And the Bomb Drops...

So as we've all found out, Gate 88 still can't quite handle eight player network games... but at least the server doesn't bomb out.

Without getting technical, there are several "modules" that determine the overall performance of g88. There's the drawing, the physics, the netcode, and the logic. What's interesting is that when I think back to the early days of g88 development, I realize that bottlenecks in various modules have been hiding bottlenecks in other modules.

In the beginning, it was totally a physics problem. Once four or five players launched their ninety fighters it was all over. The server would melt and I would run for the fire extinguisher.

Upon fixing the physics problem and evolving the gameplay to be base-centric, it became apparant that the netcode was the bottleneck. Due to one critical error, the server was being flooded with useless data. If you remember, those were the days of 900 ping.

Yet solving the netcode problem (released a couple days ago), the game still can't cope. Can you guess? Yep, it's the logic module. It's interesting (and infuriating) how without fixing physics, I would never have seen the netcode problems, and then without fixing the netcode, I would never have seen the current logic problems.

Well I see them now and the next version will be much faster.

I know, I've been saying that for eight months now.

Anyway, the forums have been updated to match this colour scheme. Let me know if there are any problems.

-j