multiplayer

Choose based on game type: competitive real-time games need authoritative dedicated servers, cooperative casual games work with host-based setups, turn-based games suit simple client-server, and MMOs require distributed servers. Compare latency, cost, and security trade-offs.

State sync transmits game state and suits simple games with few objects, while input sync transmits player inputs and fits action games. Most games use a hybrid approach combining both for accuracy and bandwidth efficiency.

Lag compensation combines client prediction, interpolation for smooth remote player movement, reconciliation to fix mispredictions, and server-side rewinding for fair hit detection. Design your game to tolerate 100-200ms latency.

Make the server the sole authority: validate movement to stop speed hacks, validate sight lines against aimbots, keep inventory server-owned to prevent item duplication, and never send hidden data to clients to block wall hacks.

Send position updates at 20-60 Hz, while health, inventory, and chat should update only on change or send. Combine this with delta compression, quantization, priority ordering, and area-of-interest filtering to reduce bandwidth.