multiplayer

[rough kestrel]

fair enough

I think that depends. If you have collision in a separate sublevel that is persistent it shouod be fine I guess. This is a theoratical guess tho.

[steady musk]

Nah I have worse situation rn when actors that 'respawned' are not in sync with server

[vital karma]

what even should i use for setting the start point of a player?

[grand kestrel]

What is recommended for saving/loading games when you want to support both playing online (dedicated server, can't trust client, may serve many players) and standalone (single player only) without using multiple systems. Does EOS offer something that I should be looking at?

[kindred widget]

This has nothing to do with your online subsystem. If you're playing on a dedicated server, the server saves stuff locally. If you're playing in Standalone in single player, the application saves it locally.

[grand kestrel]

So I guess I just use the traditional saving/loading features that come with the engine

Wouldn't it make more sense to use a NoSQL DB or something though if there are a lot of players being authenticated and loaded?

I know Bruno made such a plugin but I don't use plugins that ignore convention

[rough kestrel]

get actors of class? or you could check game mode source code to see how it is handled there

[steady musk]

Guys, can I send data between UE4 dedicated servers? I want players to be able to travel to another server but with some data. Not sure how to do it properly

[narrow skiff]

Variables inside Game instance or save data @steady musk

Are they supposed to keep the information and load it again and have the same data? if so go with Save data but if they just need it temporarily go with game instance @steady musk

[steady musk]

@narrow skiff Players will travel between different servers, not just levels. So GI and Save data wont do the trick as I think 🙂

[narrow skiff]

Is the game window closing and reopening? @steady musk

[steady musk]

Nope, just client travel to another server

[narrow skiff]

Have you tried gameinstance

[steady musk]

Not really, even tho the save data probably do the trick what if I will need to share data between server not when players are moving?

[narrow skiff]

Send it back out of game instance

[steady musk]

How are they connected to each other?

[narrow skiff]

Game Instance -> playerstate then server

Get game instance inside playerstate and the variable you need

[steady musk]

Soooo, how I should be sent to another server?

[narrow skiff]

Are you asking me how the variable should be sent to the server?

[steady musk]

From one server to another, yeah. Not sure if its so obvious 😄

[kindred widget]

It's worth mentioning that ARK handles this via Savegames. Player "Uploads" which is just a way to say that the server saves specific data to a space. Then in another server, they can have the other server access the same data. Likely linked from account IDs.

That requires servers to be on the same machine though.

[lost inlet]

or having some kind of backend to upload data to

then that can be shared between servers

[steady musk]

Well, seems like rn its the only way that I see how to share some data between servers. Not ideal, so keep looking 😄 Digging into some kind of backend rn, yeah

Probably will need master server that will handle everything about server's data sharing

[narrow skiff]

Backend is good if you are needing to keep the information forever unless you delete the information on shutdown. If its only temporary like say kills or something and you just wanna display that on the next server you can do Gl if you want to server use playerstate if the server doesnt need to hold the information or do anything with it just leave it inside Gl

[mellow stag]

Is there a way to bypass steams' region lock for sessions?

[narrow skiff]

For your self? or other users @mellow stag

[mellow stag]

Well when users create sessions in the game, only people in the same region can see them

I was wondering if there was a way to just toggle the entire thing off

[narrow skiff]

Steam will only return sessions within your Steam region and sometimes sessions related to the people on your friends list.

You should be able to connect via console

[steady musk]

Oh, I got your idea of transferring data with PlayerState. Still I cant see how to send data without player travelling in this way. 2 different servers have 2 different GI's arent they?

[narrow skiff]

Client has a Gl and can transfer with his Gl from server to server

[kindred widget]

That only works if you trust the client.

Otherwise you end up with level 13 leaving Server1, and magically some level 6597 joins Server2 with the same name.

[narrow skiff]

Yeah if he is saving like strict data

Same with save data unless you store it backend

[gusty slate]

Hello 🙂
If you guys had to put it in the shortest summary: Multicast vs Rep Notify

[kindred widget]

One time throw away, don't care if new players join or people are out of relevancy range Vs Needs to be updated for even new joiners or people outside of relevancy range.

[gusty slate]

Aaaaaah I see, so a now and then execution vs a notify that gets applied/triggered for existing and new entering players (maintains that state)

Thanks @kindred widget exactly what I needed to know which to use and where

[kindred widget]

It's pretty much the same with any form of RPC vs Replication.

[gusty slate]

I see yes, it makes sense

[kindred widget]

Also worth a note that Replication takes server CPU time. Not a ton, but it can add up over many actors and properties. Sometimes less speedy updates can be better put on RPCs. Depends on the mechanic and requirements. Some replication conditions help with that too though like OwnerOnly, InitialOnly, etc.

[gusty slate]

I see

thank you I will try to keep this in mind

[vital karma]

where does a game start event get made? in game mode? or something else

[steady musk]

Another one - can I make 1 sub-level always loaded in World Composition?

[misty plover]

Hey guys, I am pretty new to networking and could use some help with this error saying “inherited member is not allowed”

[bitter oriole]

What's the compiler log output

[lost inlet]

and you can't screenshot?

[misty plover]

Member function not declared. I have Net/UnrealNetwork.h included

And no I’m not at my computer so it doesn’t have discord lol

[bitter oriole]

No, I mean, what is the compiler log

The full thing, from the Output window in VS, copypaste it here

[misty plover]

1>------ Build started: Project: JoshScape, Configuration: Development_Editor x64 ------
1>Building JoshScapeEditor...
1>Using Visual Studio 2017 14.16.27038 toolchain (C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.16.27023) and Windows 10.0.17763.0 SDK (C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10).
1>Building 4 actions with 12 processes...
1> [1/4] JoshScapeCharacter.cpp
1>C:\Users\admin\Documents\Unreal Projects\JoshScape\Source\JoshScape\JoshScapeCharacter.cpp(96): error C2509: 'GetLifetimeReplicatedProps': member function not declared in 'AJoshScapeCharacter'
1> c:\users\admin\documents\unreal projects\joshscape\source\joshscape\JoshScapeCharacter.h(10): note: see declaration of 'AJoshScapeCharacter'
1>C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\Common7\IDE\VC\VCTargets\Microsoft.MakeFile.Targets(44,5): error MSB3073: The command ""C:\Program Files\Epic Games\UE_4.26\Engine\Build\BatchFiles\Build.bat" JoshScapeEditor Win64 Development -Project="C:\Users\admin\Documents\Unreal Projects\JoshScape\JoshScape.uproject" -WaitMutex -FromMsBuild" exited with code 6.
1>Done building project "JoshScape.vcxproj" -- FAILED.
========== Build: 0 succeeded, 1 failed, 0 up-to-date, 0 skipped ==========

[bitter oriole]

How's usernames declared ?

[lost inlet]

error C2509: 'GetLifetimeReplicatedProps': member function not declared in 'AJoshScapeCharacter'

I thought this gave it away

[misty plover]

UPROPERTY(EditAnywhere, BlueprintReadWrite, Replicated) TArray<FString> usernames = {“ ”}

[lost inlet]

does your header have GetLifetimeReplicatedProps declared?

[bitter oriole]

It shouldn't

[misty plover]

It’s include in Net/UnrealNetwork.h

[lost inlet]

well yes and no, it used to be optional as UHT would generate the declaration for you

unless that got removed

[bitter oriole]

It didn't, but the conditions are tricky and that's likely the issue

[lost inlet]

I always manually declare it anyway, and would suggest the same happens here

I actually usually go a step further with _Implementation functions and the like since it helps out the IDE a bit

[bitter oriole]

IIRC there's a simple fix for that but declaring the override in header will indeed fix it

[misty plover]

Alright

[lost dune]

Does someone have a Simple Outline Material PP to share? or a good tutorial , tutos i followed sucked

[bitter oriole]

Tom Looman's is fine

[glad escarp]

Hey dudes. Anyone here know much about posses/unpossess stuff? I'm a little stuck and documentation isn't answering my question.

[blazing socket]

Why is my NetMulticast only running on server during PossessedBy()? It runs on both server and client during other times in the game, just not at the start...

[fading birch]

the controller has a function called OnPossess you can hook into. I don't think you need a multicast.

[blazing socket]

I should clarify.. I'm calling the Multicast (which is within the Character class) from an AttributeSet when an Attribute is changed. During run time if I change this attribute, the function is called on server and clients. However at the beginning of the game (When the character is possessed and default gameplay effects are applied to the character), the multicast is only called on the server and other players.

Hopefully that makes sense

[stable swift]

is it bad practice to run the single player mode of the game as basically 1 player multiplayer. To avoid having to use different scenes and scripts for the single player mode?

when using a client/server host setup?

[lost inlet]

I’m not sure what you mean, we have a completely offline mode in our game and things function pretty much as expected

Though I would assume it is bad if your net code is making false assumptions and breaking offline mode

[fading birch]

You can just cast to your character from the controller and initialize your attribute set there.

[mellow stag]

Any reason why I'm only able to get the playercount from Dedicated Steam Servers instead of listen servers?

[rough kestrel]

How do I despawn a pawn on a dedicated server if the player leaves? The spawn just stays there right now.

[kindred widget]

@stable swift Generally speaking, a Listenserver and Standalone will pretty much run identically. RPCs just get treated like non network functions in Standalone. ServerRPCs from a Listenserver machine will get treated like a normal event on that machine. Therefore if your netcode is done well your game should be able to function regardless of whether it's being played Standalone, Listenserver or Dedicated server setup with very little specialization between the three. The part that gets most people is Replication. OnReps don't run on Standalone of course and listenserver won't call C++ OnReps on server, but that's why your updates for those things should be done through delegates. Server sets value, calls delegate. It works. Clients get OnRep, the OnRep calls the delegate, everything functions.

[fading birch]

That is supposed to happen by default. Are you overriding Destroy?

[stable swift]

Thanks I wasn't sure if I had to worry about latency between the local host and client

[twin juniper]

How to go about making a positions system that shows a list on screen of who is 1st 2nd 3rd during the race for a multiplayer game where players run on a simple track that is shaped like a square.?

[fading birch]

I would use the world time. Cache the start time of the race. Each time a player passes through the checkpoint, cache that time in a map of player state -> float (time). When a player passes a checkpoint you can sort the times and display who has the best time.

[modern cipher]

Another way of doing this is to put checkpoints ( Actors ) in the way, then calculate the distance between the checkpoint and every player in the race
the closest player is in the first position and so on ranking by closest distance to the checkpoint and you can update the ranking every time a player crosses/collides with a new checkpoint.

