MultiplayerNetworkingResources
A curated list of Multiplayer Game Network Programming Resources
https://github.com/0xFA11/MultiplayerNetworkingResources
Last synced: about 20 hours ago
JSON representation
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Articles
- 1500 Archers on a 28.8: Network Programming in Age of Empires and Beyond - Mark Terrano, Paul Bettner.
- Choosing TCP or UDP: a guide for game developers - Basic TCP vs UDP comparison by Heroic Labs.
- Close Look: Halo Infinite's Online Experience - Discussing netcode issues and mitigations by Richard Watson.
- Don't use Lockstep in RTS games - Comparing Lockstep vs Client-Server Networking Models for RTS.
- Ethernet vs. WiFi - Connection over WiFi vs Ethernet metrics comparison by Viscarious from Riot Games.
- Explaining Delay-based and Rollback Netcode - Rollback netcode for fighting games by Ricky Pusch.
- Alvaro Jover-Alvarez's Blog - Various articles on Unreal Engine 5 multiplayer by Alvaro Jover-Alvarez.
- Delta Rollback: New optimizations for Rollback Netcode - New ideas and optimizations by David Dehaene.
- Fightin' Words, Netcode - Articles explaining how fighting games use delay-based and rollback netcode.
- Fight The Lag! The Trick Behind GGPO's Low Latency Netcode - An explanation of GGPO by Tony Cannon.
- Gaffer on Games - Glenn Fiedler's reliable-UDP protocol and game network development articles.
- Game Networking Demystified - Basic game networking terminology and concepts by Ruoyu Sun.
- Game Server Architecture - Matthew Walker's multiplayer game server architecture blog.
- High Performance Browser Networking - A free online book about modern web protocols by Ilya Grigorik.
- Impact Of Latency In Wireless Networks For Real-time Multiplayer Games On Mobile Devices - A paper.
- IT Hare on Network Programming - Detailed network programming articles from IT Hare team.
- Kieran Newland's Blog - Various articles on Unreal Engine 5 multiplayer networking by Kieran Newland.
- Lag Compensation - Fair Play for all Pings - An article explaining lag compensation by Mitchell Robinson.
- NAT Punch-through for Multiplayer Games - NAT and P2P connectivity by Keith Johnston.
- Netcode at Super Bit Machine: Multiplayer First - Article series on ARMAJET's netcode stack by Nicola Geretti.
- Networked Physics in Virtual Reality - Networking a stack of cubes with Unity and PhysX by Glenn Fiedler.
- Networking of a turn-based game - Deterministic state synchronization netcode by Frédéric Kaczynski.
- Network Protocols - A brief overview of low-level network protocols stack from Destroy All Software.
- Valorant / Peeking into Netcode - Netcode overview and peeker's advantage by Matt deWet and David Straily.
- Real Time Multiplayer in HTML5 - Sven Bergström's multiplayer game development on the web guide.
- Replication in Networked Games - Mikola Lysenko's replication articles for JavaScript-based multiplayer.
- Rollback Networking in INVERSUS - Ryan Juckett's post on a peer-to-peer rollback system in multiplayer.
- SnapNet Blog - Netcode Architectures (lockstep, rollback, snapshot interpolation, Tribes') by Jay Mattis.
- Source Multiplayer Networking - Valve's Source engine wiki including advanced game networking topics.
- Sync Host Overview - A slide deck covering Sync Host architecture by Peter Kao from Insomniac Games.
- Tech-Stack of the Ultima Online Servers - A summary of UO tech-stack by Raph Koster and Brian Crowder.
- The Case of the Quake Cheats - Security lessons from client-server model from Quake 1 by id Software.
- The TRIBES Engine Networking Model - Tribes I & II's networking model by Mark Frohnmayer and Tim Gift.
- Unreal Engine 3 Networking & Replication - Historical UE3 game networking from the old wiki.
- Unreal Engine 4 Framework & Network - A look into Unreal game networking framework by Nuno Afonso.
- Unreal Engine Multiplayer Network Compendium - Introduction to Unreal multiplayer by Cedric Neukirchen.
- Valorant / 128-Tick Servers - Server runtime optimization techniques in-depth by Brent Randall.
- What Makes Apex Tick: A Developer Deep Dive Into Servers and Netcode - by Samy Duc.
- Demolishing Wallhacks with Valorant's Fog of War - Fighting with wallhacks in Valorant by Paul Chamberlain.
