Mike St. Clair boldly stated:
>
>Especially when there are no
>random elements in the gameplay at all. If you were generating random
>numbers for anything, that would obviously have to be confirmed from each
>console involved rather than letting them generate their own, and would be
>the beginning of complicating the model.
This may be common knowledge, but I found it interesting when I was
told at the time. This is the way Doom (and I assume, its progeny)
works. The creature movements have no random aspects. This means
that each computer is generating the creature movements independently,
but they all produce identical results.
In fact, nothing in Doom is random, which is why the creatures are
always in the same place every time you play. All that is transmitted
between computers is a synch signal, each players current direction
and speed (only sent when it changes), when they change weapons, and
when they fire. This keeps the amount of information passed around
relatively small.
(I had a friend who wrote a multi-serial port driver for Doom. It
allowed you to play over multiple modems, a modem and a direct serial
link, etc. without any sort of network. That's how I know this.)
Sorry if I'm getting off topic.
--
Lee K. Seitz * lkseitz@xxxxxxxxxx * http://fly.hiwaay.net/~lkseitz/
Classic Video Games Nexus Maintainer (fly.hiwaay.net/~lkseitz/cvg/nexus/)
Dare to be stupid. Do the Donkey Kong. O- Finger for Geek Code.
Live long and prosper. May the Force be with you. Up, up, and away!
--
Archives available at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/
E-mail UNSUBSCRIBE in the body to stella-request@xxxxxxxxxxx to be removed.