[lost gale]

Hi, i'm not very experienced with unreal's multiplayer features but i'm evaluating using UE for my multiplayer game as it seems to have a quite sophisticated replication system built-in. for my game i need a single medium sized map, that's always active and a varying amount of very small instanced maps where players duel each other, that are loaded and unloaded as required. I've read that ue by default doesn't support loading multiple maps additively in one instance. And starting a new application instance for potentially quite a few, but very short lived combat sessions (think temtem) doesn't seem right. There seems to be a plugin on the marketplace ('multiworld') that allows this, but has the restriction of not providing replication for the additionally loaded maps which takes away the main selling point for me. In unity and godot loading multiple maps is not a problem, but Is there a way to achieve my desired setup in UE natively or by other accessible means (all maps need a physics world for queries and pathfinding)? I'm not really experienced with c++ (mainly c# dev), but would maybe be able to figure things out if necessary (and not complex/too deep into the internals).

[chrome bay]

One map/game per-server instance in UE, always

Multiple instances can run on one box however

You can't run one instance of the .exe and have that server managing multiple games however, it's not possible nor is it really a good idea tbh.

I guess you could do it, but it would involve massive workarounds that aren't worth it

[lost gale]

the instances are just small duel areas, i don't think it's that bad of an idea, knowing that in unity or godot i would make players and maps virtual (not be gameobjects/nodes) and use just one physically loaded map for each logical map for physics and path queries. But i'm not sure how i would be able to do that in unreal while still having the replication work. it would probably not be easy and involve massive workarounds as you mentioned.
Thanks; i wish this could have been the point to finally use unreal, but i guess it's safer for now to stick to the other options.

[chrome bay]

You can still do it, but in Unreals' eyes all of those players would technically be in the same game. You would have to physically move the different levels into their own areas far enough away from the others, but then you get new issues like being too far from world origin etc.

But even in other engines, to me at least, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to have one .exe running/hosting multiple independent games.

[bitter swift]

Does anyone know how to fix this?

[chrome bay]

Don't call SetReplicates in the constructor

Set bReplicates = true directly

[bitter swift]

very well, thank you👍

[polar wing]

Hey! I've heard of devs accidentally shipping server code or dev secrets in shipping builds. Not entirely sure how this occurs, but I'd really like to avoid making those mistakes haha. What sneaky stuff should I look out for?

[chrome bay]

Best you can do is compile stuff out

[polar wing]

Ahh, cool cool. So it's more about separating your server code and, say, EOS stuff from the compiled client version entirely?

[chrome bay]

Pretty much. You can't easily decompile C++ anyway, but you can assume any assets you ship are fair-game for being extracted

[polar wing]

Awesome, makes sense! I'll need to make some architecture considerations, then. I have some P2P stuff going on, but that can technically be separated from dedicated server/accounts stuff. Like an untracked private hosting thing (no account or stats changes).

[dark edge]

That's a multi part question but the general approach is to break it up like this.

1. Some function to calculate progress or amount of race completed etc. Probably spline and checkpoint based.

2. Results from 1 are saved to PlayerStates

3. Scoreboard widget reads PlayerStates to generate the scoreboard

[chrome bay]

Here's a fun bug for anyone using replication graph

Calling ForceNetUpdate() on an actor that is a dependant of another actor, will not actually cause a net update of that actor that frame - you have to update the whole chain of dependants

Big lols

[kindred widget]

That's nuts. How do you make an actor dependent on another one? Can't you override the ForeNetUpdate and have it chain for all required actors, or does that not work well?

[rough kestrel]

nope

For some reason connecting to a dedicated server via quest is giving me a crash. Does trying to get gamemode via client cause a crash in builds?

[kindred widget]

@rough kestrel Only if you use the pointer after getting it in C++. Using the getter for it or trying to use it in blueprint should not cause a crash.

[fading birch]

gamemode only exists on the server

[kindred widget]

That's not really a gamemode specific thing though. With a few exceptions, you should generally always assume a getter can return a nullptr and IsValid it before using it.

[fading birch]

sure, always check your pointers.

but they specifically asked about the game mode

which only exists on server

[kindred widget]

Getting it on the client won't cause a crash though. The getter should just return null.

[fading birch]

yes, but if you're not checking if it's not null, then you'll crash.

[fallen oracle]

I'm having problems with implementing custom movements into my game. Is anyone here have experience with it?
Detailed topic here: https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/implementation-of-custom-moves-in-multiplayer/245351
Would really like to gain some insight about how others do these kind of things

[boreal geyser]

Hey has anyone else ever seen this problem?
I have a server travel command in my game instance that I use to travel from the pregame lobby to the game, and from the game to the lobby. Both levels have different game modes. I am able to successfully travel from the lobby to the game, but UE4 crashes the other way around?

[lost inlet]

so what does the callstack say?

[rough kestrel]

ok then Im stumped

getting some pointer addresses in output log

[boreal geyser]

@lost inlet this is what UE4 tells me. I'm sending the callstack and log.

[lost inlet]

it would help to have debugging symbols installed

[rough kestrel]

I think I am getting crashes in seamless travel when I run it via console command in game mode. Any fixes for that?

[kindred widget]

Really depends on what the crash is related to.

[rough kestrel]

I have a line in device output log mentioning seamless travel. Trying a rebuild disabling it

[thin stratus]

You don't really want to disable it

Server Travels should, if possible, be Seamless

If you have a crash, then you should check what the crash log says and fix it (unless it#s engine related, but there is no SeamlessTravel crash I know of)

[rough kestrel]

Ok I tried rebuilding without it and now I cannot connect to the server at all (rebuilt both)

[rough kestrel]

Guys I need help. I am not able to connect to my dedicated server at all. I am trying to connect in VR and when I try console command for joining I do connect but head tracking stops.

[stable thicket]

Hi I'm new to unreal but I'm doing a multiplayer game and I wanted to know how can I change the sky color and all that stuff but only to 2 persons view

[kindred widget]

Like, weather or so?

[stable thicket]

no like the color of the sky and the cloud speed and all that stuff

[kindred widget]

Well. Pretty much anything that needs to be updated on a client needs to be replicated. Since you're just starting, I'd start with a subclass of GameMode and GameState. Do all of your replicating/RPC testing through GameState and the player's Controller to start simple.

@stable thicket Also since you're just starting both multiplayer and programming, I highly caution against impatience :D. Programming itself is a constant process of learning new things, learning new things about things you thought you already knew about. For starters. If you're new to programming like you mentioned in the Blueprint channel, I'd brush up on BlueprintCommunication. It'll sort of teach you about pointers or references and how to use them. There's a pinned video for it in the blueprint channel. As far as Multiplayer goes. Read this a few times. https://cedric-neukirchen.net/

[stable thicket]

okay thank you for the help

[viscid monolith]

Can i use bitmasks to store a lot of booleans?

Will something like int8 replicate?

[sinful tree]

Don't know if you're using BP or C++, but there's a free plugin, LE Extended Standard Library, which has some nodes available that let you store bools as bits in a byte https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/low-entry-extended-standard-library

[viscid monolith]

Storing is not a problem, I'm on c++. Problem is just replication, I'm not sure if it's possible, because I never worked with networking

[dull lance]

are you talking about replicating a uint32 bMyVar : 1?

because that [while it will cost a bit more cpu wise] will effectively only take 1 bit of memory

afaik though there should be nothing stopping you from replicating an int8 if UPROPERTY() doesn't complain at compile time

[eternal canyon]

u have to use a uint8

plus than u get access to the last bit

[summer tide]

I’m trying to move all of my server rpc from character bp to its component

How can I do that? Setowner?

[kindred widget]

@summer tide You should just be able to move the RPCs. If they were working in the Character, they'll work in the component in the exact same manner as long as you set the component to replicate as well.

[gentle pagoda]

when I am sending a request to a friend in game . Request received by steam not by game please help what shold I can do?

[bitter oriole]

That's how Steam works

You can't accept invites ingame AFAIK

[thin stratus]

Relatively sure you can

Like, very sure

You need to do it via the SDK from steam and listen to a delegate of them, but it does work

Ah wait.what are we talking about actually

Session invites or friend request?

Cause I meant session invites

[bitter oriole]

Session invites apparently

I'm not convinced there's a callback for receiving the request, there's certainly one for when you accept it in Steam's overlay

But I could be wrong

[gentle pagoda]

for session request

I want invitations in game how can I do this

[thin stratus]

You have to tie in the callback via the steam SDK

Been a while since I've done that

[gentle pagoda]

can you please share any documentation or tutorial I am new to unreal its my first multiplayer game

it would be very help full if you can

[rough kestrel]

should the main menu game mode be different from the multiplayer map?

I wanted to do seamless travel which I am having trouble with

[bitter oriole]

Seamless travel only works when you change level on the same server, so it can't help with a main menu

[thin stratus]

I usually have a Base GameMode class that sits above all (just in case).
Then I have a MainMenu GameMode as Child.
As well as a Gameplay one, also as a Child of the Base one.
The Gameplay one has SeamlessTravel enabled.
In cases where the game literally has GameModes, like UT, the other gameplay gamemodes would inherit from the Gameplay one.

All travels between MainMenu and Gameplay are non-seamless hard travels (not even Server Travels). All travels between Gameplay GameModes are seamless ServerTravels.

Sometimes, when a Lobby is part of the flow, I stick one GameMode class between Base and Gameplay, e.g. "Game" (I know, shitty name, but whatever), and have a Lobby GameMode inherit from that one, so Lobby and Gameplay can share some data that the MainMenu one doesn't care about. Travel between Lobby and Gameplay gamemodes would still be Seamless ServerTravels.

[rough kestrel]

So I guess that would also be the reason why I am unable to connect to a dedicated server cuz I have the same mode on main menu with seamless travel on?

[bitter oriole]

You can't seamless connect to anything, no

[vague fractal]

Still wondering, if you are already inside of an server RPC and you'll call another server RPC in it, will this actually end up as another RPC call or will it directly jump into the implementation of the RPC ?

[bitter oriole]

The actual RPC code only runs on the server, so you're calling the function directly

[vague fractal]

Alright, that's good to know, not that i was going to call another server RPC at such a place, but xD

[wheat magnet]

does anyone works with photon multiplayer in unreal?

Also for making realtime multiplayer games, which approach you will prefer?

realtime means "a game that can be played worldwide"

[wheat magnet]

need your answers

[bitter oriole]

Shouldn't matter anyway, tbh.

[summer tide]

So in my char I had Custom Event with Switch Has Auth , if server I had Multicast event else Server. So in comp, I can't do the same.

