With the upcoming networking solution by Unity, should i develop with Photon or with the current Unity networking solution, and then upgrade?
Hard to tell. Do you need the a reliable solution at a fixed date? Is it a commercial release or a hobby project? Are you OK to host / manage servers?
To be honest, I would choose the new Unity Networking over Photon by a mile. It has so much features that are easy to implement too, and the fact that you donât have to pay and for Photon you do, while UNET has more features⌠I donât really see any advantages on Photon, except that itâs currently released already.
Depends on you project.
What type of server setup are you looking for? P2P, Authoritative hosted server, non-authoritative hosted server? Do you want to host servers yourself.
How serious are the project?
RBN mentions UNET is free, which is true as long as you donât need a server to host anything on. As soon as that is the case then its not free anymore, which is the case with most solutions.
Right now UNET focus on P2P as far as i understand.
So as always it depends on the project.
1 Like
Really? I have read somewhere that you can actually swap from p2p to client/server at any point without changing the code.
First phase is focusing on P2P, the next phase will focus more on an authoritative setup.
http://blogs.unity3d.com/2014/05/12/announcing-unet-new-unity-multiplayer-technology/
1 Like
If you use the current Unity networking code, youâll have to throw all that out when UNET comes out. Best to wait if youâre going to use that system.
As BFGames said, it completely depends on your project. For most projects though, Iâd choose UNET over Photon simply because I get more control. This comes at the cost of setting up your own servers and some lower level stuff, though I think UNET will still take care of most of the under-the-hood for you.
The hamartia of Photon Cloud is that it canât run any custom code. What I mean by this is that PCloud servers are âdumbâ and only have information routed through them. This information canât be modified by you so donât expect any fancy authoritative servers.
If Photon Cloud let you customize your server logic, it would be a practical choice for many games but at the moment, itâs a viable choice for only low resource games.
You can create custom server logic with the self-hosted version of Photon but thatâs not very different from the current Unity networking, which you can get for free.
1 Like
I agree with most of your post.
But i keep seeing statements like this. As i worked with Photon Server for a year or so, i will say that it is A LOT different. Photon is made out of the box with load balancing and able to scale for large games easily. Also you donât have to run it in Unity instances, which is a big difference. Its a proven solution that is a very good choice if you are very serious with your project and aim for 1000âs of players, and it will work for all types of games if you got the coding skills.
The downside is that it does not integrate with Unityâs API, so you have to code physics, pathfinding and stuff like that yourself for the server and match it with whatever you are doing in Unity. So it is not for beginners or for hobby projects, but a great solution for âprofessionalâ projects.
Alternatively, one could use uLink which already does integrate physics, pathfinding, etc. and comes with a neat lobby and matchmaking system (or just use Unity Networking; or even the upcoming UNET). The load balancing is a lot easier to program than every piece of game logic for your server.
Photon is using a dedicated server which only runs on Windows. The servers usually do matchmaking and in-game communication. There is more than just plain forwarding of messages: late-joining players get network-instantiates and other buffered messages that were sent before the join and there are properties for players and the room which are useful to store and manage some state.
The default logic is called âLoadBalancingâ and you can extend and change it for your own servers. However, âas isâ, LoadBalancing powers quite a lot of games without special server-side game logic. All can be very client driven.
The Photon Cloud is an optional service you can subscribe to, if you like the basic logic and if your game works with it. Then we run the actual machines to connect your players.
While Photon Cloud doesnât allow you to run your own logic on the server side, itâs simply not needed in every case.
Some of this is matched by other networking solutions, some is not. The APIâs are different, the requirements are all different and the costs are, too. The bugs are different for each solution.
Last but not least: Every developer is different and while one sees something as benefit, another will rant about ineffectiveness or problems. Everyone will point you to another solution.
@vincentellis : Try out as many solutions as you can and wrap your head around network gameplay. All solutions will have lag and dropping players. Encounter the issues, try to solve them and see which solution supports your type of development best.
Hi guys,
Any thoughts on costs for a turned based game in Unity Networking? Is the cost a reflection of users (players playing) or information passed?
Again, this is a turned based game that would pass 3 values per turn (int, Vector3, float). It would have 2 players active per match.