of information

that explains what everything means

for example

what does ResExcDedSysKB mean

that naming convention is utter garbage

KB = Kilobytes

i got that

Res = Resource

Exec = execute, dedicated system?

So Resources Executed on Dedicated System in Kilobytes?

Ok so what is "Resources"

[west rapids]

no idea

profiler no help either?

[twin juniper]

nope

nothing is useful

to be honest

[west rapids]

its very weird that each launch has different memory usage

without any changes

i guess one solution would be to slap 64 gigs of ddr and just roll with it 😄

[twin juniper]

i know

well that wouldnt be a solution either

[inland pond]

Is there something similar to BeginInactiveState() (c++) within Blueprints after I have called Detach from Controller Pending Destroy? Or do I need to fire my own "Pre Destroy Event" to the attached controller?

[west rapids]

@twin juniper how many clients have u tried hooking up at the same time?

maybe it maxes out after a few

[twin juniper]

no

like i said, if u read

it goes up to 5

with 0 players

all of those tries were with 0 connections

[west rapids]

@north stone might have a clue

hes dug alot in the engine, might know how the dedi works

[bitter oriole]

@twin juniper Makes sense for the server to require more memory - since everything is loaded all the time

No culling etc

[twin juniper]

i know

but rust doesn't load

up to 5gb of memory

and that game has more shit

[west rapids]

I found this, dunno if uve tried it or would be of any use

https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/338970/how-do-we-use-the-memory-profiler-to-track-memory.html

but there was a forum post by epic that this gives more info than memrep

[north stone]

O_o i barely dug into the engine hehe @west rapids

[west rapids]

sorry bro i may have confused you 😛

i think Sion was the guy?

remember the name was long

[bitter oriole]

Sion is an Epic dev

[north stone]

sion yea, perhaps deathrey might know too

[twin juniper]

possible

what would be nice to know

is how much memory a real game uses

A game thats properly optimized i mean

[bitter oriole]

In any case, start by digging deep into all reports from UE

It's probably an issue on your side tbh - there are so many variables here, it's hard not to misconfigure a few textures etc

"Engine bug" that results in crazy memory usage is pretty unlikely

[west rapids]

A more brutish way of "troubleshooting" would be to make a dedi with an empty map, check memory, then add a box, check memory and try to figure out what an empty actor uses, and from there... 😄

or better yet, you could make a dedi with 1 chunk of ur world and load it

[twin juniper]

@bitter oriole i mean if u are not changing anything

why would u get different results

each boot

[bitter oriole]

If it's a bug in your code that could be random

You need to be methodical here, UE4 is just an engine and you have a lot of control over what happens, with lots of tools

Sure it's not well documented, but you can still see values, tweak stuff and test a lot

Tweak stuff, package, test - see what changed

And if you have crazy high differences between two runs of the same software, be sure to look into the log and compare them line by line

[twin juniper]

i mean like

what is the memory usage

for a game supposed to look like

on the server side lol

[bitter oriole]

More than the client, to start with

[west rapids]

more than

yeha

[twin juniper]

it uses about double

the client

lol

[bitter oriole]

That's not crazy, the crazy part is if the usage varies a lot between two runs

That should be a red flag

[twin juniper]

actually mroe

https://i.imgur.com/mpeQj5H.png

client at the top

server underneath

[bitter oriole]

Then you might want to investigate

Looking at my own game right now, might be able to help

[twin juniper]

cant

lol

like

i dont know what these mem reports mean

LOL

and the blog report

is out dated

[bitter oriole]

Well let's see

57474 Objects (Total: 35.538M / Max: 46.980M / Res: 871.140M | ResDedSys: 92.219M / ResShrSys: 0.000M / ResDedVid: 597.390M / ResShrVid: 0.000M / ResUnknown: 181.531M)

^ Here, it starts with UObjects

"Res" means content (resources)

[west rapids]

I have to say I can't figure out why would something load more, or less, without having anything modified.

