Dealing with lag

One of the major problems that occurs in a networked game is latency or lag. When two players are playing against each other, and one is on a high-speed network and the other is on a very low-speed network, how do we update the data? We need to update it in such a way that it looks normal to both players. No player should get an undue advantage because of this situation.

Getting ready

To work through this recipe, you will need a machine running Windows and Visual Studio.

How to do it…

In this recipe, you will see a few techniques for countering lag.

Generally, a networked game will have the following update loop. We need to figure out, from the loop structure, what is the best way to counter lag:

read_network_messages()
    read_local_input()
    update_world()
    send_network_updates()
    render_world()

How it works…

In most computer games, when networking is implemented, a specific type of client-server architecture is chosen. Often, an authoritative server is...