I’m trying to find a way to work around the issue of no shadows in an ortho view and reduced performance with point light shadows and have a question:
Will 2.6.1 networking work with 3.0 networking? In other words, I’ve created 3 applications that talk to each other using Unity’s built in networking API. Essentially what I’m doing is sending gameobject transforms and RPC data from one stand-alone running on one computer out to several other stand alone applications running on other computers. So if I build one of the stand-alones with 3.0 will it still talk to the other stand-alones running 2.6.1?
Um NO the new networking will NOT work with the old, they are different packet definitions, so forget thinking it will work, they are not compatible. They use different iterations of raknet and with each major version, the packet structure is not backward compatible, on top of that, there are fundamental changes to the packet identifiers between 2.6 and 3.0, so bottom line, NO, if will not work and YES networking has changed in U3.
U3 networking games will not work with U2 networking games and vice versa. The code will recompile OK though with slight changes that you will have to make so you can rebuild your game and send out new clients.
Thanks Zumwalt, unfortunately that’s very bad news for me then. I’m looking for possible work arounds to fix some limitations caused by the removal of key features in 3.0. Unfortunately, this option won’t work then.
Why not simply recompile your software with 3.0 when it is released and setup a 3.0 master server (if you have one running as 2.6), then send out updates to let everyone know they are required to upgrade to 3.0? You could also do what I have done which is to simply run a 2.6 master and clients/server along with a 3.0 master with clients/server, so everyone getting the new build, it already talks to a 3.0 master and keep an eye on number of players still on the 2.6, when that number drops to nothing then you can remove the 2.6 master. Not really that big of a deal though, not sure how it is a show stopper for you. I would think with all the updates to the networking engine under the hood, you would want to use the latest and greatest versions. What is wrong with it that it will not work for you?
Well there’s more to it than that I’m afraid (keep in mind that I don’t develop “games” per se, so what I do is probably different from what you might expect):
First, none of my 2.6.1 projects will work by simply recompiling them. I’m using many custom shaders and image effects that will have to be re-written before they will work with 3.0.
Second, some of the functionality I’m using in 2.6.1 no longer exists in 3.0 (ie. point light shadows with AA, shadows in ortho cameras, etc.).
Third, I don’t use networking in the same way most folks do. I use it in situations were I need multi-monitor support (which Unity does not support) and I then use networking as a way to get each of the “screens” to talk to each other. It’s a bit of a hack, but has been working nicely so far.
So I was -hoping- that I might be able to use a 3.0 built app for one screen and a 2.6.1 built app for another and use the same networking functionality to get the two to talk to each other. Admittedly, it’s an ugly way to do things, but it was one idea I had to get around the issues I’m having with 3.0.
In your case you might want to use the System.Net library instead, especially if this is a client based application (windows or mac) and not iPhone/iPad or Android. That would be cross version compatible afaik, although I have NOT tested the System.Net library between the versions to see if they still talk, that might not be compatible either so you might actually be stuck on 2.6.1, especially with the other issues with shader support and such, that is way beyond my scope of knowledge. If it is not a pre-existing shader or a custom shader that I can buy, I do not write my own. Sounds to me like you have a kiosk system setup.
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I’m looking for possible work arounds to fix some limitations caused by the removal of key features in 3.0. Unfortunately, this option won’t work then.