Source of the 64 player limitation? Anyone know for sure?

[legacy-Derisor]

I was discussing with other developers the source of the 64 player limitation. I asserted it is because the server has to be able to run on consumer desktops and doesnt have the parallel processing power of a server cluster.

The collegues asserted that there is something about the engine itself that blocks 64 players.

So I am asking for a difinitive answer from anyone with a source license what the real scoop is here. What is the source of the 64 char limit and if I had the server power, could i pump that up to handle MMOG levels?

TIA

[legacy-rhinodog]

I'm no expert. I would guess there is a way to do that, but server power wouldn't really be the question. It would be PC power. Each char in ut2k3 has (on average) 2400 polys. Having just 8 of these guys on screen, with any number of extra polys (level and what not) is a pretty heavy load. NBut having a mmorpg levels. Thats would be intense.

But I'm sure you thought of that and I just wasted typing all of this..... :sour:

[legacy-Derisor]

Certainly you would have to provide models with varying poly counts for those that dont have the hardware. What I was getting at is other than the poly ount is there any other reasons?

[legacy-DeathsAdvocate]

BandWidth is another Concern. 64+ players would require some serious uploading/downloading capibilitys for the server + high download for client

[legacy-shielded]

Originally posted by Derisor
Certainly you would have to provide models with varying poly counts for those that dont have the hardware. What I was getting at is other than the poly ount is there any other reasons?

Why not write an algorithm which can reduce the poly count? That seems to be a lot more flexible, simpler, more space efficient then providing models with different poly count.

[Shambler]

That's pretty much how LODMesh's work, but if you force it to override the polys at a near enough distance it is going to look horrible. (thus it's only used for far away mesh's)

[legacy-damijin]

Not really an answer, but even some mmog's enforce a 64 limit. World War 2 Online for instance can only display 64 people in your general area at a time. The ability for more people to be there causes them to dissapear at random making combat difficult. WW2Online does not have very good graphics so the poly theory is probably out.

Perhaps the same flaw is in the unreal engine, and they dont want people to complain people poofing right before the killshot.