Does the Unity3D Web Player cache anything client-side? I would think that shared assemblies and even whole games could be cached by the player and only re-downloaded if signatures or versions changed.
Any of that already going on?
The Unity web player itself does not to the best of my knowledge. However the browser might depending on the individual user’s settings. It’s done in the same fashion as your average flash game.
The minute a user clears their browser cache, you’ll be re-downloading the game.
What I’m talking about is more like what Adobe did with the Flash player, and the Flex Framework.
http://onflash.org/ted/2008/01/flex-3-framework-caching.php
I think the Unity3D Web Player could at least do this with strong names, signed Assemblies. That way if one game used System.Xml then another game that used it as well woulnd’t have to download it.
As of today the web player relies solely on browser caching for downloaded files so you have to live within that world. Going forward we are looking at ways to offer a player-based cache that we’d (you’d) have more control over but that’s still a ways out there so don’t expect anything in particular until you hear more from us.