[vague fractal]

Quick note that i'm still not sure how the "reliable buffer" really works, but i was just afraid that i fill the buffer for no reason with that case

[kindred widget]

Er. I'll double check, but that doesn't sound correct. Components use their actor's channel for networking. So they should have the same capabilities.

@summer tide

Result, Component blueprint, Actor blueprint.

Pressed T on a client.

[summer tide]

Nice! Did you enable the Component Replicates or that's not needed.

[kindred widget]

You need the component to replicate to RPC or replicate from it.

It's also worth noting that this switch is unnecessary if you want this to happen regardless from any machine.

Server event will just act like a normal non RPC function on the server, and will RPC from a client. Simplifies it considerably.

[summer tide]

Ok thanks

[trail hill]

While looking through the replication code I noticed that the Actor class uses DOREPLIFETIME_WITH_PARAMS_FAST for replicating properties and I also found other macros like DOREPLIFETIME_WITH_PARAMS_FAST_STATIC_ARRAY and DOREPLIFETIME_WITH_PARAMS

Does anyone know the difference between these?

Why is one marked as FAST and the other not. And is there any drawbacks for using one over the other?

[vital karma]

where is the normal place to store a players username? playerstate? game instance? the player character?

[narrow skiff]

@vital karma Up to you. Just remember that for networked multiplayer you will likely need the replicatableness. Keep what doesn't need to be shared in the GameMode and GameInstance. If you need to share the data put it in the PlayerState

[twin moat]

Any guides out there about combining multiple local players with online multiplayer?

[vital karma]

ok so then what goes in the gamemode?
ima list my plans for each bp so would you or someone else be able to tell me what is a bad idea and what isnt?

GameInstance rn i just have the players name here because its set in the main menu and saved here to move it over to the main thingo
GameMode dont really know what should go in here rn EDIT(i dont think anything normaly goes in here after looking at it, plz tell me if im wrong
GameState game status stuff? reference to all the qualified players, how long the game has been going on for (a timer i guess) etc
PlayerState player status stuff i guess, if they are alive, if they have qualified etc
PlayerCharacter im not using a player controller rn so i have movement stuff in here and the pause menu code

[narrow skiff]

GameMode exists only on the server, You would put like game information in here like say you want a certain mode to be team based while another one can be just free for all

[vital karma]

oh ok, so do i have multiple diffeerent gamemodes if i have different types of literal game modes

should my player state have the players name instead of the game instance? i want to be able to have the name saved in the main menu to be used in game

[narrow skiff]

You can create multiple different game modes or you can put all the information in one just have the data inside structs

[vital karma]

ok

[narrow skiff]

Its up to you, It works either way

[narrow skiff]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u043y2D2agw

[vital karma]

thanks, last thing - what is the normal/best/standard way of updating gui across players? do i have a replicated var that is binded to the widget or something else?

[narrow skiff]

You can set the data inside the player controller and send that data to the widget

[vital karma]

so inside the player controller would be a replicated var that is sent to the widget?

[narrow skiff]

No need to replicate it as its going to the client

[vital karma]

but then how does another client get that var? and update their widget?

[narrow skiff]

I replicate teammate information

[twin moat]

Thanks. I'm specifically wondering how to combine multiple local players with playing online - like on Halo how you can have 2 players on 1 xbox that do matchmaking online. But I guess it's not much different than implementing 1 player that plays online?

[vital karma]

one thing i dont get is replicating widgets, first i was trying to have a nametag system, it worked fine on the owning client but doesnt do anything for other clients
now im trying to get something else to work using widgets it doesnt update both of them

my goal rn i is
player has a number on their screen that starts at 0
player presses a button and that number goes up for everyone, all clients
but i just dont know how :(

what kind of replication should i have on the Test Event and Test Int for it to be synced across all clients and server?

i just put this in my player character idk if that makes a difference

[short arrow]

You want Test Event to run on server and set "Test Int" Variable to be replicated

[vital karma]

ok ill try that

still acts as if there are two different variables :(
that are not sycned

[short arrow]

There are

every client should see their own, as well as the others numbers of everyone else

[vital karma]

rn im basically just trying to make a counter that any player can add to

just to get a feel of replication

[short arrow]

so you don't want them all to have an individual counter, you want the counter to up anytime someone presses the test button?

[vital karma]

yes

[short arrow]

Then store the variable in gamestate

tell server to add one to the variable

[vital karma]

is the var in game state replicated?

[short arrow]

set it to replicated

[vital karma]

yay, that works
would you mind explaining why it only works when the variable is in gamestate?

[narrow skiff]

Game State exists on the server and is replicated to all clients

[vital karma]

ok but if a var is replicated on a player character blueprint why doesnt that work? is the variable replicated but specific to the character?

[short arrow]

it is specific to the character

[vital karma]

so replication is effectivly just the static keyword in c++

[short arrow]

other clients can see it, but they can only change their own

I suck at c++ :)

don't know it

[vital karma]

its kindof like having a replicating var

[twin juniper]

Guys i'm in dire need of help... How the hell do i expose this:

TSharedPtr<class FOnlineSessionSearch> SessionSearch;

To blueprints?

I need these results :S

[hollow eagle]

You cannot expose TSharedPtr to blueprint. Or FOnlineSessionSearch, as it isn't a USTRUCT.

[twin juniper]

So what is the workaround of this?

On the forum it says this

"Finding Sessions is a bit annoying, because to properly show the results via your UI, you either have to stay in C++ or setup some Blueprint Types and static Functions to extract all the information from the Session Result. Specially your custom Settings, like the MapName we added in the Create Session part.

Of course, I won’t show how to do that here, because we are in C++ land here.

Usually you would also want to pass in some Search Settings into your FindSession node, but again, I want to keep it simple, so you aren’t bombarded by code you might not need."

But i have no idea what it means 😂

I have been stuck on this for hours 😦

[hollow eagle]

There's no simple answer to that. They are (correctly) suggesting that you pretty much need to write a wrapper in C++ for anything interacting with FOnlineSessionSearch.
I haven't used it myself, but have you looked at the advanced sessions plugin? It exposes more of unreal's online subsystems. It may already have wrappers for this.

[twin juniper]

I'll check it out, it might give me some ideas. Thank you for the heads up 🙂

[gleaming vector]

i use advanced sessions, its great

[thin stratus]

Server or Client doesn't matter

If you use singleprocess in PIE it should show the logs in the output window

Standalone, non-singleprocess or packaged you'll need to open the client specific log file

What exactly did you expect? Not sure what's disappointing

Oh, you want to see Client Prints in the Server log?

You'd need to code that yourself

The Authority check makes sure the code is called on the Client

But there is nothing in place to send the data to the Server

It will log locally only

You'd need to write a little Logger that sits on the Client PlayerController or similar, and send the info via RPC to the Server

Yeah then you need to do that yourself

Format the message and send it over to the server through some component of your own

Well how though

The info sits in the memory of each pc

it's by definition impossible

Ha

Well it's just one RPC to send the FString over

Could be worse :D

If the Server has the same info as the Client, then you can just keep logging on the Server though

Most certainly

But your question was to put two prints into the same log

And while that works in your editor

It won't outside of it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaU2Hue-ApI

Watch this for starters

The person goes over most of the init stuff

Starting very early in everyones favorite int main()

And also reaching AActor stuff

Maybe that helps you already

[thin stratus]

@twin juniper only if the player camera actor is replicated and owned by the client

@granite badge does he respawn if he moves?

Think it doesn't send any data from the other player cause they aren't doing anything that deems them dirty

Hmmm

It probably does

Never used that

You mean ue4s playercameramanager

Or your own actor

[peak sentinel]

How do you guys handle replicated pool systems?

I thought about creating one pool for each client and one pool for server but didnt go well with my projectile system

[thin stratus]

Yeah so you mean your own custom actor called PlayerCameraActor. If you want that to utilize ServerRPCs, you need to make sure that you replicate it, spawn it on the Server, and specify the Owner when spawning. Otherwise it will drop the ServerRPC

[strong magnet]

Does UE support network models other than client-server? (p2p for example)

I'd like to make a fighting game, but with a direct connection between the clients to minimize latency. Giving authority to one client would enable cheating, so I want to have both clients do the validation.

[wheat magnet]

can anyone answer this question

[thin stratus]

No, at least not without you putting lots of effort into it afaik

[vital karma]

where should the Players Display Name get stored? what blueprint?

[chrome bay]

Already stored in the PlayerState

There's a PlayerName string there

[vital karma]

but that is like a weird string, is ok to change that and use it as their name tag?

[chrome bay]

In editor it'll be a random hash but in a game using an online subsystem it'll take their name from the OSS

E.g, their steam display name or something

[vital karma]

ok

[vital karma]

ive tried this event as run on server Multicast and Owning Client but none of them update all the players gui, only one
AmountOfQualifiedPlayers is replicated fine, when one client calls the event only that client gets the update for Multicast
Run on Server only updates player 0 i think
and Owning Clienti dont even know its so inconsistent :(

[vague fractal]

Have you called the Multicast from the server ?

Also, not sure if it's better, but i think i'd use a OnRep for this logic rather than a Multicast

[kindred widget]

Are there any functions that get called on a replicated UObject before it's client side destruction?

In short, I have a normal TArray of UObject pointers. But I'd like to run a delegate on the client after removing one from the array on the server, which would presumably destroy it on the client.

[meager spade]

i would use a FastArraySerializer

[twin moat]

I thought a listen server was essentially P2P? Or is that not the case

[meager spade]

or listen to the Destroyed function

@kindred widget

[peak sentinel]

bOwnerNoSee flag is not updated with SetOwner() function right? I need to update them on client locally

[thin stratus]

No, P2P would mean that each side is equal

Which they technically aren't, because the Server is still the Authority.

They can send data back and forth, but the client can't replicate anything automatically to the Server (e.g an OnRep) or spawn an actor that replicates for the server

And much more

[twin moat]

Thanks for the clarification 👍

[kindred widget]

Fast Array would be nice. And Easier. But would require rewriting half of this component's functions. 😄

[eternal canyon]

You dont need to send an RPC

as begin play already runs on the server

oh my bad

[vivid prawn]

when I Set Actor hidden in Game for an actor in multiplayer it only hide the geometry for everyone, but the collision is still exist, even though I did server request and disable the collision with Set Actor Enable Collision, it only disable it on the server side but not on the other clients, somehow collision is not replicated, any idea why?

I end up doing Multicast to disable collision on everyone else, but i think there should be a better way

[kindred widget]

Most settings like that are not replicated. If you want to do something like disabling an actor, replicate a simple boolean or something and set the collision, visibility, etc, locally based on that value.

[vivid prawn]

@kindred widget oh, you mean as RepNotify?

[kindred widget]

Yep.

