MMO-Like Quake Is Possible

An anonymous reader writes "OptimalGrid is a self-contained middleware designed for developers to create grid-enabled parallel applications without themselves becoming experts in grid or high-performance computing (article). The Linux compatible middleware now includes automatic distribution and provisioning on to Grid nodes. See how the first release of Quake II was made massively multi-player [pdf] by running on a Grid. Get modified Quake II from Sourceforge to run with OptimalGrid and let the massive Grid games begin." Update: 09/19 16:12 GMT by Z : Marked the pdf as such.

Bleh, not what we want.

[GoNINzo]

This is just a way to take a very complex 'flow' program and convert it to a massive group of computers doing it instead of just one. In this case, they took quake and made it so you can spread users across multiple computers, but it's designed for intranet use.

So, an ISP could take a popular multiplayer game, setup some grid servers, and a couple proxy servers, and then get 100 people to join the game. This is not exactly the same as making it massively multiplayer because the world is still the same size, and I'm unsure if the client could handle all the actors being on the screen at the same time. This is more just showing off the load sharing capabilities rather than a true gaming invention.

Ideally, we want something similar to the Unreal 2 idea, where you have people getting passed from server to server to server, and the place is massive. That way, people go to the interesting places and gather. And it would have to run across the internet. This thing only runs on an intranet [ibm.com] (see bottom question). A little disappointing.

Anyway, giving links to some of these applications just further confuses people. I have a ton of friends asking me how to do this, and without a central set of servers already setup, no one can really try it out. Which would have been ideal for IBM to show it off.

Re:Bleh, not what we want.

[thing12]

This is not exactly the same as making it massively multiplayer because the world is still the same size, and I'm unsure if the client could handle all the actors being on the screen at the same time.....Ideally, we want something similar to the Unreal 2 idea, where you have people getting passed from server to server to server, and the place is massive.

Just because they didn't make a world that's 100x larger it doesn't mean that it's not possible now. The PDF indicates that the world is partitioned into discrete pieces and server partitioning is done automatically - and players are passed between the servers on demand. IMHO, it seems exactly like what you're saying.

Re:Awesome

[GeckoX]

Post I was replying to stated, and I quote:

I think all they've demonstrated is that noone wants to pay a monthly fee for an FPS

And for my other post, sure, you don't _have_ to pay for xbox live to play halo, but as was my point, people _do_ pay for xbox live to play halo.

I'm quite sure of what I'm talking about. I think the better question is are you listening?

Re:Hey, Rob et. al.

[trendyhendy]

I just have the following bit of code in browser's userContent.css

a[href$=".pdf"]:after {
                font-size: smaller;
                content: " [pdf]";
}

Re:So this is..

[VincentAdamBurns]

quake2 is strange in this aspect. the rendering code is so optimized that the main part that slows it down is that the network code needs to run before each frame, resulting in overloaded network buffer.

quake2 can easly handle 1024 (max entities) models of the player model being rendered at the same time.

this is all of course vanilla quake2 and some mods fix these. however i cannot think of any mod that has fixed the rendering/networking code. when i get my files back i will finish fixing it in LiteGL quake2 engine mod.