[bitter oriole]

"Shr" means shared, "ded" dedicated memory - that's mostly a Linux thing IIRC, difference in memory for "dedicated" meaning "only your program" vs shared meaning "also libraries"

I'm on Windows so 0 shared

ResDedVid is probably VRAM usage

So I'd parse that line as 871MB in RAM, 597MB in VRAM

[twin juniper]

this is mine lol

[bitter oriole]

So here it says 2GB for resources, 216MB for objects

2886MB total

That consistent with task manager ?

[twin juniper]

uh

for mine?

no the whole process is 5gb lol

Look up at the top

this one is right

[bitter oriole]

Right

[twin juniper]

thats how much its using

what are resources though

like is it just textures? i thought texture streaming was not on servers

[bitter oriole]

Textures yeah

It has to load all of them

[twin juniper]

so if i downsize alll of my textures

to like 1k

would it be less

at least...

in theory?

i resized a few from 4k to like 1k

didn't see much difference

[bitter oriole]

You might want to try the "noclient" UAT switch

[twin juniper]

doesn't project launcher do this

by default

[bitter oriole]

No idea, never used that

I work directly with UAT

Check in the log for the project launcher

[west rapids]

so

89796 Objects (Total: 215.901M / Max: 236.150M / Res: 2050.031M | ResDedSys: 2046.296M / ResShrSys: 0.000M / ResDedVid: 0.000M / ResShrVid: 0.000M / ResUnknown: 3.735M)

thats his info

but the OS allocation is 5 gigs

[twin juniper]

why is Res and ResDedSys different

?

by a few megabytes

[bitter oriole]

You've got 3.735 unknown

[west rapids]

and i looked thru all of ur objects, nothing is big

[bitter oriole]

Yeah, something's missing

[twin juniper]

here's a bigger one

[west rapids]

i don;t know what the diff is between Large and Small, but both allocate significant memory

[twin juniper]

has more data lol

its with the -full thing

[bitter oriole]

I'm still looking at my own data

"RHI resource memory (not tracked by our allocator)"

This one explains my own difference between process mmory & objects °+ res

But it's 0 for you because no render

[twin juniper]

its so low though

3.735mb

is not really an issue imo

[west rapids]

OS Allocated: 2886.337814mb
Large Pool
Requested Allocations: 2075.528595mb
OS Allocated: 2112.187500mb

looks suspicios, why it allocates twice?

[twin juniper]

no idea

lol

[bitter oriole]

First one is "including padding"

[twin juniper]

So is the OS

just doing this lol

[west rapids]

afaik u cant just grab memory, system has to give you what you want, but dunno why twice

there clearly is a diff between large and small pool

[bitter oriole]

Uh, @twin juniper

Which build config are you using ?

[twin juniper]

ill show u

sec

im using project launcher

[bitter oriole]

Debug / Dev / Shipping ?

Test ?

[twin juniper]

WindowsNoEditor, LinuxServer, and WindowsServer
Dev for all 3

[bitter oriole]

Okay so here's a big nope

Development is for Development, it's not optimized for production

If you don't need logs you can move to Shipping right away

If you want logs, stick to the "Test" config

Test is basically shipping + console & logs

[twin juniper]

ok

ill try it but

i doubt it will make a difference

lol

[bitter oriole]

It will

[twin juniper]

i mean it will but

i dont think it will be like

2 gb memory diff

lol

[bitter oriole]

Well, try

You shouldn't even be releasing dev builds tbh

[twin juniper]

i know conan does it

LOL

but ya

i agree

[bitter oriole]

I mean, dev builds are likely to not even work on some machines

[west rapids]

on that subject, @bitter oriole do you know the difference between release and shipping?

[bitter oriole]

There's plenty, but to start with, shipping removes log, console, move all generated data to the AppData folder

Meaning, @twin juniper 's going to lose all saves when moving to shipping

[west rapids]

ha, so u cant ship a game with enabled console, didnt know that

[twin juniper]

You can't use /Saved/ directory?

in shipping?

even for servers?

[bitter oriole]

You can't and you should never ever

Huge nope

Shipping (and maybe Test) are the only releases you should ever attempt

[magic helm]

But how else will @twin juniper be able to have the modded save?!