[vivid prawn]

I see... yeah, that could be a good solution, thanks

[gusty slate]

Hello 🙂
If I have like a placing actor component on the player controller that acts as a manager for placing objects and placing (tracing, checking overlap etc) and all of that is all clientside apart from spawning, should I make the spawning RPC in the PlayerController or make this Component replicated and it handles its own RPC?

[silent valley]

Either is fine, for encapsulation you might as well make the component replicated

[gusty slate]

I see, thanks

What do you mean exactly by encapsulation if you elaborate pls

[silent valley]

If you put RPCs in the Player controller then the code can get messy and mixed up. Encapsulated means the similar code and functionality is together in the same component.

[gusty slate]

Aaah i see what you mean, the goal of this manager in itself is encapsulation of this functionality so might as well make it replocated and handle its own stuff

Thanks for the advice :)

[wheat magnet]

Hi, does anyone uses photon multiplayer in unreal, anyone can guide regarding photon in unreal engine?

[devout egret]

Hi everyone! Does anyone know how to make AddImpulse() work in clients? I’m working on a slide ability that adds an impulse to the character movement before setting crouching to true and lowering ground friction. I’m struggling trying to replicate add impulse via RPC’s. Has anyone dealt with this kind of situations before? Thanks!

[polar lotus]

I've got a weird issue that I've been able to trace down to one thing

BeginPlay has been getting called twice on my GameState

I have delayed start enabled on my GameMode

and when I StartMatch from my game state, it looks like it calls BeginPlay again

so it gets called 2 times in total, once when I hit the play button in the editor, and twice when StartMatch is called

why is it like this

why is BeginPlay getting called on an actor which has already begun play

[fading birch]

are you running a server? If so, it may be the server calling begin play, and then the client doing so

[polar lotus]

nope, I'm running standalone

[fading birch]

I would debug and breakpoint it then

and see what's calling it again

[polar lotus]

breakpoint what?

I already found out that calling StartMatch makes BeginPlay get called for a second time

so my culprit here is StartMatch

I think this might actually be a bug with the engine

idk maybe

this just doesn't seem right

[hollow eagle]

There are guards against BeginPlay being called multiple times

[polar lotus]

well they ain't workin

[hollow eagle]

How do you know it's being called twice?

As Djriff said, have you set a breakpoint to make sure?

because again, it's not actually possible unless you yourself are manually calling BeginPlay.

[polar lotus]

I ran the editor from VS and caught this

[hollow eagle]

Ok, that is one of the guards

Where are you calling StartMatch from?

[polar lotus]

the game state

so when I do this:

all I get is this in the logs

but If I do this

I get this in the logs

I cleared the log between attempts by the way, so it definitely did get called twice in the second try

[hollow eagle]

So the issue is likely related to calling StartMatch from within BeginPlay - StartMatch itself triggers BeginPlay, though I'm still failing to see how it ends up calling it twice because there are guards for that.
Anyway, if you just want to start match immediately then override ReadyToStartMatch in AGameMode to always return true instead.

[polar lotus]

I have delayed start enabled in my game mode

[polar lotus]

so disabling it would do the same thing as overriding ReadyToStartMatch

However

I don't want to instantly start the match all the time

I originally set it up like this

so that it only calls startMatch immediately if I'm in PIE

but if I'm not in pie (game is launched without the editor) then I want it to countdown to start the match like normal

[hollow eagle]

then do the check in ReadyToStartMatch

there's no reason it has to happen in BeginPlay

[polar lotus]

Ok I think I did it

it seems to work fine

I just wanna know if I'm doing this right

[hollow eagle]

Not quite. It might work fine but the intention of ReadyToStartMatch() is not an event per-se, but a constant asking what the status of the gamemode is.

As such, you shouldn't be "initializing" anything from it.

[polar lotus]

yeah I realized that

hence the DoOnce

it seems like ReadyToStartMatch is called on tick or something

[hollow eagle]

I'd say you should still be initializing your game state from BeginPlay

ReadyToStartMatch should just return a status, true or false, and not do anything itself.

[polar lotus]

but that's just going back to square one??!

[hollow eagle]

No it isn't, don't call StartMatch from there.

You can just set a boolean variable somewhere when you're actually ready, and ReadyToStartMatch can just return the value of that variable.

That way you're not calling BeginPlay from within itself. instead of BeginPlay -> StartMatch -> BeginPlay, it's BeginPlay -> Set some variable, next tick ReadyToStartMatch returns true and the game framework calls StartMatch.

[polar lotus]

hmm

ok let me try what you're saying

so

[hollow eagle]

pretty much

[polar lotus]

Ok this seems to work fine now

[rough kestrel]

What is the correct way to disconnect from a dedicated server. As of now the pawns stay in the dedicated server as long as the dedicated server runs.

[lilac raven]

Hey guys, so in our game we are firing lots of projectiles (one every 0.2 seconds) the projectile spawn is an RPC to just run on server and the spawned projectile is replicated with replicate movement on. Obviously, this causes huge server lag, and im wondering how we can do this flawlessly? or very close to?

[rough kestrel]

are the bullets pooled actors? That can be a huge factor. You could check how often the network data of the object is sent.

[bitter oriole]

Are the projectiles behaving with physics here, or are they simple bullets ? Because at this rate of fire, multiplayer will kinda break down.

The usual implementation of weapons with high rate of fire is start fire RPC + stop fire RPC, not individual shots

In that scenario projectiles are deterministic (no physics simulation) and not replicated at al

Each client fully simulates them locally based on "is firing" and "current aim"

[lilac raven]

Thanks for replying guys, so to answer @rough kestrel they are not pooled, what would be the best way to pool them? and @bitter oriole They are projectile componenets, but their trajectory can be easily pre-calculated, when they hit they spawn goo, so basically they wont be bouncing around, its a simple fly and hit. I did just make it so its start RPC, stop RPC when not firing, however I cant seem to replicate my cameras pitch, so how can i send shot loc and rot over the network? this is the confusing part to me

[bitter oriole]

You need to send unreliable RPCs on tick with your aim

Then send RPCs for start fire & stop fire

And the server needs to replicate both data streams

[lilac raven]

okay i see, that makes sense, ill test that out! thx

[gusty slate]

Yep

[chrome bay]

No - there is no replication occuring

Blueprint might behave differently (incorrectly) - but that's just BP.

[gusty slate]

I was thinking of RPCs as far as I'm aware they do follow the same framework whether it is a server or a singleplayer, if done properly

[chrome bay]

RPC's will be called as if you are the Server yeah

But OnRep's will not fire

Sine no property is actually being replicated, and the network system will never call the function

They probably do fire in Blueprint because they aren't true on-reps in Blueprint, but IDK off the top of my head.

[gusty slate]

Hmmm I know you're way more experienced but I feel like I tested it and they do execute the OnRep

[chrome bay]

In C++ they definitely won't

[gusty slate]

I think that's the case yeah

[rough kestrel]

by pooling I mean pre spawn a set of projectiles, make them invisible physics off. Make a stack of these objects instead of spawning them just teleport to the transform needed. And instead of destroying them make them invisible again. That is the core concept of pooling.

I think ue4 has built in support for this never tried it tho. Spawning and destroying anything in runtime is expensive to cpu and also networking

[chrome bay]

Blueprint OnReps are an irritating hack

[gusty slate]

x)

[lilac raven]

Okay sounds good, so I can spawn them at the start, add them to an array and just move them from there? I will try it out! I just fixed or extremely mitigated the lag we were suffering thanks to the advice here so thats ideal! If i can further optimise that's sweet

[chrome bay]

Yeah you can call it manually. It's quite common to do that anyway, so that the server applies the same changes or runs the same code.

Yeah, it's quite common if you want the same code to run server-side

I prefer this, just to be explicit:

{
    check(HasAuthority());
    bFoo = true;
    OnFooChanged();
}

void OnRep_Foo() { OnFooChanged(); }

void OnFooChanged()
{
    // Respond to foo here
}```

[summer tide]

I can't get Simple Move to replicate in 1+ play as client. Any idea ?

[rough kestrel]

anytime we do our apps on quest and any realtime spawning is really costly so this is what we do most of thr time

[unkempt moat]

Hey, i implemented a main menu where I can start the game. For now it just loads the level clientside. Now I want that if they press play the server should load a map that the client join. But I don’t know where to start. Where can I program the behaviour of the Server?
If I press play from a loaded map the clients join directly in it and are connected
How can I reach this behaviour over my main menu ?

I created an own level for the main menu

[lapis zinc]

does anyone know what the easiest way to make a simple 2 player multiplayer game is? because ive tried researching this for unreal but no one can give me a straight answer. Do you need a dedicated server? Do you have to use port forwarding or can it just be peer 2 peer. ive made replicated games with advanced steam sessions but it seems like that just connects only local players on same wifi. I know I sound dumb for not knowing but I really cant find a correct answer

[kindred widget]

@lapis zincUnreal doesn't really do Peer2Peer by default. Everything is ran through the server machine and replicated to Clients. Port Forwarding doesn't matter until you release or need to connect for testing. If you release through Steam, it has tools that handle this for you. If not, you need port forwarding. For a two player game, you do not need a dedicated server unless your plan is to have a persistent server where either player can join at any time and the world needs to stay active even if no players are online. If you are fine with one player needing to have the game open first, then a Listenserver setup will work just fine.

[lapis zinc]

All I really want to do is package the game and send it to a colleague so we can play test it together

but my listen servers never seem to work over the internet

[gusty slate]

Hey 🙂
So on replicated actors with ChildComponents, I'm noticing that the child component isn't consistently ready on BeginPlay, is there a way I can execute functionality when it is properly spawned?

[twin juniper]

I made a BP that put a static boxes along the spine , i am trying to make it so the game keeps track of player positions.

So when they walk into one of the boxes it saves at what time they did that and compares with what time other players did.

How do i get info when a player collides with one of these boxes and also to know wich of the boxes the player collided with?

[fathom dust]

If I want to dig into the mechanics of how multicast RPCs are actually sent, could anybody point me to the place in the engine where that happens?

[shy kelp]

even tho the damagezombie function is being called which i checked with breakpoints, the function itself is not being run SOMETIMES as if its set to not reliable, even tho the function is set to reliable. this code works in single player but is so inconsistent in clientside, any help?

even when damagezombie event runs, it then sometimes stop at apply damage 💀

im so confused

[silent valley]

Set network emulation to Bad then walk around changing direction. The corrections show up when the client mispredicts, more common due to increased latency.

Basically it happens when the server and client disagree. E.g. spawn a non replicated collision and when the player hits it the client and server will disagree on the position and correct.