- Determinism in League of Legends: Introduction - 4-part series on determinism in LoL by Rick Hoskinson.
- I wanna make a fighting game! - Series of articles explaining how to make your own fighting game, with special attention given to the requirements of peer-to-peer rollback netcode, like determinism.
- Rollback Pseudo Code - A high level pseudocode of peer-to-peer rollback netcode.
- Rollback Networking in INVERSUS - Ryan Juckett's post on a peer-to-peer rollback system in multiplayer.
- Как мы писали сетевой код мобильного PvP шутера - Pixonic о клиенте в быстром шутере.
- Fightin' Words, Netcode - Articles explaining how fighting games use delay-based and rollback netcode.
- Arma's Server Authoritative Vehicles - Deterministic vehicle physics, prediction, input replay and reconciliation.
- Fast-Paced Multiplayer - Prediction, reconciliation, interpolation and compensation by Gabriel Gambetta.
- How a Shooter Shoots - Armin Ronacher's analysis on Battlefield 3's shooting mechanism in multiplayer.
- How 2XKO Handles Online Play - In-depth explanation of the Riot made fighting game 2XKO's netcode, particularly why they chose to go for a client-server model over peer-to-peer.
- Netcode Explained - Game networking concepts with examples by Chris "Battle(non)sense" on PC Gamer.
- Más Bandwidth - Glenn Fiedler's new blog on game network programming and scalable backend engineering.
- Quake 3 Network Model - Fabien Sanglard's source code review about Quake 3's networking model.
- Rollback Network Code for Fighting Games - An explanation thread by Sebastian Aaltonen.
- Teardown Multiplayer - Semi-deterministic netcode for destructible voxel physics by Dennis Gustafsson.
- The DOOM III Network Architecture - Improvements on network architectures used in Quake III Arena.
- The Poor Man's Netcode - Project code and detailed blog post about networking challenges by Evan Todd.
- Tick Based Lag Compensation in Unity - Case scenario on shooting with better accuracy by Albin Corén.
- Unity Physics and Client-Side Prediction - Demo project and how-to blog post by Joe Best-Rotheray.
- Unity UNET HLAPI and Steam P2P Networking - Example project and detailed blog post by Justin Rempel.
- Unreal Engine 1 Netcode - Historical paper on netcode in UE1 (and Unreal Tournament) by Tim Sweeney.
- Unreal Engine Networked Physics - Tutorial series on networked physics in Unreal Engine by Epic Games.
- Valorant / The State of Hit Registration - Trade-offs in hit registration and server rewind by Kevin Lee.
- What is Rollback Netcode? - An illustrated explanation of rollback netcode in fighting games by Muno.
- What Makes Apex Tick: A Developer Deep Dive Into Servers and Netcode - by Samy Duc.
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Libraries
- ENet - Simple and robust reliable UDP networking library.
- GameNetworkingSockets - Valve's internal (Steam) network transport layer for games.
- GGPO - Good Game, Peace Out Rollback Network SDK.
- KCP - A fast and reliable ARQ protocol.
- netcode - Secure connection-based client/server protocol built on top of UDP (C, C#, Rust, Go etc...)
- RakNet - (Inactive) Full-featured and mature reliable UDP networking engine.
- Reliable - A packet acknowledgement system for UDP (C).
- Serialize - A simple bitpacking serializer for C++.
- Snapnet - AAA netcode for real-time multiplayer games.
- TNL2 - (Inactive) Torque Networking Library 2 which is quite similar to [TRIBES Networking Model](https://www.gamedevs.org/uploads/tribes-networking-model.pdf).
- yojimbo - Reliable UDP networking library for client/server games with dedicated servers (C++).
- Barebones Master Server - Backend framework with auth, profile, lobby, chat features for Unity.
- DarkRift 2 - Unity focused high-performance multi-threaded multiplayer networking solution.
- FishNet - Unity networking solution aimed towards reliability, ease of use, efficiency, and flexibility.
- Forge Networking - Unity focused real-time multiplayer networking solution.
- GONet - Unity netcode solution, mostly GameObject centric.
- Lidgren.Network - Reliable UDP networking library (.NET/Mono/Unity).
- LiteNetLib - Lite reliable UDP networking library (.NET/Mono/Unity).
- MagicOnion - Unified Realtime/API framework for .NET platform and Unity.