[twin juniper]

no im just wondering

[bitter oriole]

An obvious issue with Saved is, you're writing to program files, basically

[twin juniper]

if i call FPaths::ProjectSavedDir() on a Shipping server build

it will return

[bitter oriole]

This isn't fine and will trigger UAC warnings

[twin juniper]

what?

[bitter oriole]

%LOCALAPPDATA%/YourGame/Saved/

[twin juniper]

oo

is there no way

[west rapids]

i thought ue4 defaults any saves to that path when u package

[twin juniper]

to have a file be read

from my local directory?

lol

i want to load from somewhere

in the games directory

[bitter oriole]

What I'm saying is, ProjectSavedDir currently returns a local path, but will return a different one in shipping

Because no one sane writes data to the installation setup

Especially on a server, damn, security 101, no writable file near your program

[west rapids]

xcept cfgs 😛

[bitter oriole]

no

[twin juniper]

no what im saying is

[bitter oriole]

No sane server generates data locally

[twin juniper]

lets say i created a folder

called "Saved"

and added a file to it

i couldnt just use FPaths::ProjectSavedDir()

and get the saved directory?

[bitter oriole]

You should use ProjectSavedDir

And write there

[twin juniper]

same thing?

lol

[bitter oriole]

ProjectSavedDir currently returns project/saved

Which is wrong, and bad

[twin juniper]

i want

/MyGameName/Saved/

on the server

[bitter oriole]

No, you don't

[twin juniper]

i do though

[bitter oriole]

You really don't, and you won't be able to in Test or Shipping

Same goes for your clients

[twin juniper]

%LOCALDIR%

does not exist

[bitter oriole]

So you'll need to lose your client's saves, or tell them to manually copy the saves

[twin juniper]

on linux

so how do i read from a file

on my local machine

like it makes no sense

[bitter oriole]

You don't need to change anything at all, except move your data to the proper folder

[twin juniper]

lets say i have a project, why would the database be in /home/root/db.db

when my project

is in

/home/bdoom/mygame

absurd

thats absurd

[bitter oriole]

Because your /home/bdoom/mygame should be read only

[west rapids]

well that does make sense

[twin juniper]

idc about that

at all man

i have it setup to only allow access from my connection

[west rapids]

bit paranoid tho D

[twin juniper]

and actually

u cant even run

a linux server

without it being chmod at least 600

i believe

like it just will crash

[bitter oriole]

Look, I'm not going to spend the night explaining basic security practices. Here's the full story.

• Saved is the folder to write data to.
• Saved is inside the game folder in Dev, inside ~/.config/Epic/<gamename>/ in Test or Shipping

Now you're asking for help on memory size and you're running an unoptimized build

I'm just saying, you should be shipping shipping

Literally why it's called that

And yes, Shipping enforces sane practices on data location

Like if you have 10 users on a PC, you don't want one save per 10 users

You want to write in the user folder like every program since Vista

And if your server has a ridiculous security issue, you don't want it to be able to overwrite the executable file it's running from

You don't care, that's fine, I'm just telling you what people in the real world do

use shipping
read and write at the correct location
tell players to move the data after you've updated or create a new save

Good luck, i'll be here for help

[twin juniper]

thanks

[merry pebble]

Aye, so how would you set up a local play, with like maybe 2 poeples

[twin juniper]

@bitter oriole https://i.imgur.com/v7tnGQB.png

so just as i thought

the shipping build

wasnt much

of a difference lol

[bitter oriole]

Well, it's kind of 10% less

Don't expect to optimize by 90% overnight lol

You've just gained plenty of performance too

[west rapids]

@bitter oriole could you clarify something regarding ownership?

[bitter oriole]

Sure

By the way I found your missing memory @twin juniper

[west rapids]

PMD u not to spam

wow, in memrep?

[bitter oriole]

Yeah

It's fairly easy, really

He's got something like 10 levels

Each got a separate report

[twin juniper]

hmm?