I'm not at my computer, but it's a drop down setting from the play button in editor. Imo it's good to run with it set to Average all the time, helps flush out bugs.

[fading birch]

there's a console command you can use to show the prediction as well

i can't remember the command off the top of my head though

[fluid summit]

Hi! Has anyone played something like art of conquest or inmortal daoist?

Im looking if i can make a prototype versión of something like that, and get away without using a dedicated server. Only use a database, what do you think?

[bitter oriole]

Online databases make no sense if you don't have a dedicated server. What are you going to do, let the client tell you about their stuff ?

"I just gained 50 levels, promise"

[fluid summit]

yeah, that's my biggest worry. I was hoping there's a way around it

[bitter oriole]

There isn't. Especially on PC or Android, people will be forging requests in days

Assuming enough players that cheaters start showing up

You can ever trust a client - if you go this way, might as well store the save data there in the first place and forget the database

If you want the database, you need the game running on trusted hardware

[fluid summit]

that seems reasonable, thanks!

Any alternative to gamesparks for authentication with a free profile for development?

[bitter oriole]

Steam, EGS I guess

[fading birch]

EOS as well

[hollow eagle]

either EOS or playfab if you don't want to be tied to a specific platform's identity service.

[fluid summit]

i'm gonna try with EOS, since it goes with Auth and Database within the same SDK

[grizzled stirrup]

It's pretty interesting that COD Warzone seems to authenticate hits completely on the client since there are so many videos of cheaters hitting every shot from miles away

Do you think they do this just to make the shooting feel extra responsive on the client or didn't want to do a full rewind on the server or something?

[fading birch]

they may just do some heavy validation on the server

iirc Fortnite does that as well

[mellow stag]

How would I start by optimizing my project for dedicated servers, I did a test and after around 15+ players join the server becomes unstable, it's running on very expensive hardware

[fading birch]

It depends. On you running a lot of stuff on tick? You should profile your server with unreal insights and see what's causing all of that to happen.

[summer tide]

If my AI won't move ONLY in 1+ client mode, what could go wrong? any idea? The nav mesh seems right, the target actor and target location appear correct.

[mellow stag]

LogNetPartialBunch: Error: Attempted to send bunch exceeding max allowed size. BunchSize=417982, MaximumSize=65536 What's this error mean?

[rough kestrel]

for some weird reason when I host a dedicated server, logout function is not being called even when I disconnect from the server (say application quits). The pawns remain in the scene when I reconnect. Any ideas how this could be fixed? Also tried overriding logout on game mode but got nothing.

[rough kestrel]

responsiveness sounds plausible. Doing the action through server has a small delay

[shut gyro]

How can I prevent the server from destroying the player state when a player leaves/disconnects the game?

I want to keep it there in case they want to reconnect.

[shut gyro]

Figured it out, have to override "OnUnPossess" in CDPlayerController to not set the player state to null and "OnDeactivated/OnReactivated" in the CDPlayerState class as the default behavior of OnDeactivated is to destroy the PlayerState.

[upbeat marsh]

I've got a two player game in which you control 6 characters each

For some reason 6 extra phantom heroes spawn for each player at the start. And the non phantom characters respond to input given to the phantom ones

If I click one of the ones without a healthbar (the phantom ones) and tell them to move, a different one moves

The ones with healthbars all behave normally

Can someone tell me why the extra characters are being spawned and why the duplicates control the originals?

[empty axle]

You are replicating some array or sending an RPC with more data that can be send in single bunch by ue network.

[fading birch]

@upbeat marsh minor thing. You're Add to your array pin isn't doing anything there. You need to plug in your spawned actor to it.

[summer tide]

My AI won't move in 1+ play as clients mode, but it works in other modes. The nav mesh seems fine. Everything seems fine. https://gyazo.com/2cce93e018f366479e15e2db9312d39d

[livid sluice]

Hey Guys quick question. I'm having a replicated reference of an item (which is also set to be replicated) inside my Character_BP. And through the server function call of "Disable Physics" custom function I'm turning off the physics of that item . Now to my knowledge since the item is replicated and the reference is replicated this item should should disable physics for all clients and server. But that is not the case. Unless I multicast it, only the server is able to see the item having disabled collision. Why is that?

[chrome bay]

Because whether collision is enabled or not is not replicated

Solution is to create a replicated bool or some-such, which uses an OnRep callback to set the properties

Don't use multicast for anything stateful

[livid sluice]

Right I get it.
could you kindly explain what you mean by stateful . like for example?

[chrome bay]

Anything that changes the state of the object essentially

RPC's are for one-time events, that don't necessarily matter if you don't receive them.

[livid sluice]

Why is it not advised to multicast such a thing

It might not sync up correctly is it?

[chrome bay]

Using a multicast means that both relevancy and join-in-progress will not work properly, so it'll be broken

And if you miss that multicast, the client will be forever out of sync with no way to catch up - worst of all, the server won't know

Anything that persistently modifies an object should be a replicated var

[livid sluice]

So if something gets modified through out the game use repNotify but if it's a one time change multi cast is fine?

Something along those lines?

[chrome bay]

If it's a one time event it's fine

I.e. "play an effect" or something

[livid sluice]

right gotcha

thank you so much

[livid sluice]

I dont know if I'm being stupid but, I called the rep notify as you mentioned. And this is then logged by all clients and server. Until it gets to the interface. Afterwards only the owning client runs the functions. I cant figure out why

This runs on all 3

But this is only running on owning client.

The item is replicated.

[thin stratus]

Any AccessedNone errors?

[chrome bay]

It might be that TP Holding Item hasn't replicated yet, so there would be a race condition

[thin stratus]

Also this is still wrong

You should not have State Variables of ObjectA in ObjectB

The Boolean should be in the Item

[chrome bay]

Yeah that should be a property of the object you're picking up, that would also fix the race condition

[thin stratus]

That way you are also sure that it's all valid

[livid sluice]

The TP Item is replicated, what do you mean by race thing?

The server or client is faster then the other?

[livid sluice]

Yea that makes sense

I just wanted to see if this works first

there is a better way of doing the whole thing. But it's bugging me on "why" it doesn't work

[thin stratus]

The Race Condition means that it's not guaranteed that things always happen in the same order

[chrome bay]

Because the bool is replicating before the reference - and you have no way to enforce an order

[thin stratus]

If you set a replicated Pointer/reference variable and call an RPC right after that

It's not given that the Pointer/Ref will have replicated when the RPC replicates

That goes for everything networked. If you need things to be valid, either tie the whole stuff to the "thing" or make sure to replicated everything together via structs

Although I think not even then you can actually guarantee that this works, because if you just spawned the actor and then replicate the pointer it might still be invalid on the client, because the package that tells the client to spawn the actor is send elsewhere

So best is to tie it to the thing itself, so move the boolean into the item

[livid sluice]

Right, and use the rep notify on the item itself

?

[thin stratus]

The RepNotify is bound to the Boolean

So that will also live in the item then

[livid sluice]

will try that thank you.

[livid sluice]

It worked like a charm guys thank 👍 💯

thanks*

[kindred widget]

About the PushModel stuff. What is the difference between MARK_PROPERTY_DIRTY and MARK_PROPERTY_DIRTY_FROM_NAME ? Epic seems to favor the latter, but I would have thought the former would have been better in most cases?

[grizzled stirrup]

But you can still do it on the client and just verify on the server (that spread was added). Games like CSGO do this

Almost every game has clientside hit detection with various forms of server verification

It just is surprising that CODs seem to accept hits from clients that have 0 spread

Allowing them to hipfire across the map and land every shot

[silent valley]

The thing is though - how can you server side check for spread? The client basically tells the server I shot from here, it went there, it hit something.
Client hack can always doctor the data so any spread validation would pass.

[chrome bay]

Normally you don't tbh

You only need to validate against the most obvious forms of cheating, like shooting through walls or spawning a shot on the other side of the map to your location.

You could validate spread if you wanted, though. I've done it but I'm not sure whether it was really worth it, we do it in HLL.

[silent valley]

How do you do that? You have a gun aim dir, and a random seed/offset or something? And check if the actual shot dir matches?

[chrome bay]

Pretty much yeah, we send up to two reliable RPC's per-shot. One is the initial shot, the second is the hit verify request.

The first contains the spawn location and base direction, and the unique shot ID.

Server checks all that stuff against current character position etc.

Second contains the shot ID and what/where it hit - so you can't send a verify request for a shot you never actually fired, and the shot ID increments independently but in a deterministic way

So we instantly kick them via the _Validate() function if the server receives the wrong shot ID

Protects against sending "known" RNG seeds

[silent valley]

But in theory the client aimbot could work backwards from desired shot direction, and send both RPC so they matched up?

[chrome bay]

Only if they knew exactly what sort of offset a given seed would produce, what the current/next seed is, and adjustd the aim to compensate

But that's a pretty far-fetching theory, I'd wager most off-the-shelf aimbots aren't intelligent enough to do that.

Problem is, usually the spread isn't actually large enough anyway to throw off a regular aimbot that just aims towards COM

And even though we simulate shots as projectiles, bullets are usually so fast the shot lead doesn't matter either

TBH, aimbots is a losing battle - in reality there's sweet FA you can do about them other than hoping your anti-cheat of choice detects it and bans them

[silent valley]

Fair enough, thanks, it's not something I know much about really. I ended up not verifying spread because I couldn't figure out how to make it secure, but it still bothers me 🙂

[chrome bay]

Just add EAC to the game, and tell your players that aimbots are it's job to detect 😄

That's the reality of it tbh

Protecting against shooting through walls etc. though you can do at the game level

[silent valley]

yeah sounds like a plan! I already validate the shot on server that it has not hit anything before the target point, validate shot distance, fire rate and ammo etc. Don't think there's much more I can do, EAC is gonna be a requirement for sure.

[chrome bay]

Yeah that's the main things covered

Fire-rate is the one that's really hard to deal with

The jitter of packets and server/client running at different speeds means you can't just use simple timestamps, have to take a more heuristic approach

[silent valley]

Definitely! I spent a while on that. I have a ring buffer on server and take rolling average etc. Still impacts bad latency clients tho for sure.

just about tuning the values so they don't got in the way too much.

[chrome bay]

yeah all about fine-tuning the tolerenaces

What's really annoying about it, is that there's very little info out there on how the pros do it.

