Scheduling for Very Large Virtual Environments and Networked Games Using Visibility and Priorities

The problem of network bundwidth limitutions is encountered in ulmost uny distributed virtuul environment or networkedgume. In U typicul client-server setup, where the virtuul world is munuged by U server and replicated by connected clients which visualize the scene, the server must repeatedly trunsmit updute messuges to the clients. By employing visibility informution, the number of messages trunsmitted over the network cun be reduced by sending euch client only updute messuges for objects which ure visiblefiom the viewpoint of the client. This puper presents U technique thut ullows the server to manuge the trunsmission of updute messuges for euch client with U constunt overheud, reducing overull compututionul cost to U linear eflort. We show how the server cun employ visibility informution to schedule ull objects using the Priority Round-Robin ulgorithm. This algorithm is further enhunced with uctivity monitoring that provides U gruceful degrudution of the system's performance, even if the behuvior of objects is unpredictuble. This makes the algorithm suited to schedule updute messuges regurding server-controlled objects us well us user-controlled uvuturs.