Real-time multiplayer game (concept question)

Question

I\'ve been reading this article from Valve that seems to explain the architecture of their multiplayer system. It seems they delay rendering by a couple ticks on the client so t

Answer 1

The complete state is synchronized periodically or upon client request. Interpolation/extrapolation can be used to compensate for packet loss while waiting for a full position update. Some events require reliabe delivery and a means of acknowledging receipt could be added.

Glenn Fiedler has some excellent articles about networked games on his blog.

This old article about Quake 3 networking sounds similar. The delta states represent changes from the last client acknowledged state that was received. So, if the server sees that the client is behind then the next delta will be created from the difference between the client state and the current server state.