Thread: SDLnet and making a game server?

I have no experience with networking at this point. I figured an easy way to start would be to use a networking API for game development. SDLnet sounds ok to me, since SDL is a great high performance game API anyway.

My question is related to SDLnet which is a separate installation to the normal SDK.
I would like to make a small game server for a multiplayer game (not working on it, just planning for now). I would like about a dozen people to be able to connect to the game server, which is something that would be hosted on a players own computer. Is this something I would use SDLnet for?

Some things that I understand, is that shooter games for example, have or used to have a capability to connect to each other. I am not sure how these architectures were distributed, but now most games connect to a game server and everyone else connects to that also. Does that sound right? Would I have a separate small game server running that I connect to and others would connect to also?

So the goal -> Make small game server (allows about a dozen players to connect). Make a game client (to connect with). Run on own computer over internet.

I am looking for someone to confirm that these steps are correct? and then my next questions will be related to how I can get this done.

btw - I'm new here, so I hope I am asking in the right place, and thank you very much in advance for any help on this.

I am a non-professional hobbyist C++ programmer, but I have not dabbled with anything serious. I am moving to C++ from Visual Basic and Visual C#, so I am still getting used to all this.

I am interested in doing my programming on Linux, but if you are a Windows programmer, you can talk to me in Windows talk, but I am not interested in Managed C++,

Originally Posted by Salem

You have two basic approaches.

1. Game server does all the work, game clients are thin - forwarding user inputs to the server, drawing scene updates from the server.

2. Game server is thin - forwarding user inputs to all other players, and each players machine does all the work.

I'd go with #1 - it's what most 'modern' game engines, at least the one's I've looked at do.

Thank's - Yes, #1 sounds the best, I have heard of doing it that way is good.

Nought's and crosses - is there a good example that is networked out there I can use as an example? I know a lot of programmers start with tic tac toe, then progress to chess after everything in between, but I never got a good grounding in the board game way of programming. I will of course search also.

Salem - Noughts and Crosses, is one of the best ideas I heard. The approach is really straight forward. I got an example after Googleing that opens a connection let's you play and closes after the game is finished. Just glancing through the code I have a good idea on very simple sockets programming. It uses a client-server model.

This is the link I found: GitHub - indradhanush/Multiplayer-tic-tac-toe: A Multiplayer Tic-Tac-Toe game written in C++ based on the client-server model using the basics of socket programming.

Awesome thanks.