[bitter oriole]

Last line alone gives 1763.441M resources that were previously unnacounted for

[twin juniper]

its stitched together using world composition

which file was this

[bitter oriole]

Looking for "ResDedSys" though the file, here's what it looks like :

• 2046.296M
• 0
• 0,7
• 0,03
• 0
• 1763

So we've got exactly 3.8GB here

Only in resources (textures)

Next up is objects... round 350MB

144 + 215

That brings us to 4.2GB

We had a development build that accounted for a whole 10% of 5GB too

Plus the executable size, and other alloc pools

So basically, 3/4 of the entire memory size is textures

Not an engine bug or anything

[magic helm]

Not to be mean or anything, but there is a #packaging channel for this sort of talk

[bitter oriole]

Sure, but since no one's talking about MP and it's a dedicated server discussion, might as well talk here

[twin juniper]

So how would I improve that

Can I strip textures?

From dedi server builds

[bitter oriole]

Yeah, with the noclient switch. Try first to see if your game does need texture (traces against Visibility channel, etc)

[twin juniper]

its already on

i checked

lol see

[bitter oriole]

Let me check

[lusty dust]

what does specifying a map in the build command do exactly?

[heavy marlin]

pretty sure it only includes dependencies on that map

rather than your whole project

[west rapids]

I just noticed UMG variables have Replication settings. Wtf? I thought HUD/UMG is clientside only.

[tulip creek]

Is it possible to allow cross-platform play using UE4's native networking system without paying for dedicated servers? Using one player as the host, for example. To clarify: let's say 2 players want to play together and they're both using the PC but purchased the same game through 2 different stores. Will UE4's networking work here without a dedicated server? Will they be able to find each other's lobby?

[west rapids]

U mean like PS4 playing with PC?

afaik u can run crossplatform pretty ez, and if its from linux to pc, should not be problem too. Don't qquote me tho 😛

[glacial hamlet]

@Kensei#5407 UMG are client only without replication, its just editor left overs basically

cross platform is pretty easy between ps4 and PC, just gotta do open by IP

buuut once you bring sessions into it there is much more involvement

so yea @ face value you can test it quickly but in production its a ton of work

[manic agate]

Guys, is it possible to open multiple game windows in PIE and set their positions? Whenever I play in multiplayer with multiple windows they're size and position is kind of random :/

In the advanced options I set the new window size, but it doesn't take into account multiple game windows

[hasty adder]

Cedric, I finally got to try it just now - and wow what a simple change and it works

Now i gotta figure out why my custom playerstate name string doesnt replicate right.

[thin stratus]

Anyone using Oculus, 4.19 and Sessions?

[thin stratus]

Welp, nvm. If anyone runs into the issue that Oculus doesn't want to destroy your session in Standalone, it's broken.
It works in packaged versions though.

And in 4.19 we can finally join sessions properly again

[pallid mesa]

Wait, are sesions broken on 4.18?

[sly basin]

... would be good to know ....

[slate veldt]

Hi all, I'm currently trying to implement the networking on our game, and some of the default out the box movement component replication stuff doesn't appear to be working. For the pawn, I have bReplicates, and bReplicatesMovement set to true, and despite stepping through the code and seeing that the AddMovementInput function is being called and supposedly running, the character is not moving at all.

If I make a non-dedicated server, then the hosting client can move around and visibly replicates over to the other client.

Any ideas what I might have broken? 😛

[slate veldt]

Actually, might want to ignore that, there was a flag we use that ignores character movement component for reasons, wasn't being replicated so server was totally ignoring the correct context. May have fixed the above issue

[thin stratus]

@pallid mesa @sly basin Oculus sessions, yes

[slate veldt]

Ah nope, didn't fix it, still having movement component replication issues, if anyone can help out that would be great

[slate veldt]

So it appears that the "AddMovementInput" call is only happening on the client

[tulip creek]

4.18 has a lot of issues, you can't reduce drawcalls by merging actors, it still treats them as individual meshes

@west rapids Nah, Sony doesn't allow cross-platform - I'm developing for VR so I'm hoping to get people who play the game on Steam and people on the Oculus Store to be able to join each other's sessions and play together. Doable, I presume?

[west rapids]

Well the netcode should run the same on both. Sessions is another story probably. Cedric seems to be on the bleeding edge there, might have some tips.

