Connection.RemoteFrame is way behind Command.ServerFrame in ExecuteCommand

Aydin

Hi,

I am using Bolt for a server authoritative movement/shooting in my game. Recently I decided to use the client's frame for better lag compensation; However in the ExecutecCommand method, when I compared the value of RemoteFrame property of the client which generates the commands with the value of ServerFrame property of the received command I can see that they are not in sync and most of the times (especially when the client or server is the Unity editor) the RemoteFrame is way way behind the ServerFrame (I've seen differences from 30 to 200 frames).

I was under the impression that that these two values should be same or very close to each other. Could you please explain to me what I am missing here?

Look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,
Aydin

ramonmelo

Hello @Aydin ,

The current frame in which the simulation is running on each peer is independent.
Every time an update package is received from a remote peer, the frame number is updated on the local reference for that remote connection. It's used to simulate forward all entities that have that connection as the origin.
In summary, the simulation frame is local and independent.

When a command is enqueued by the controller on the local command queue, it's marked with the estimated frame from the server, and don't take into account anything from the local simulation frame.
And when this command arrives on the server, you just need to know when the client has created this command based on the server frame, so it can check in the past for a particular tracked hitboxes and perform the raycast check, for example.

If you are implementing a Lag Compensated Raycast check, just use the already implemented system that exists in Bolt: https://doc.photonengine.com/en-us/bolt/current/community-wiki/bolt-essentials/lag-compensation

By using Bolt Hitboxes and the mentioned methods, you can easily check for Raycast/Spherecast hits that take into consideration the lag between the client and server.

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Ramon Melo
Photon Bolt Team

Aydin

Per your answer I changed the logic on my server to use command's ServerFrame for the calculations and it seems it is working properly for now.

As for using Bolt's HitBoxes for the lag compensation, it seems they are not a good fit for the kind of gameplay I have in my game - at least with the features the current documentation presents.

Thanks,
Aydin

ramonmelo

Hello @Aydin ,

...at least with the features the current documentation presents.

Can you elaborate on this?

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Ramon Melo
Photon Bolt Team

Aydin

For example in my game, I want to know - in the server - where a certain GameObject (Player in this case) had been when a certain event happened. The Bolt HitBoxes does not seem to provide such a functionality; I can come up with some work arounds for it using Bolt HitBoxes but I don't like them as they seem unnecessarily complicated. I'd rather for the Bolt HitBoxes to have a method that return the position/rotation of it at certain frame.

ramonmelo

Hello @Aydin ,

Yes, that should be easy to do, a circular buffer with X past positions/rotations of a certain entity.

You just need to record this at the "SimulateOwner" for example.

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Ramon Melo
Photon Bolt Team

Aydin

Yeah, that's what I am doing for now.