A Grid-enabled Multi-server Network Game Architecture

Multiplayer network games attract more and more interest nowadays. In order to make the system scalable, the multi-server architecture is introduced. In such systems, as the dynamic behavior of the users in the virtual world may result in significant workload imbalance between servers, a dynamic load sharing and transferring mechanism is crucial to achieve both quick response time and high throughput. In this paper, we present a multi-server model based on the emerging grid technology for supporting multiplayer network games. The core of this model is based on a new abstraction “gamelet”, which represents the execution logic within a partitioned game world and is featured by its high mobility for supporting dynamic load sharing. A prototype of a 3D multiplayer game has been implemented based on gamelet concept. Preliminary results show that our approach can help make a more dynamic and cost effective multi-server network game system.