Multiplayer Networking (aka game networking or netcode), mainly focuses on the inherent synchronization challenges of multiplayer online games such as latency, jitter and packet loss — trying to mitigate with sophisticated algorithms and techniques, including prediction, compensation, reconciliation, interpolation and other mechanisms. Multiplayer networking is often deeply involved in and integrated with other game systems like physics, animation and gameplay.
Articles
- 1500 Archers on a 28.8: Network Programming in Age of Empires and Beyond - Mark Terrano, Paul Bettner.
- Alvaro Jover-Alvarez's Blog - Various articles on Unreal Engine 5 multiplayer by Alvaro Jover-Alvarez.
- Arma's Server Authoritative Vehicles - Deterministic vehicle physics, prediction, input replay and reconciliation.
- Choosing TCP or UDP: a guide for game developers - Basic TCP vs UDP comparison by Heroic Labs.
- Close Look: Halo Infinite's Online Experience - Discussing netcode issues and mitigations by Richard Watson.
- Delta Rollback: New optimizations for Rollback Netcode - New ideas and optimizations by David Dehaene.
- Demolishing Wallhacks with Valorant's Fog of War - Fighting with wallhacks in Valorant by Paul Chamberlain.
- Determinism in League of Legends: Introduction - 4-part series on determinism in LoL by Rick Hoskinson.
- Don't use Lockstep in RTS games - Comparing Lockstep vs Client-Server Networking Models for RTS.
- Ethernet vs. WiFi - Connection over WiFi vs Ethernet metrics comparison by Viscarious from Riot Games.
- Explaining Delay-based and Rollback Netcode - Rollback netcode for fighting games by Ricky Pusch.
- Fast-Paced Multiplayer - Prediction, reconciliation, interpolation and compensation by Gabriel Gambetta.
- Fightin' Words, Netcode - Articles explaining how fighting games use delay-based and rollback netcode.
- Fight The Lag! The Trick Behind GGPO's Low Latency Netcode - An explanation of GGPO by Tony Cannon.
- Gaffer on Games - Glenn Fiedler's reliable-UDP protocol and game network development articles.
- Game Networking Demystified - Basic game networking terminology and concepts by Ruoyu Sun.
- Game Server Architecture - Matthew Walker's multiplayer game server architecture blog.
- High Performance Browser Networking - A free online book about modern web protocols by Ilya Grigorik.
- How a Shooter Shoots - Armin Ronacher's analysis on Battlefield 3's shooting mechanism in multiplayer.
- How 2XKO Handles Online Play - In-depth explanation of the Riot made fighting game 2XKO's netcode, particularly why they chose to go for a client-server model over peer-to-peer.
- Impact Of Latency In Wireless Networks For Real-time Multiplayer Games On Mobile Devices - A paper.
- IT Hare on Network Programming - Detailed network programming articles from IT Hare team.
- I wanna make a fighting game! - Series of articles explaining how to make your own fighting game, with special attention given to the requirements of peer-to-peer rollback netcode, like determinism.
- Kieran Newland's Blog - Various articles on Unreal Engine 5 multiplayer networking by Kieran Newland.
- Lag Compensation - Fair Play for all Pings - An article explaining lag compensation by Mitchell Robinson.
- NAT Punch-through for Multiplayer Games - NAT and P2P connectivity by Keith Johnston.
- Netcode at Super Bit Machine: Multiplayer First - Article series on ARMAJET's netcode stack by Nicola Geretti.
- Netcode Explained - Game networking concepts with examples by Chris "Battle(non)sense" on PC Gamer.
- Networked Physics in Virtual Reality - Networking a stack of cubes with Unity and PhysX by Glenn Fiedler.
- Networking of a turn-based game - Deterministic state synchronization netcode by Frédéric Kaczynski.
- Network Protocols - A brief overview of low-level network protocols stack from Destroy All Software.
- Más Bandwidth - Glenn Fiedler's new blog on game network programming and scalable backend engineering.
- Quake 3 Network Model - Fabien Sanglard's source code review about Quake 3's networking model.
- Real Time Multiplayer in HTML5 - Sven Bergström's multiplayer game development on the web guide.
- Replication in Networked Games - Mikola Lysenko's replication articles for JavaScript-based multiplayer.
- Rollback Network Code for Fighting Games - An explanation thread by Sebastian Aaltonen.
- Rollback Pseudo Code - A high level pseudocode of peer-to-peer rollback netcode.
- Rollback Networking in INVERSUS - Ryan Juckett's post on a peer-to-peer rollback system in multiplayer.
- SnapNet Blog - Netcode Architectures (lockstep, rollback, snapshot interpolation, Tribes') by Jay Mattis.
- Source Multiplayer Networking - Valve's Source engine wiki including advanced game networking topics.
- Sync Host Overview - A slide deck covering Sync Host architecture by Peter Kao from Insomniac Games.
- Tech-Stack of the Ultima Online Servers - A summary of UO tech-stack by Raph Koster and Brian Crowder.
- Teardown Multiplayer - Semi-deterministic netcode for destructible voxel physics by Dennis Gustafsson.
- The Case of the Quake Cheats - Security lessons from client-server model from Quake 1 by id Software.
- The DOOM III Network Architecture - Improvements on network architectures used in Quake III Arena.
- The Poor Man's Netcode - Project code and detailed blog post about networking challenges by Evan Todd.
- The TRIBES Engine Networking Model - Tribes I & II's networking model by Mark Frohnmayer and Tim Gift.
- Tick Based Lag Compensation in Unity - Case scenario on shooting with better accuracy by Albin Corén.
- Unity Physics and Client-Side Prediction - Demo project and how-to blog post by Joe Best-Rotheray.
- Unity UNET HLAPI and Steam P2P Networking - Example project and detailed blog post by Justin Rempel.
- Unreal Engine 1 Netcode - Historical paper on netcode in UE1 (and Unreal Tournament) by Tim Sweeney.
- Unreal Engine 3 Networking & Replication - Historical UE3 game networking from the old wiki.
- Unreal Engine 4 Framework & Network - A look into Unreal game networking framework by Nuno Afonso.
- Unreal Engine Multiplayer Network Compendium - Introduction to Unreal multiplayer by Cedric Neukirchen.
- Unreal Engine Networked Physics - Tutorial series on networked physics in Unreal Engine by Epic Games.
- Valorant / 128-Tick Servers - Server runtime optimization techniques in-depth by Brent Randall.
- Valorant / Peeking into Netcode - Netcode overview and peeker's advantage by Matt deWet and David Straily.
- Valorant / The State of Hit Registration - Trade-offs in hit registration and server rewind by Kevin Lee.
- What is Rollback Netcode? - An illustrated explanation of rollback netcode in fighting games by Muno.
- What Makes Apex Tick: A Developer Deep Dive Into Servers and Netcode - by Samy Duc.
- RU Как мы писали сетевой код мобильного PvP шутера - Pixonic о клиенте в быстром шутере.
Videos
- Game Developers Conference