I suspect to avoid people abusing it for one thing

[silent valley]

Yes very true. You were actually very helpful in general when I was working on this system 🙂

[chrome bay]

UT has a pretty interesting approach where they tie shots fired to character movement updates.. but to hell with that

[silent valley]

at some point you just have to call it done and move on, and if your game blows up then maybe re-examine it 🙂

[chrome bay]

yeah exactly 😄

We reinvented/redid all this stuff way after release, hardest part is getting people to give a crap about the game for it to be a big enough problem in the first place 😄

[silent valley]

yeah nice problem to have for sure

[chrome bay]

yeah, but on the other side it can come back to bite you a bit if you don't plan for it

[silent valley]

there's a sweet spot definitely. Putting no thought into it is a recipe for disaster.

even having the systems in place to accept/reject shots etc is half the battle

tweaking the criteria for pass/fail is then the bit that needs to be worked on as hackers start exploiting

I found testing these systems quite difficult too - short of actually hacking the game I ended up with a bunch of CVars to override stuff on client: fire rate, aim dir, etc

[chrome bay]

oh for sure

that's the only way really, apart from putting it in front of people and/or buying the cheats - but I ain't supporting that industry 😄

Sheer bitterness is what gets me through it 😄

[silent valley]

Heh

[chrome bay]

But yeah just creating RPC's that send "known" cheats to the server and seeing how it deals with it is the way

[coarse flame]

Is the only way to store data on a dedicated server through VaRest and to a sql db?

[narrow skiff]

Are you meaning like send data from server to sql?

[coarse flame]

Nah, so like my game will be basing players data on a dedicated server, so that no cheating will be possible

And im wondering if i can store player stats such as economy, inventory etc on the dedicated server, or if i have to use a sql db?

[narrow skiff]

Player Controller?

[coarse flame]

what?

you mean the player controller bp?

[narrow skiff]

Yeah hold the inventory on the playercontroller

[coarse flame]

But wont that store locally?

[narrow skiff]

What are you needing to do with the inventory

[coarse flame]

i want to store economy, player-owned houses and inventory etc on the dedicated server, so that its fetched upon connection, not locally so that someone can use cheat engine and cheat

[narrow skiff]

You would do verification so users cant cheat. But if you are wanting to restore the inventory and user stats upon connection you would probably want SQL

[chrome bay]

Storing it on a remote server doesn't necessarily stop cheating. Cheats primarily use existing exploits.

[coarse flame]

Yes but if its fetched from a server it aint cheat engine easy to cheat your money ig

[chrome bay]

Sure it is

[narrow skiff]

They will find a vulnerability

[chrome bay]

If you have an RPC that goes to the Server and says "give this client 5 money" for example, and the server doesn't check that, then it doesn't stop a cheater spamming the server with that packet.

The key to anti-cheat is trusting nothing the client asks of the server.

Verify/validate every action they ask of it

[narrow skiff]

^

[quiet fjord]

a question if someone can help me

[narrow skiff]

Whats sup

[quiet fjord]

When creating rooms where players store that we must create in advance in the configuration of our server or it is done automatically

[narrow skiff]

Explain a little more

[quiet fjord]

I would like to know how the rooms where the players are stored are created when searching for a game

in aws

[narrow skiff]

If its AWS I have no Idea never used AWS I built all mine custom

[quiet fjord]

that is, if I have 200 users and I want to distribute it in 30 players per game, how would the creation of rooms be manual or is it automatic?

[quiet fjord]

Are those rooms created automatically? or you decide the number of players per room

[narrow skiff]

By rooms do you mean per server instance?

[quiet fjord]

yes

[narrow skiff]

Then yeah Both

[quiet fjord]

ok then you manage it from unreal the creation of rooms in case of full rooms for new players

[narrow skiff]

I have a master server that manages all the request and then sends the request to one of my empty servers (It searches for a server that has enough room)

[kindred widget]

Regarding the new PushModel system for replication. Do you need to do something to enable it, or? Wondering because of the macro in PushModel.h of
#define IS_PUSH_MODEL_ENABLED() false

[chrome bay]

bWithPushModel = true; in Target.cs IIRC

That being said though, this is from the horses mouth:
That said, so far we've only seen modest performance gains - less than a millisecond in average server frametime. However, if you've profiled and noticed a bottleneck on property comparisons for replication, you might see more gains if the actor(s) causing the bottleneck are converted to push model.

[kindred widget]

Mostly just curious for personal learning. 😄 Actually my real reason for considering it wasn't so much server performance as much as net performance. Less server updates to smaller variable increments like floats without having to do InitialOnly/RPC or setting a bool somewhere else for the replication to poll to rely on. Just marking it dirty at points seemed cleaner and also easier.

[rough kestrel]

do you really think they care about game health. They lost their core identity and went to BR. Dont expect them ti fix stuff. You have a point regarding client side approach tho.

[lost inlet]

which version of the engine are you using? push model can be used without defining anything in 4.26+

[kindred widget]

4.26.2 for my test projects. But mostly I'm on 4.25.4

[chrome bay]

Yeah I don't think it's fully stable in 4.25

[upbeat marsh]

I've got a two player game in which you control 6 characters each
For some reason 6 extra phantom heroes spawn for each player at the start. And the non phantom characters respond to input given to the phantom ones
If I click one of the ones without a healthbar (the phantom ones) and tell them to move, a different one moves
The ones with healthbars all behave normally
Can someone tell me why the extra characters are being spawned and why the duplicates control the originals?

(FYI - I've reconnected the add-to-array pin in SpawnNewHeroes. Wasn't the issue)

[kindred widget]

For starts, you shouldn't be spawning things in a Multicast. Spawn things only on the server and replicate them.

[fathom dust]

Sorry to resurrect a message from weeks ago (and for the direct ping); did you ever find a good solve for client prediction on simulated proxies?

[silent valley]

FWIW I stored dedicated server data on the local server HDD using the built in Unreal SaveGame system. Works fine for us.
I have since changed it to read/write the final savegame data to Amazon S3 so the instance can be terminated and restarted without losing progress.

[lost inlet]

you can even write a local json file or sqlite database as alternatives to savegames

if persistence is the key, ie. between dedicated server instances, then you'll probably want something centralised like a REST API to get/push data

hopefully with the S3 approach, you're not directly exposing your AWS credentials to people, even if it only allows access to a single S3 bucket

[thin stratus]

Nope, the project suffering from it is still suffering from it. I haven't had time to work on that client since then :P

[fathom dust]

Makes sense. I'm digging around in the CMC seeing what's possible, if I find anything good I'll reply here. Thanks for the network compendium btw 🙂

[thin stratus]

Glad it helps and thanks for sharing in case you find a solution

[violet sentinel]

pushmodel is disabled by default in 4.25 launcher builds, in 4.26 it is enabled

[upbeat marsh]

I tried doing it that way but it had a different problem of only seeing them on the owning client

The team and heroes are all replicated actors

[grizzled flicker]

Silly question but is the player capsule and mesh supposed to have the replicated tick box checked off for multiplayer or no? I get some weird stuttering movement sometimes just trying to pinpoint the cause

[silent valley]

Hopefully 🙂
The AWS credentials (and name, settings, etc) are passed in by my python script that launches the AWS instances - no credentials are stored inside the exe afaik.

[lost inlet]

that seems alright if you don't have community servers

[silent valley]

yeah that will be upto them I guess, or it falls back to local files

[grizzled stirrup]

Of course they care: if they don't they stop making money! No one wants to buy skins for a game infested with cheaters. It's surprising the cheating is so bad to be honest for such a big company

[grizzled stirrup]

A deterministic spread seed that the server sims when validating: if the player has shot 500 shots, the 500th on the server should validate to be roughly the same result

But yeah I can see issues there with a missing packet that sends things out of sync on the server

It's a hard problem to be sure. What CSGO does is completely rewinds states of all players and retakes the shot on the sever so the client can't really get around that (at least in terms of setting spread to 0)

[lost inlet]

yes but CSGO has a much more trivial animation state

[grizzled stirrup]

Yeah it probably baloons in complexity with cod yeah

[lost inlet]

CSHD + validation is what we ended up with after trying various 100% server side approaches

[grizzled stirrup]

It just is interesting that there are very commonly people seen in cod just running around hipfiring and insta headshotting the entire lobby

As in I've seen it many times personally, not just videos online

Seems to be quite rampant at the moment

And hard to combat

Seems to be almost non existent in Fortnite though so they may need to just rewrite their anticheat or something

[lost inlet]

or license one, but that'll probably be extremely expensive with their peak-CCU

they'd have to balance what they would lose in MTX from people quitting to what the cost of developing/licensing a better system is

though I do remember there was an exploit in BF4 that some cheats took advantage of where they could send chat messages as "admin", they purposely left it in for a while to catch people using it

[grizzled stirrup]

I didn't consisder that CCU woudl increase costs but it makes sense!

But yeah at the moment they are bleeding players

Every second game you lose to a cheater

If they don't do something big and fast I don't see many people bothering to keep playing

Crazy how multiplayer development needs to do so much to try and stop unfair play

[lost inlet]

ubisoft is actually pursuing legal action against cheat authors, which actually seems a pretty effective tactic for AAA

[grizzled stirrup]

Seems like indies are basically screwed especially using UE4 for competitive MP

No money for big AC or legal fees

Better to focus on co-op it seems!

[lost inlet]

you have to have a legitimate business to get your driver signed, and many cheats run at the kernel level

at least P2Cs anyway

[grizzled stirrup]

Is that why Valorants AC seems very good?

As it starts with the PC and remains active?

[lost inlet]

I don't think so, but their AC seems like a privacy nightmare

[silent valley]

Easy Anti-Cheat is free for Unreal engine devs 🙂

[modern cipher]

lmfao that sounds like a legit backdoor

can you beat cheaters from usermode?

bruh you cant beat something like reading player locations from memory in an fps game

well it is there in fortnite/pubg etc... XD

[bitter oriole]

Indies cannot do competitive MP, no matter the engine

The security arms race is simply too much

[fading birch]

Yeah...even with very good funding you need a team of people dedicated solely to that.

We actually hired a pen testing company for one of my contracts and the amount of stuff I had to implement to counteract the issues they found was insane

easily tripled our codebase

[bitter oriole]

The bare minimum is dedicated servers, some kind of client-side anticheat, a reporting system, and a replay system

With people actually watching those

Assuming you're serious about competitive play where most matches are cheat free, that is

[fading birch]

We had all of that. Dedicated Servers, EAC, automated reporting system, manual reporting system. We had less of a replay system and more of a heavy amount of log searching.

We had our servers hosted on gamelift and via EAC we could find the actual game where the cheats occurred via Region->Fleet Id->Game Session Id

did quite a few manual bans that way

it was a crazy arms race between us and the cheaters though

doesn't help we accidentally shipped our PDB once

[meager spade]

@fathom dust client prediction on simulate?

could you elaborate?

