Combining Interest Management and Dead Reckoning: A Hybrid Approach for Efficient Data Distribution in Multiplayer Online Games

The techniques of dead reckoning (DR) and interest management have been studied for more than two decades to optimize the data transmission on multiplayer online game networks. However, there is a lack of investigation in the integration of the two techniques, which may bring more benefits in terms of reducing bandwidth usage and enhancing computational efficiency. This paper presents a hybrid approach for efficient data distribution in multiplayer online games. We propose a new multi-threshold DR algorithm, which is more flexible than the traditional one-threshold DR approach. The new DR algorithm is combined with zone-based interest management (ZBIM) to take advantage of data filtering with minimum trade-offs. A number of experiments were conducted based on The Open Racing Car Simulator (TORCS) to evaluate the performance of the proposed hybrid approach. The results show that it performs better than the DR and ZBIM techniques in term of bandwidth usage without significant runtime difference.