[slate veldt]

Cross play between Steam and Oculus store should be doable, Arizona Sunshine does it (although it's build in Unity) via direct IP connection rather than using Steam friends or Oculus friends invites

I think therefore that you should be able to setup a system where you can connect from an Oculus store copy to a Steam copy via IP address, unless you had your own backend system that kept additional profile (so unique information for a YOURGAME bespoke login), but that would be expensive and effort to maintain haha

[cerulean rapids]

we have a lot of lag in our game, would any1 more xperienced than me be able to take 2 minutes to look at some NPROF files and just say if anything is obviously bad? :p, pls pm, much love.

[pallid mesa]

@tulip creek are you sure about the drawcall issue? got a link or something I could check?

[tulip creek]

@pallid mesa I encountered the problem on my own in 4.18 and then found someone else experiencing it here: https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/757623/actor-merging-bug.html

I upgraded to 4.19 and merging does reduce drawcalls now.

There's someone else confirming it

My drawcalls get cut in half when I merge a modular building together in 4.19. In 4.18 it stays the same 💩

[pallid mesa]

@tulip creek thanks, that's actually something great to know since I was planning to upgrade to 4.18 and I use merging

do you happen to know if this happens aswell on 4.17? @tulip creek ?

[tulip creek]

@pallid mesa Not sure, I went from 4.16 to 4.18 but didn't have to use merging until now

Do you know if merging to reduce drawcalls creates bottlenecks elsewhere? GPU maybe?

Or is it a viable way to boost performance alltogether?

[pallid mesa]

for sure, usually you would merge on meshes using the same material

to reduce drawcalls

[tulip creek]

What if I do it on meshes not using the same material?

[pallid mesa]

you will be creating a bigger mesh but not reducing drawcalls

[tulip creek]

What about in this case:

Mesh 1:

Mesh 2:

They do use the same material but Mesh 1 has an extra one

[pallid mesa]

I'm not very sure about this one, can't really answer

I have an idea of what could happen but I'm unsure if it's actually true

someone on #ue4-general could answer that one for you

[tulip creek]

okay thanks

[graceful cave]

anyone know why this would only work until the first map travel the server does?

its in gamestate

and this runs at beginplay

game instance gets the password from config file at initialization

everything works perfect on the first map the server loads but after that, the password variable is blank

[vital steeple]

if my skeletal mesh is replicated and is part of a replicated actor, shouldn't setting it to a new mesh with a server RPC update it for all clients?

[west rapids]

@satan u store passwd on gameinstance yeah?

[vital steeple]

nevermind... https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/328659/change-skeletal-mesh-blueprint-multiplayer.html

apparently its a known bug

[west rapids]

even4.19?

[vital steeple]

https://issues.unrealengine.com/issue/UE-16478

it doesnt say for this version but its the exact bug im experiencing and it says backlogged (so i guess they havent updated it)

[west rapids]

man quite a phat 4.19, havent even read any patch notes or anything

guess wait for x.1 😄

[vital steeple]

multicasting works around it though

so server RPC to set skeletal/static mesh on a replicated component doesnt work

but server->multicast RPC does

so basically, it sounds liek meshes dont support replication

[tulip creek]

so they want us to separate the different skeletal meshes into their own playable characters to possess based on selection instead?

was hoping to stop using so many pawns in my projects but since I'm doing multiplayer now, I guess I'll have to 🙄

[west rapids]

you could do what epic suggests in that post and use spectator pawn as intermediate

i mean its pretty much a camera

and when ur chaning meshes you probably have a few seconds to spare

could even play some fx or smthin 😛

Does anyone know if HasAuthority ever returns True when called on something that is not server exclusive, on a dedicated server?

Cuz i reaaaaly wana fire multicasts from there, but the damn thing doesnt like shared pawns/controllers

probably for a good reason 😄

[graceful cave]

is there a way to deal with "History overflow, forcing history dump" in server logs?

