Launching on another Windows machine?

Is it possible to launch from the editor to another windows machine? I’m starting to work on a networked game and I’d like to be able to just launch the current build over on the laptop and then one as well on my desktop to test.

Right now it seems I have to package the project for windows, grab the created directory of 1-2gigs and get it over to the laptop and run it to connect up to the desktop.

Any solutions here? I feel like the Device Manager does support this but Im just missing something in the documentation

I’m actually interested in knowing this too.

Hi Lawlcat, it sounds like you have the right steps for multi-machine testing. It’s definitely slow to get builds over to a second machine, so we try to avoid it unless it’s absolutely necessary. I do a lot of multiplayer testing and am usually able to run multiple clients on the same machine for my testing. You might have to turn graphics down a bit and run in Windowed mode, but it helps a lot for faster iteration.

You can also add these settings to your DefaultEngine.ini to simulate some lag:

[PacketSimulationSettings]
PktLoss=1
PktOrder=0
PktDup=0
PktLag=75
PktLagVariance=20

Could you share the project directory between the two over the network? Then just launch the editor on both, or will this cause locking/corruption issues if two editors reference the same project?

This’ll do, thanks :slight_smile: I think my workstation is tough enough to run at least 2 copies, which should be enough for me to test syncing. Now to figure out how to actually get things synced properly!

A little late to the party, but the trouble is the tradeoff between a small packaged build and rapid iteration. Usually the smallest build is going to require cooking content and then pak’ing it up. This gives you the executable, configs, cooked content. But cooking takes time, and you have to maintain two binaries (the editor and the MyGame.exe).

If you don’t cook, then you have to copy all content and only maintain one binary, but identifying WHAT content can be tough (Fortnite is huge for example), so you copy it all and that can be gigs.

I use Robocopy and its “only copy new files” so I only take the big hit every once and a while. It would depend on your content churn.

The syntax is like so (use Robocopy /? to see details)

robocopy <dir> \%MACHINE%\YourOutputDir\Engine\Binaries /mir /w:1 /r:1 /ndl /nfl