2

My first question so go easy on me :)

I've been developing for years and have written WAY too many apps (mostly web apps) using web services - I'm happy with SOAP/WSDL/etc... I also used to write TCP/IP client-server apps back in the day using good old winsock.

I'm a bit bored and looking for a new project to expand my skills so decided to have a go at doing either a game or some sort of server monitoring and remote control application

I haven't decided which and the answer to this question will hopefully inform my decision.

What I'd like is some advice as to which methods I should be looking to handle the communication.

Let's assume I'm doing thew game for the moment - I want 2-way communication with low latency and the ability to handle as many simultaneous connections as possible.

I've considered web services but it seems like a lot of overhead - especially as I'd need the client to expose one as well.

TCP/IP would do the job but seems like it's a little low-level and I lsoe a lot of the advantages like definitions. Presumably I'd need to formulate a new protocol for the communications etc... I'm also unsure how I'd have one client use multiple channels for concurrent information - eg a chat and updating location information. I could attempt to multiplex this in some way but my initial ideas re: the queuing seem quite messy

.Net remoting - I've not really touched this much at all. Seems to have low overhead and more flexibility than webservices but I don't know enough to evaluate properly.

I'd really appreciate any input you can provide (and a link to a tutorial would be fantastic)

Thanks in advance for your help

EDIT: I've had an answer which points me at a UDP library. Is UDP appropriate for this? For location information/similar which requires no history, I can see how this is advantageous but for a chat, a lost packet could be an issue - or do I manually send back an acknowledgment of receipt? If so, aren't I duplicating TCP/IP functionality for limited advantage?

Apologies if this is an incorrect way to expand on the question - guidance for that appreciated too :)

Improve this question

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
1

If you're up to date on .NET 3.5 SP1, then you should use WCF. You say you don't want to use web services, and I assume from that you mean you don't want to use SOAP over HTTP. WCF does a lot more than SOAP over HTTP. In particular, it can do binary over TCP/IP using the same infrastructure. It also has support for peer-to-peer.

Improve this answer
Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

3 Comments

Thanks, I've touched on WCF but only acting as a SOAP webservice - I'll look into the P2P aspects. This may well be what i'm looking for - thanks.
Just remember that the vast majority of the way you'd build a WCF SOAP service is exactly what you'd use to access the service using binary and TCP/IP. In fact, a single service can handle both SOAP and TCP/IP and any number of other transports, and will largely not even notice.
Thanks - This definitely looks promising and I like the flexibility.
1

Take a look at something like Lidgren and see how that work's. Its written in c# so its able to be used with VB.Net

Lidgren is a socket wrapper, Ive used it in a few small scale multiplayer games, ( mainly by using a header stating packet type. ie first byte represents packet type,

Lidgren

Improve this answer

3 Comments

Thanks for the quick response - I'm looking at it now. I'd also like to expand my question which I'm going to do by editing it (to include question about UDP). I hope this is the right way to do it...
Yup, Far as i know im no SO expert either :P
Both of you can become SO experts by starting with the stackoverflow.com/faq.

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.