Multiplayer Online Games Over Scale-Free Networks: A Viable Solution?

Multiplayer Online Games
over Scale-Free Networks:
a Viable Solution?
Gabriele D’Angelo
<gda@cs.unibo.it>
http://www.cs.unibo.it/gdangelo/
joint work with:

Stefano Ferretti
Torremolinos, Malaga (Spain)
DIstributed SImulation & Online gaming (DISIO), 2010

Presentation outline
 Multiplayer Online Games: scalability and responsiveness
 MOGs: a peer-to-peer approach
 Scale-free networks
 Gossip protocols
 Performance evaluation: simulation-based
 Performance evaluation: metrics
 Experimental evaluation
 Conclusions and future work
Distributed Simulation and Online Gaming (DISIO) 2010 Gabriele D'Angelo 2

MOGs: scalability and responsiveness
 Scalability and responsiveness are open problems in
Multiplayer Online Games (MOGs)
 Several architectures have been proposed to support MOGs:
 client/server
 mirrored servers
 peer-to-peer
 Given the distributed nature of this kind of applications, the

dissemination of game events can be very costly
 Under the scalability viewpoint the peer-to-peer approach

is very promising

MOGs: a peer-to-peer approach
 Each peer locally manages its copy of the game state
 The peers are organized in some form of overlay network
 The dissemination of game events is obtained by passing

messages through the overlay
 What is the best form of overlay?
 tree
 fully connected graph
 random graph
 scale-free network


 tree
 random graph


 tree
 random graph


 tree
 random graph


 tree
 random graph

Scale-free networks: definition
 A graph can be used to represent a
network and its connectivity
 Degree of a node = number of

neighbor nodes attached to it
 A scale-free network has a degree

distribution that follows a power law
 If pk is the probability that a node has

a degree equal to k then: pk ~ k-α for
some constant value α (usually: 2 < α < 3)
 Many examples in the real world: the Web, transmission of
diseases, citation graphs, social networks interactions etc.

Scale-free networks: properties
 This means:
 a few highly connected nodes (hubs)
 a very large number of nodes with a few

connections
 networks with a very small diameter
2.5
 For example: 2
with 2 < α < 3

1.5

1
the diameter of a network

0.5
with N nodes is ~ ln ln (N) 0

Scale-free networks for MOGs
 Our proposal is to implement MOGs using a peer-to-peer
architecture that is partially “unstructured” and “spontaneous”
 Some properties of scale-free networks (such as the

diameter) can be very valuable in supporting scalability and
responsiveness
 In our view, the dissemination of game events will be

obtained through probabilistic approaches, for example using
gossip protocols
 The game events generated at peers are disseminated to the

whole network, using very simple gossip protocols and
without any form of centralization or predefined routing

Gossip protocol #1: probabilistic broadcast
 If the message is locally ALGORITHM
generated then it is broadcasted function INITIALIZATION()
to all neighbors, otherwise it is pb ← PROBABILITY_BROADCAST()
decided at random if it will be
broadcasted or ignored
function GOSSIP(msg)
PARAMETERS:
if (RANDOM() < pb or
 pb = probability to broadcast a message FIRST_TRANSMISSION())
then
for all nj in Πj do
ADDITIONAL MECHANISMS: SEND(msg, nj)
 time to live (ttl) in each message end for
end if
 local cache in each node

Gossip protocol #2: fixed probability
 For each received message, the ALGORITHM
node randomly selects those edges
through which the message must
function INITIALIZATION()
be propagated
v ← CHOOSE_PROBABILITY()
PARAMETERS:
 v = threshold value function GOSSIP(msg)
for all nj in Πj do
if RANDOM() < v then
SEND(msg, nj)
ADDITIONAL MECHANISMS: end if
end for
 time to live (ttl) in each message

Gossip protocol #3: fixed fanout
 Each message is sent only to a ALGORITHM
limited number of nodes, the function INITIALIZATION()
receivers are selected at random fanout ← RETRIEVE_FANOUT()
among the neighbors

function GOSSIP(msg)
if fanout ≥ |Πj| then

PARAMETERS: toSend ← Πj
 fanout = total number of receivers else
SELECT_NODES()
end if
ADDITIONAL MECHANISMS: for all nj in toSend do
 time to live (ttl) in each message SEND(msg, nj)
end for

Performance evaluation: simulation-based
 The following performance evaluation is based on simulation
 New features implemented in the Parallel and distributed Scale-

free network Simulator (PaScaS): http://pads.cs.unibo.it
Parameter Value
number of nodes 0-500
message generation exponential distribution
mean = 50 time-steps
cache size (local to each node) 256 slots
message Time To Live (ttl) 6
probability of dissemination (v) 0.5, 0.8, 1 (i.e. 50-80-100%)
fanout value 5 (# of nodes)
probability of broadcast (pb) 0.5, 0.8, 1 (i.e. 50-80-100%)
simulated time (gaming time) 1000 time-steps (after building)