- Netcode for Entities - Unity's official netcode SDK for Entities workflows.
- Netcode for GameObjects - Unity's official netcode SDK for GameObject workflows.
- Netick - A server-authoritative networking solution for Unity.
- NetStack - Lightweight toolset for creating concurrent networking systems for multiplayer games.
- Normcore - Seamless multiplayer game networking for Unity (Cloud/SaaS).
- Agones - Dedicated Game Server Hosting and Scaling for Multiplayer Games on Kubernetes
- Nakama - Open-source backend infrastructure for multiplayer games (also with Unity/C# SDK).
- GoWorld - Scalable Distributed Game Server Engine with Hot Swapping (and Unity demo!).
- SmartFoxServer - Massive multiplayer game server with advanced built-in features.
- Colyseus - Authoritative multiplayer game server backend framework.
- Kalm - Socket manager/optimizer library with custom congestion control for Node.js and browsers.
- SocketCluster - Scalable multi-process HTTP & real-time server framework.
- Quilkin - Non-transparent UDP proxy for dedicated game servers (also eBPF/XDP).
- Photon Engine - Hybrid multiplayer game networking platform (Cloud/SaaS).
- BestoNet - GGPO-style rollback networking for fighting game in Unity/C#.
- Snopek's Rollback Netcode - Godot addon implementing rollback and prediction netcode.
- Rakugaki Rumble - Small fighting game using [Snopek's Rollback Netcode](https://gitlab.com/snopek-games/godot-rollback-netcode/).
- Delta Rollback Netcode - C++ port of [Snopek's Rollback Netcode](https://gitlab.com/snopek-games/godot-rollback-netcode/) with performance optimizations.
- Rollback Fighter Demo - Example fighting game using [Delta Rollback Netcode](https://gitlab.com/BimDav/delta-rollback).
- Photon Engine - Hybrid multiplayer game networking platform (Cloud/SaaS).
- Network Next - Network accelerator for multiplayer games.
- Proton - Linux kernel module that provides cryptographic functions for XDP programs.
- TNet 3 - Multiplayer networking and serialization tools for Unity (open-source).
- Networker - TCP and UDP networking library (.NET/Unity).
- Proton - Linux kernel module that provides cryptographic functions for XDP programs.
- Snapnet - AAA netcode for real-time multiplayer games.
- Netcode for Entities - Unity's official netcode SDK for Entities workflows.
- PurrNet - Free and open-source Unity Networking solution (Unity/C#).
- RiptideNetworking - Lightweight C# networking solution for multiplayer games.
- Actionhero - A node.js API server framework for TCP sockets, websockets and HTTP clients.
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Tools
- CapAnalysis - Web visual tool to analyze captured network traffic. (Ubuntu, Debian)
- clumsy - Network condition simulation utility. (Windows)
- netem - Network emulation for testing protocols. (Linux)
- matchmaker - Matchmaking simulator with real worldwide player data (Go).
- Network Link Conditioner - Network environment simulation utility. (macOS, iOS)
- Postman - Web API debugging and development client. (Windows, macOS, Linux)
- websocat - CLI client for WebSockets like netcat or curl. (Windows, macOS, Linux)
- Wireshark - Network traffic analyzer tool. (Windows, macOS, Linux)
- mitmproxy - Web debugging proxy server. (Windows, macOS, Linux)
- Network Simulator (ns) - Network simulator targeting research and educational use. (macOS, Linux)
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Videos
- 2000 / Half-Life and Team Fortress Networking - Talk on backend network services by Yahn Bernier.
- 2015 / Shared World Shooter: Destiny's Networked Mission Architecture - By Justin Truman.
- 2015 / Stop, Copy/Paste Networking & Innovate - Design approaches by Claire Blackshaw from Sony.
- 2016 / Fighting Latency on Call of Duty Black Ops III - Talk by Benjamin Goyette from Activision.
- 2017 / Overwatch Gameplay Architecture and Netcode - Timothy Ford on precise simulation with ECS.
- 2017 / Replay Technology in Overwatch: Kill Cam, Gameplay, and Highlights - Talk by Philip Orwig.
- 2017 / Networking Scripted Weapons and Abilities in Overwatch - Talk by Dan Reed from Blizzard.
- 2017 / Replicating Chaos: Vehicle Replication in Watch Dogs 2 - Replicating vehicle movement in P2P.
