Introduction

• Summary:

• This course covers the concepts underlying networked games (NGs) and networked virtual environments (NVEs), from their definition, to distributed systems, to networking fundamentals, quality of experience and game design needs.

• The objective of the course is to prepare the student for research and development of networking technologies for supporting large-scale, multi player online games. The students taking this course will have taken an introductory course to computer networks.

• Topics include:
  

• the challenges of networked games
• the origins of networked games technology
• communications architectures
• managing dynamic shared state
• systems design: client server vs peer to peer
• real-time collision detection and response
• resource management for scalability and performance

• Audience:
  
• Senior Undergraduates
• Graduates

• Suggested Texts:

• Grenville Armitage, Mark Claypool, Philip Branch, Networking and Online Games - Understanding and Engineering Multiplayer Internet Games, Publ. by Wiley
  
• Sandeep Singhal and Michael Zyda, Networked Games:  Design and Implementation, Publ. by Addison Wesley
• Anthony Steed and Manuel Fradinho Oliveira, Networked Graphics: Building Networked Games and Virtual Environments, Publ. by Morgan Kaufman
  
• Readings from recent papers in the networked game area

• Class Time: Mon-Thurs 2-3:25pm
• Class Room: SIC 205
  
• Office hours: Thurs 3:30 - 4:30pm
• My Coordinates:
  
• Office: SIA 108
• Email: elzarki@uci.edu