No, there's no option to do that because the game does not use a client-server architecture. The game is peer-to-peer, with all machines running the entire game in parallel; the host only keeps them all synced, which uses minimal overhead compared to the game itself. As such, there would be no discernible benefit to a dedicated host anyway.
If we're on the subject, could I ask a few questions about Sins net architecture? I'm very curious about this:
- When you say p2p and "host only keeps them all synced", how does the host do that without broadcasting its state to each and every node?
- Do the nodes pull or push information?
- What mechanism deals with packet loss?
- Does the host periodically or when it deems it required refresh all nodes with a clean snapshot of its state? (i.e non-incrementally)? Or does the whole architecture rely on each node remaining in sync based on following incremental changes?
I'm not trying to steal IC's IP or anything
, I'm just curious about the architecture you're describing as this is the first time that I hear of a P2P network architecture for a real-time application and I'm quite intrigued.
Thanks anyway,
Amir.