- 2018 / 8 Frames in 16ms - Rollback Networking in Mortal Kombat and Injustice 2 by Michael Stallone.
- 2018 / For Honor: From a Great Launch to Live Period - By Damien Kieken and Roman Campos Oriola.
- 2018 / It IS Rocket Science! - The physics and networking of Rocket League in details by Jared Cone.
- 2019 / Back to the Future! Working with Deterministic Simulation in For Honor - by Jennifer Henry.
- 2019 / Quantum Deep Dive - Photon Quantum Network Engine for Unity by Eric from Exit Games.
- Replication Graph - Epic's dev-team demonstrates UE 4.20's new Replication Graph feature.
- Server Optimizations - Ryan Gerleve and Dave Ratti to discuss server optimization techniques in UE4.
- Europe 2019 / Replication Graph For Optimizing RTS Games - Talk by Nick Prühs from Deadalic.
- EU 2016 / Building a PvP focused MMO - Albion MMO architecture by David Salz from Sandbox.
- EU 2017 / Photon vs UNet - Netcode architecture comparison by Christof Wegmann from Exit Games.
- LA 2018 / Deep-Dive Into Networking for Unity's FPS Sample - Talk by Peter Andreasen from Unity.
- EU 2019 / Intro to DOTS and Netcode - Networked future of Unity using DOTS by Tim Johansson.
- Between Two Servers - Glenn Fiedler interviews gamedevs about multiplayer and netcode.
- Engineering Fast Paced Multiplayer Games with Gabriel Gambetta - 1 hour interview podcast.
- Rollback Netcode in Godot - A tutorial series about implementing rollback netcode in Godot.
- HandmadeCon 2015 / Pat Wyatt - Chat about Guild Wars, Diablo, StarCraft netcode by Pat Wyatt.
- Overwatch / Let's Talk Netcode - Overwatch netcode by Tim Ford and Philip Orwig from Blizzard.
- Unity + Mirror Networking Tutorials - Conceptual and hands-on implementation by Neil Shah.
- Valorant / Netcode & 128-Servers - Some basic networking concepts in Valorant from Riot Games.
- Warframe / Networking Architecture - Warframe netcode by Maciej Sinilo from Digital Extremes.
- Bali 2025 / Best Practices for Networked Movement Abilities - Talk by Zhi Kang Shao.
- Bali 2025 / Network Prediction: Replication's Crystal Ball - Talk by Andrew Joy.
- Orlando 2025 / Developing and Launching a New Replication System - Talk by Peter Engstrom.
- 2012 / Writing Server and Network Code for Your Online Game - Talk by Patrick Wyatt from En Masse.
- 2015 / Networking Gameplay and AI in Assassin's Creed Unity - Talk by Charles Lefebvre from Ubisoft.
- 2010 / Building the Server Software for ELIMINATE - By Stephen Detwiler and James Marr.
- 2011 / Crysis 2 Multiplayer - A Programmer's Postmortem by Peter Hall from Crytek.
- 2011 / I Shot You First - Gameplay networking in Halo: Reach by David Aldridge from Bungie.
- 2013 / Network Serialization and Routing in World of Warcraft - Talk by Joe Rumsey from Blizzard.
- 2015 / Game Networking for Physics Programmers - Talk by Glenn Fiedler from Respawn.
- 2023 / Predicted Physics-Based Multiplayer in Space Engineers - Talk by Jan Hlousek.
- Stockholm 2025 / A Dive Into Networked Physics-Based Character Movement - Talk by Tom Waterson and Markus Boberg.
- Animation Networking - Replicating animations via graph parameters or pose tasks by Bobby Anguelov.
- Between Two Servers - Glenn Fiedler interviews gamedevs about multiplayer and netcode.
- Rollback Netcode in Godot - A tutorial series about implementing rollback netcode in Godot.
- Tick Rate, Servers, and More - Samy Duc on netcode and choosing models to serve game design.
- Unity + Mirror Networking Tutorials - Conceptual and hands-on implementation by Neil Shah.
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multiplayer
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networking
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udp
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game-development
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game-server
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unity
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protocol
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websockets
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csharp
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multiplayer-game-server
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unity3d
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unity-3d
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ack
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kubernetes
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rtt
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godot
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socket
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golang
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command-line-tool
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netcat
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tunnel
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rfc-6455
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socat
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realtime-messaging
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reliable-messages
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entities
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entity-framework
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agones
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go
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