[fathom dust]

yeah, I've got a multiplayer game where I'd like to predict knocking back another player and have it smoothly interpolate to the server correction when it comes in

[meager spade]

i use RootMotionSource

from CMC

i use Ability tasks from ASC, but i also made some Async Tasks which handle it

but predicting knockback is a bit urgh

[fathom dust]

it is lol

[meager spade]

as if the client gets its wrong, it looks weird

hence i always let the server initiate the knockbacks

[fathom dust]

yeah. that's the fallback, it'd be nice to have the prediction for game feel

[meager spade]

slight delay, but its better than if the knockback should not have happened and glitching out on the client

one thing i got told by a Fortnite dev is, predict as little as possible to make the game feel smooth. But they don't predict knockbacks, etc. Its all server side

i think the only knockback they predict is a player knocking himself back

ie via the gun that causes knockback

[fathom dust]

which is pretty straightforward, the autonomous proxies seem to properly smooth corrections there

so I actually have two places I'm looking at this, one of which I did start using root motion for knockback, I just wanted to keep the question simple

there's an object in the world (think soccer ball) that's a server-owned character so I can slap an ASC on it

it's got pretty simple motion

but I want to give it a velocity and just set it going, vs. when I knock back a character a set distance I use a custom linear root motion source with a curve to remap time

[meager spade]

you mean the player knocks the ball?

or the ball knocks the player?

[fathom dust]

yeah

player knocks the ball

so locally if I predict, it'll start moving and then teleport back when the server correction comes in

[meager spade]

so the ball uses CMC?

[fathom dust]

it won't smooth because my local movement is all just standard velocity that the smoothing doesn't know about

and just ignores

yeah

[meager spade]

hmm, thats problematic

CMC is ok for player movement, initiated by the player. Tho using like LaunchCharacter, its should actually be okay.. that is a tough one to solve..

[fathom dust]

yeah 🙂 I'm in the guts of the CMC and I have a thing to try

where I'll fake a server correction

[meager spade]

Network Prediction plugin would have helped here

no cmc to mess around with

[fathom dust]

oh interesting. I'll take a look at it

[meager spade]

still WIP tho, so i can't recommend using it, nor have i seen the state of it recently.

but its going to be the upgrade to CMC

[fathom dust]

there's a world where I just write my own CMC from scratch but that sounds like work 🤔

[meager spade]

if you do that, might be better to utilize the network prediction plugin

tho not sure what the costs are for networking, last time i checked it was not very optimized

but if its just for a ball, and there is not many, it should be ok

[fathom dust]

yeah. it sounds like there's a few paths, but I'll post here what I end up with. fundamentally it could just be disabling prediction, but I'd like to target mobile devices and the feel difference is pretty significant

[quiet fjord]

Guys any plugins or what option is to monitor the network traffic and all the network configuration of my game in unreal within the engine

I want it to optimize speed as much as possible

[lost inlet]

packets/s, bandwidth, and packet loss is already retrievable pretty easily

[quiet fjord]

is networking insights?

[hallow sand]

Does anyone have any tips for leaving a character in game temporarily after a disconnect?

And reconnect them to their same character if they rejoin before it deletes

[tacit bough]

I'm still new to replication.
I've got the following problem: players "die" on a client, but this state doesn't get propagated to the server. And I don't know what I'd need to do to make that happen.

float AShooterCharacter::TakeDamage(float Damage, struct FDamageEvent const& DamageEvent, class AController* EventInstigator, class AActor* DamageCauser)
{
    GEngine->AddOnScreenDebugMessage(-1, 5.f, FColor::White, TEXT("PLAYING IS TAKING DAMAGE"));
    AShooterPlayerController* MyPC = Cast<AShooterPlayerController>(Controller);
    
    {
        Health -= Damage;
        GEngine->AddOnScreenDebugMessage(-1, 5.f, FColor::White, FString::SanitizeFloat(Health));
        if (Health <= 0)
        {
            GEngine->AddOnScreenDebugMessage(-1, 5.f, FColor::White, TEXT("PLAYER DIED"));
            Die(Damage, DamageEvent, EventInstigator, DamageCauser);
        }
        else
        {
            PlayHit(Damage, DamageEvent, EventInstigator ? EventInstigator->GetPawn() : NULL, DamageCauser);
        }
        MakeNoise(1.0f, EventInstigator ? EventInstigator->GetPawn() : this);
    }

    return Damage;
}

So this is your generic TakeDamage() code I guess.

[hollow eagle]

You should be applying damage and handing death on the server.

[tacit bough]

I just don't know what I'd have to add to make the replication work correctly.

oh so the damage dealt is already replicated?

but the "event" of death isn't.

[hollow eagle]

You replicate what clients want to do ("shoot", "move", "reload", etc) and the server is what actually performs it and replicates it to everyone else. Clients may also perform the same action to hide latency, but the server is what does the action and finds the final result (overriding what the client did if it got anything wrong).
You'd never want to let clients apply damage themselves except to simulate what they think will happen.

When you attack on a client, you don't have the client apply damage. You tell the server that you want to attack and let the server apply damage.

[tacit bough]

gotcha! So not even dealing damage is done by clients alone. Makes sense.

[dull lance]

most things won't be handled by the clients

live by the motto of "don't trust the clients when it matters"

[hollow eagle]

The client may still want to play effects and animations associated with the attack, to hide any latency, but it wouldn't decide on its own that something is going to die. The general rule is you have clients "predict" the bare minimum to keep the game feeling responsive, everything else you just tell the server what you want to do and let it get replicated back.

[tacit bough]

I am playing around with shootergame the template from Epic Games right now and I found some functions like

void AShooterWeapon_Instant::ServerNotifyHit_Implementation()

does this mean that functions will be run on the server based on what they're called? (e. g. prefix= ServerNotifyHit_)

[fading birch]

@tacit bough just as an FYI, TakeDamage is overriden in pawn, which checks ShouldTakeDamage where it checks the pawns net role. If it's not ROLE_Authority it doesn't run TakeDamage.

look at the header file

there is likely a UFUNCTION(Server, WithValidation, Reliable) above that declaration

[tacit bough]

@fading birch in general or specifically in the shootergame project?

[fading birch]

you should also give the pinned network compendium in this channel

that's engine level

you can look at APawn::TakeDamage

it's right there in the code

[tacit bough]

the one by Cedrix? I've read it but couldn't make much use of it personally.

That's why I'm trying to study the shootergame project just to understand the fundamentals

[fading birch]

that guide by Cedric is the fundamentals

it explains how the entire server and client relationship works

among several other important things

[dusky idol]

O.O 100+ page pdf

[fading birch]

it's worth reading every page

I reference that pdf very often

[tacit bough]

well again, I couldn't gather anything really useful out of it for creating a game with damage logic. I guess just too abstract for me? I guess I'll just read it over again.

[dull lance]

it'd be like 40 pages if it was in book format

slides format makes it seem bigger than it is

[hollow eagle]

The network compendium is definitely important to read to understand the basics.
I've also always found this to be a good introduction to not just how the core networking systems work, but how to actually structure things in the "right" way. It's a little bit out of date and isn't quite a step-by-step guide, but it goes over the really important bits. Assuming you already know C++. https://www.tomlooman.com/survival-sample-game-for-ue4/

[tacit bough]

gotcha

Will give it another go!

[dull lance]

embrace the grind!

(and suffer through it )

[tacit bough]

heh I just like to learn by example but the ShooterGame project is... convoluted to say the least.

or I'm not used to projects of that scale. Can't really tell.

[fading birch]

The document is meant more to familiarize yourself with networking concepts in general. Specific use cases, such as taking/dealing damage require you to do research on google. For example, Epic's offical blog post about damage:
https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/damage-in-ue4
Reading the code/documentation regarding the functions you're overriding is also important. If you choose not to call the parent function, you need to understand what not calling the parent function will do and what it does. If you determine you really don't need the functionality, then don't call it, but if it runs checks you can use, pilfer from it or just call the parent function.

[dusky idol]

is MP possible only using blueprints?

[fading birch]

For example, TakeDamage is originally declared in Actor.H. Since you're using a class that derives from ACharacter, you'll need to read through each time it's overridden in the parent. Character.h doesn't override TakeDamage, but it's parent APawn does. APawn is where it does the check for authority before applying damage. This is important because if you have another class which derives directly from AActor, you'll need to handle the check for net authority yourself, basically implementing the same check that's in APawn

[fading birch]

yes.

[dusky idol]

fance

[fading birch]

at least in terms of entirely within UE4

once you start scaling your game, distributing it, etc. You'll likely want some code in there

as it's more efficient for heavy lifting, it's easier to maintain, and you can merge code when working in a team, which you can't with BPs

[dull lance]

is it possible only with Blueprints? Yes. Will it be much more of a nightmare? also yes

[mellow stag]

How would I optimize my game for dedicated server multiplayer, seems to get extremely laggy at 10+ players

Running on REALly good hardware

[fading birch]

@mellow stag I answered this last night:
It depends. On you running a lot of stuff on tick? You should profile your server with unreal insights and see what's causing all of that to happen.

[mellow stag]

Sorry if I already asked this question

[fading birch]

you did, I think you just missed my reply from last night

[mellow stag]

I got caught up and missed replies

👍 How can I access Unreal insights?

[fading birch]

https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.26/en-US/TestingAndOptimization/PerformanceAndProfiling/UnrealInsights/

I would do a CPU Profile

over a normal match with 10 players

and see what's causing the hang ups

[mellow stag]

How would I open up the unreal insights tool? @fading birch

[lost inlet]

https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.26/en-US/TestingAndOptimization/PerformanceAndProfiling/UnrealInsights/Overview/

this is a pretty googleable thing

[fading birch]

i literally linked you the docs

it's all there

[lost inlet]

oh yeah lmao

the overview page shows you the setup and everything

[mellow stag]

Would these settings be fine for a pretty big open world, similar to a game like rust?

[fading birch]

that's a pretty low tick rate

[mellow stag]

Lower Tick Rate = would improve performance with a large number of players no?

Since not having to do as much?

[kind ember]

Anyone have experienced with PlayFab Party Chat before? https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/playfab/features/multiplayer/networking/concepts-chat

[hollow eagle]

This isn't something you blindly change. Nor is it something anyone can give you a generic answer for.

[eternal canyon]

U need the playfab party sdk for ue4 which is only available with xbox developers thingy

[mellow stag]

What is default tickrate?

[kind ember]

Are you sure EM?
https://github.com/PlayFab/PlayFabParty/tree/v1.7.0

[eternal canyon]

that is the c++ sdk which is different from the unreal sdk from my understanding

[fading birch]

30 is the engine default. I know a few games use that or 60.