[vital steeple]

@tulip creek thats the recommended solution, yes. you can easily just multicast the skeletal mesh changes... which would stop you from having to spawn new characters and deal with replication delays of the spawning/swapping etc (and i assume its cheaper, network wise)

in otherwords just use your original server RPC to call a multicast RPC that sets the mesh

confirmed it works in my setup

[wary willow]

damn,I still can't set score in PlayerState from BP

why do they tease with the getter

[lean river]

Hey Guys!
Dedicated server able to run anim montages only on server, to get correct bone location for server validated hit detection for example?
I know skeletal mesh can do bone updates, this is just a theory question

[slim holly]

@lean river iirc there was a checkbox under skeletal mesh details panel for updating bones at dedicated enviroment

but I don't see it as a viable option really, bone based hit detection should be done on clients for user comfort

server should just check was the hit even possible

[lean river]

Yeah i agree, question was this:
If i branch with getnetmode = dedicated server and play a montage what will happen?

As i know dedi dont have anim bp and anim data

[hasty adder]

question mates, if i have a custom fstring in a playerstate that is replicated, do i need to reload any of this data when traveling to a server?

[thin stratus]

So when connecting to one?

[hasty adder]

yeah, i'm in my main menu, i save some info to myplayerstate which will be the same ps used and then join a server

[thin stratus]

Connecting is a HardTravel

That will destroy you MainMenu PS and the Server creates a new one

So yes, the data isn't available on the Server

[hasty adder]

whats best method to update the server. I see a postlogin in game mode do i just run a on server get set?

[slim holly]

most likely

or just trigger the get from connection, having server to ask for the information just introduces some interface delay

[hasty adder]

Lets see what happens with this.

[slim holly]

something like that, but you can set replication to skip_owner

oh wait

you can't

GM only exists on server, so you can't do role remote

or, it would only trigger on host

[hasty adder]

right you are

just saw in chat the same name on client for both players

[thin stratus]

Reminder: The old PS is killed. Your data is not on it at that point.

[slim holly]

that too

[thin stratus]

Whatever you grab from that PlayerState is the default value.

PostLogin calls on HardTravel

[hasty adder]

i do store it in a save game - can i have remote load the asve somehow and feed it to server to set its name

[thin stratus]

The only point at which PlayerStates are allowed to keep the data or at least forward it is in SeamlessTravels

Using "OnCopyProperties" event.

But you are joining, so it's a hardTravel and that option is not there

[slim holly]

well, you load save to GameInstance, that would probably be the place to get the info from

in client end that is

[thin stratus]

BP has two ways of handling this:

• Save in GameInstance (Client)
• Save in SaveGame (Client)

Both would need you to first do a CLIENTRPC on the Joining PC

Then load the data from either point.

And then SERVERRPC back

passing the data along

In C++ you'd be able to use the "LOGIN" function of the GameMode and the CLIENT TRAVEL function of the PlayerController

Being able to pass ?key=value?key2=value2 etc. via ClientTravel

And retrieving the options in the Login function

(PreLogin also offers them, but no PlayerController yet)

[hasty adder]

so earliest in bp might be the playerstate begin play as it'll get called when its created for the player on server?

[slim holly]

I would think so

[thin stratus]

Yes

Other topic: Did anyone play around with Procedural Maps and Origin Rebasing in Multiplayer?

What I found so far is, that the rebasing happens on the client and RPCs and stuff needed to take the shift into account

[manic agate]

Guys, is it possible to open multiple game windows in PIE and set their positions? Whenever I play in multiplayer with multiple windows they're size and position is kind of random :/
In the advanced options I set the new window size, but it doesn't take into account multiple game windows

[hasty adder]

think i may have got it

I wasnt when setting the players name on server also having the server MC back the names of the already there players

Outcome

The Logic

sure i could sum this up better but on the fly \o/

[slate veldt]

Hi all, in our networked game, I have an Actor pointer that I'm trying to pass through to the client on a client function, however, despite the pointer being !nullptr, and the object existing on the client, when the client function executes, the incoming parameter is nullptr

Anything special I have to do with the value? I thought that UE4 networking was smart enough to find the equivalent object in the clients world based on the pointer?

