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Hi! I'm thinking about starting a little multiplayer first person shooter and I was wondering how to split the game's code in 3 parts: the engine, the client and the server (like in Half-Life)? After some thinking I came up with this:
http://img450.imageshack.us/img450/8770/network3ib.png
Do you think that will work? If you know where I can find Half-Life's protocol specs, please post a link. Thanks. :)
I'm not experienced with this sort of thing but it makes sense to me since everyone is going to have the client and the engine on their machine and the server talks to the client which then uses the engine to do what is needed.
The server is normally a separate app that just routes messages and runs in the background. So your setup looks correct to me.
Actually, most games have both server and client use the underlying engine, and the engine is also broken down. I think one common breakdown I have seen is: Render; Network; Input;Gameplay/Management; Physics(If you have any); and Configuration. Im sure their is alot of abstraction even at that level though, as the Rendering system will also need to do text and GUI. This isn't a small task either.