Performance evaluation: metrics
 Coverage
 percentage of nodes that have received all the messages

that have been produced during the whole game execution
“are the game events received by all gamers?”
 Delay
 average number of hops (that is time-steps) necessary to

receive a message after its creation
“is the data dissemination really responsive?”
 Messages
 total number of messages routed in the game execution

“what is the overhead due to the events dissemination?”
Evaluation: coverage rate (%)

Evaluation: number of hops

Evaluation: total number of messages

Evaluation: coverage rate (%)

Evaluation: number of hops

Evaluation: total number of messages

Conclusions and Future work
 The low diameter of scale-free networks is very good for
fast data dissemination
 Common gossip protocols are unable to disseminate the whole

event trace and their overhead is very high
 Simple mechanisms such as caching of packets, ttl and

protocols tweaking are quite ineffective or with limited
impact on performances (e.g. # of routed messages)
 Smarter protocols are necessary:
 push / pull approaches for data dissemination
 adaptive protocols and behaviors
 more information shared among network nodes

Further information
Stefano Ferretti, Gabriele D'Angelo
Multiplayer Online Games over Scale-Free Networks: a Viable Solution?
Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Distributed Simulation and Online gaming

(DISIO). Torremolinos, Spain, March 2010
A draft version of this paper is available at the following link:
 http://gdangelo.web.cs.unibo.it/pool/papers/gdangelo-DISIO-2010.pdf
Gabriele D'Angelo
 E-mail: <gda@cs.unibo.it>
 http://www.cs.unibo.it/gdangelo/

Multiplayer Online Games
over Scale-Free Networks:
a Viable Solution?

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Multiplayer Online Games

over Scale-Free Networks:

joint work with:

Torremolinos, Malaga (Spain)

DIstributed SImulation & Online gaming (DISIO), 2010

 Multiplayer Online Games: scalability and responsiveness

 MOGs: a peer-to-peer approach

 Performance evaluation: simulation-based

 Performance evaluation: metrics

 Conclusions and future work

Distributed Simulation and Online Gaming (DISIO) 2010 Gabriele D'Angelo 2

 Several architectures have been proposed to support MOGs:

 Given the distributed nature of this kind of applications, the

 Under the scalability viewpoint the peer-to-peer approach

Distributed Simulation and Online Gaming (DISIO) 2010 Gabriele D'Angelo 3

 The peers are organized in some form of overlay network

 The dissemination of game events is obtained by passing

 What is the best form of overlay?

 fully connected graph

Distributed Simulation and Online Gaming (DISIO) 2010 Gabriele D'Angelo 4

 The peers are organized in some form of overlay network

 The dissemination of game events is obtained by passing

 What is the best form of overlay?

 fully connected graph

Distributed Simulation and Online Gaming (DISIO) 2010 Gabriele D'Angelo 5

 The peers are organized in some form of overlay network

 The dissemination of game events is obtained by passing

 What is the best form of overlay?

 fully connected graph

Distributed Simulation and Online Gaming (DISIO) 2010 Gabriele D'Angelo 6

 The peers are organized in some form of overlay network

 The dissemination of game events is obtained by passing

 What is the best form of overlay?

 fully connected graph

Distributed Simulation and Online Gaming (DISIO) 2010 Gabriele D'Angelo 7

 The peers are organized in some form of overlay network

 The dissemination of game events is obtained by passing

 What is the best form of overlay?

 fully connected graph

Distributed Simulation and Online Gaming (DISIO) 2010 Gabriele D'Angelo 8

 Degree of a node = number of

 A scale-free network has a degree

 If pk is the probability that a node has

Distributed Simulation and Online Gaming (DISIO) 2010 Gabriele D'Angelo 9

 a few highly connected nodes (hubs)

 a very large number of nodes with a few

 networks with a very small diameter

with 2 < α < 3

the diameter of a network

with N nodes is ~ ln ln (N) 0

Distributed Simulation and Online Gaming (DISIO) 2010 Gabriele D'Angelo 10

 Some properties of scale-free networks (such as the

 In our view, the dissemination of game events will be

 The game events generated at peers are disseminated to the

Distributed Simulation and Online Gaming (DISIO) 2010 Gabriele D'Angelo 11

ADDITIONAL MECHANISMS: SEND(msg, nj)

 time to live (ttl) in each message end for

Distributed Simulation and Online Gaming (DISIO) 2010 Gabriele D'Angelo 12

 v = threshold value function GOSSIP(msg)

if RANDOM() < v then

ADDITIONAL MECHANISMS: end if

 local cache in each node

Distributed Simulation and Online Gaming (DISIO) 2010 Gabriele D'Angelo 13