[hasty adder]

hmm close i guess, dedicated server still kinda does something funny with names

[thin stratus]

@slate veldt Actor that you pass needs to be replicated and I assume also relevant

[slate veldt]

That's fair, I'll try again now

@thin stratus Hmm still not working, there are 2 actor reference UProperties, both of them with Replicated metas, and the server is spawning them both, and that alone should be enough (as those values should be replicated across to clients) but even with the client function call afterwards passing the pointers through, the pointers are still coming through as nullptr

Trying again now with RepRetry meta

Never mind, RepRetry is deprecated, would be nice if someone updated the documentation for UPROPERTY

Ah think I resolved the issue, during the spawn process, the 2 sub actors were being given the same 2 names, for both players, so this meant there was only 1 pair on the server side, and it was screwing with everything

[heavy marlin]

shit sticks

i forgot RPC's have to be a) in a player owned object and b) an actor

[hasty adder]

So names seems to work now. Can’t tell if it’s just the other pc I have to test with is so slow it’s@missing a rpc event as the characters already on the server do not update there skin and effects that are team based. Which on begin play set. They’ve worked before so guess I’ll just hafta test with a in spec machine

[vital steeple]

@heavy marlin sort of, they need to have either an owning connection for Server RPCs, which i use the most (for now). If you run a non replicated event on the server itself, it... runs with the same rights as a server RPC. a multicast must be run from the server to impact everyone. a client only RPC must be run from the server to run on the client, or on the client itself to run on itself.
https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-us/Gameplay/Networking/Actors/RPCs

its kind of confusing

RPCs can be run from controllers, player state, gamestate, gamemode (i think?), but they of course have restrictions based on what the server and clients cant see

so its not JUST player owned actors

i dunno ive been wrapping my head around it for months and i still run into scope issues

[thin stratus]

ServerRPC

- Called on Client version of Actor
- Reaches Server version of Actor
- Needs Client Ownership of the Actor
- Won't work for any other Clients calling it

ClientRPC

- Called on Server version of Actor
- Reaches Client version of Actor
- Targets the owning Client
- Will only be received on the Client owning the Actor

Multicast

- Called on Server version of Actor
- Reaches everyone (Clients and Server) of Actor
- Doesn't look for Ownership
- Can obviously only reach Clients that have the Actor. So a Multicast on the PlayerController doesn't make sense, as it would only reach the owning Client.

@vital steeple

[night jay]

Has anyone managed to host a session with a dedicated server? I want something similar like "CreateSession" so the dedciated server shows up in my server browser.

[thin stratus]

Given you have Subsystem like Steam, you'd want to register the server.

Idk if pure BPs can do that

Because a DedicatedServer shouldn't have bPresence true

And the default nodes do that

So you might need to use C++ or a Plugin (Advanced Session)

[sonic frigate]

Hey,
I know there is no Host migration in UE4, but i have read it is possibly to create your own,
Anyone could give me tip, or little guide how to make basic host migration, when Host left the match ... just another player get that , ( RIght now Im using Blueprint project for multiplayer game
If all of this possible , I appreciate any help

[winged badger]

there are quite a few things that don't exist on clients by default

and not just the GameMode and GameSession classes

also, all AI Controllers

and anything you made to exist on server only, because it just gets in the way being on client

even NavMesh is by default disabled or absent on clients

so you'd have to migrate all that, along with the connection itself... even if i had the idea how to do it, it would by anything but a "little" guide

[hollow pulsar]

Hello Im having an Issue with Advanced Sessions where Im detecting Servers but none appear in my Server browser any help?

[graceful cave]

@hollow pulsar are you using an online subsystem?

[hollow pulsar]

Yes Im using steam

[graceful cave]

i was having issues with steam, anytime i got servers to show up they couldnt be joined via the joinsession node

dedicated or listen server?

[hollow pulsar]

Listen I believe

[graceful cave]

does your steam saying youre playing spacewar when you launch it as standalone?

[hollow pulsar]

Yes sir

[graceful cave]

doesnt seem too out of the ordinary then, lots of people seem to have issues with steam

youd have to share your server finding logic

[hollow pulsar]

aight 1 sec

[graceful cave]

array isnt plugged into the for loop

[hollow pulsar]

omfg

im gonna shooy myself

[graceful cave]

haha yeah gotta love those kinds of mistakes

[hollow pulsar]

IT WORKS

OMFG

Thank you I'd be scratching my head all day at this one.