[hollow eagle]

PC GDK is available without a developer license now.

Also, according to the docs the OSS is on the marketplace. https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/playfab-sdk

[kind ember]

Yea I don't want to use thier OSS, since its require me to be an Xbox dev or something.

There documentation is pain in the @$$
Have you worked with the chat system?

[eternal canyon]

IT IS??

[hollow eagle]

i mean, i just linked it

[eternal canyon]

yea ik im checking rn

[fading birch]

you can use multiple OSS at once

you just need to specify which one you want to use when calling OSS functions

[hollow eagle]

and the PC GDK installers are on github https://github.com/microsoft/GDK (don't be fooled - this is the installer, not any source code despite being on github... it's a weird method of distribution)

[eternal canyon]

oh wait no he is looking for the PLayfab Party Sdk

not the playfab sdk

[hollow eagle]

The PlayFab Online Subsystem (PF OSS) enables you to make use of Party and Azure Cognitive services in your Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) game.

[eternal canyon]

Where do u see that?

[hollow eagle]

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/playfab/features/multiplayer/networking/party-unreal-engine-oss-overview

[kind ember]

Lol yea not the SDK
I'm talking about thier Chat system(PlayFab Party).

[hollow eagle]

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/playfab/features/multiplayer/networking/party-unreal-engine-oss-obtaining-playfab-party-libraries

Which says its included in both the OSS and the GDK (which I'd assume includes PC GDK, not just Xbox GDK)

[mellow stag]

What's a good Max Internet Client Rate setting?

Mine is at 7000

[hollow eagle]

Why are you trying to change it? Do you understand what it is you're changing?

Are you trying to investigate a specific problem?

Or is this premature optimization?

[mellow stag]

Well, after around 10-15 players connect server becomes unstable, running on good server hardware

[hollow eagle]

Unstable in what way?

Do you know this is a network issue?

[mellow stag]

Yes, replication is slow

[hollow eagle]

Then start doing some network profiling and seeing what's the bottleneck.

[mellow stag]

Will do, what profile do you recommend, the network profile?

[hollow eagle]

https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.26/en-US/TestingAndOptimization/PerformanceAndProfiling/UnrealInsights/NetworkingInsights/

Maybe changing network settings will help. Maybe you're just sending way too much too often. It's impossible to know and you're just going to be randomly guessing unless you actually come up with some data to show what's wrong.

[mellow stag]

okay will do a profile rn thanks for the help 🙂

[hollow eagle]

well this answers the confusion about the party OSS vs playfab OSS https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/playfab/features/multiplayer/networking/unreal-release-notes

[eternal canyon]

ohhh lol

[fading birch]

I would still profile your CPU too to ensure your server isn't doing weird things on the CPU level.

you can profile both at once.

[dusky idol]

im working on the basics of a game that i'd like to make MP later. is MP a thing i need to plan for at the beginning, when it comes to character controllers and cameras?

[fading birch]

controllers are only per owning client and the server

[kind ember]

It doesn't download if you try

[hollow eagle]

what doesn't

[fading birch]

That said, you should plan for multiplayer from the get go otherwise you'll just make a ton of work foryourself in the future

[kind ember]

It say you need to be Xbox dev

[hollow eagle]

for what

[kind ember]

THe OSS you posted

[hollow eagle]

https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/playfab-sdk ?

[fading birch]

i have that installed

so I know that works

[hollow eagle]

yeah, that doesn't require being an xbox dev

one of the old doc pages mentions needing to be an xbox dev but that's outdated

[kind ember]

Lol, I don't think the PlayFab Party is in there.
I'll check again.

[hollow eagle]

oh you know what, the docs are super unclear about it... the OSS isn't the same as that

well, you can still try installing the PC GDK which should have the C++ libraries.

who knows, the PC GDK might even include the OSS.

[kind ember]

Oh jeez this is mass confusion. Lol haha
I do have the lib already.

I was asking if anyone have worked with it.

[hollow eagle]

oh lol

[lost inlet]

I do find it weird that they don't offer a proper OSS implementation except for the separate playfab party one, which is just the party features

[hollow eagle]

It sounds like that changed. Or at least they renamed it to make people think it changed...

It's now OnlineSubsystemPlayfab instead of OnlineSubssytemPlayFabParty.

[lost inlet]

"Edit the base function AGameMode::PreLogin to remove the OSS type check (bUniqueIdCheckOk)" glad this is gone in 4.27

instead it can check a list

[kind ember]

Well it looks I have to registered to be a Dev on windows store front to get the playfab OSS for $99.
This is the higest I'll ever pay for a DLC, lol.

[lost inlet]

looks like it implements identity, sessions and voice

and exposes "cognitive services" in an OSS-ish way

[fading birch]

oh...

we just used the C++ sdk

[kind ember]

You guys have the PlayFab Party Chat implemented?

[fading birch]

no, we use a custom voice solution

[kind ember]

Oh why not use PlayFab since your main system is PlayFab?
And what voice service?

[fading birch]

We don't use a voice server

we custom tailored our own solution

and we only use PlayFab for player data storage

it's the backend of our progression system

[kind ember]

Nice! On AWS?

[fading birch]

No, completely within UE4

[kind ember]

Cool.
I want to do that as well but worried that it could saturate the network.
How many players in your game session max?

[fading birch]

100

[kind ember]

Same here, Im gonna see about going that route.

[fading birch]

a lot of that stuff was written before I joined the project

most of it is way above my head

[violet moon]

Curious for a server host would you guys recommend aws over anyone else?

[fading birch]

depends on your use case and budget

[kind ember]

Is ur current project server using AWS?

[fading birch]

uhh it was

I've worked with AWS Gamelift extensively in the past though.

[kind ember]

So it changed to what?

[fading birch]

I'm working on like 2 projects atm

my normal paid job is one of them

We use manually hosted dedicated servers as our game needs a bit beefy of a server setup to run properly

For my 2nd project, we tested initial scaling with Gamelift and it worked well, however we don't really have a need for it as we're still in the development phase.

[kind ember]

Nice!

[fading birch]

why do you ask?

[kind ember]

idk, i like to see what the community are doing.

[fading birch]

ah ok

for my 2nd project we're considering moving over to playfab for matchmaking and scaling

their free tier is much nicer looking than AWS'

One contract I did exclusively used AWS Gamelift with FlexMatch

and the end pricing left something to be desired.

[kind ember]

PlayFab is more expensive tho after the free tier.

AWS reserved EC2 save a lot of money.

[fading birch]

we were using linux spot instances

which are fairly cheap

but, the scaling speed was a wee bit slow, even though we were quite generous with the amount of available fleet space based on player count

sometimes it struggled to keep up

[kind ember]

Why use spot instances? They can shut at any given moment haha.
Scaling is faster if you use AWS Lambda, AWS auto scaling I bet is slow.

Speaking of linux, my server would crash everytime on boot. So still on windows right now.

[fading birch]

We had enterprise support

they told us that there would be a 2 minute warning before they would just shut down on us

they also propogate the event TerminateSession which you can bind to and handle in game.

we saw that warning exactly once over 3 months

We were letting Gamelift handle the scaling

with AWS Lambda backing it up

we had a metric ton of Lambda functions

we basically made our own online subsystem from scratch

that was done before I joined, mostly. I told them they were nuts.

The scaling wouldn't keep up when we would get slammed by an extra 30% of players relative to the current player count out of nowhere

[kind ember]

Wow, that Enterprise plan tho.

Spot instances can scale down? I though it needs to remain running.
Thats good stuff.

[fading birch]

They can

we had it set to keep 15% of extra servers alive to deal with an influx of players

it also helped that we had 10 servers per ec2 instance

[kind ember]

What instance type is that?

[fading birch]

uhhh

2xlarge iirc

c5

[kind ember]

Nice

[violet moon]

Fair I guess I wont really know till im finished.

[grizzled stirrup]

Leads to issues though like in ShooterGame where there'd be a few frames before a character pops in around the corner when moving fast. Also footstep sounds and other cosmetic things need to be heard from certain positions on the client

[chrome bay]

LOS relevancy is not worth doing

Creates more problems than it solves

[grizzled stirrup]

Yeah 100%, works fine with 0 latency in editor, falls apart after that

[chrome bay]

Yep, has no practical application in a real situation. And as you say, just because a player isn't on-screen doesn't mean they don't have some gameplay impact.

Footsteps etc. being one of them

[bitter oriole]

To be fair, Valorant does LOS relevancy very well

Not really LOS strictly

[grizzled stirrup]

How do they manage footstep sounds and other cosmetic events?

[chrome bay]

Maybe they use some sort of pre-determined culling volumes or something.. just guessing though

I can see that maybe working if it was carefully done

[bitter oriole]

https://technology.riotgames.com/news/demolishing-wallhacks-valorants-fog-war

[chrome bay]

That's pretty interesting! Wouldn't work for us for sure.. but in a very tightly-tuned environment, that's pretty cool.

[wise bridge]

Hello everyone, I still haven't fixed the low debit problem for my game in multiplayer, that make the others players in 10 fps while I'm at much more. How can I fix that please?

[grizzled stirrup]

Very interesting! Doesn't seem to touch on footstep sounds though

and I can definitley hear them around

Probably RPC'd down or something?

[chrome bay]

I suspect they force it within a certain distance maybe

[grizzled stirrup]

Yeah most likely within a close radius

That makes more sense than rpcs

[bitter oriole]

Gonna need more information on that - how did you test for performance on clients, what does the profiler say, etc

[bitter oriole]

Very likely since you can only find more shitty edge cases under a certain distance

[chrome bay]

Yeah

And with only 10 players, it's less of a problem if your opening/closing actor channels frequently too

[wise bridge]

I'm new to unreal engine, I was keeping this part for later, when my game will be more developped

[chrome bay]

Would be nightmarish for 100 players

[wise bridge]

So I haven't touched anything, I just SEE that other players aren't replicated with a good framerate

[bitter oriole]

Replication has very little to do with framerate

[wise bridge]

And before I was talking with someone that told me it was caused by the engine settings, that had a way lower debit that it should by default

[bitter oriole]

Let's start from the basics, what is the framerate on clients, and how are you testing ?

Don't assume anything before you have facts

[pastel pivot]

for the valorant stuff, we've seen bugs when you could see everyone on the minimap, so yeah they don't render ppl you can't see but the server is definitly aware of everyone's position, so step sounds are made like any other shooters is my guess

you can't have true wallhack in valorant but you can have everyone's location, their system isn't perfect, but make cheaters life harder

[bitter oriole]

^ pretty much like everything else about the game cheat-wise

[pastel pivot]

yep !