Some questions about networking

Development Programming & Scripting Multiplayer & Networking
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1

How does net update frequency and server tickrate relate?
1 - Net update frequency is how many times per second the server will check if the variable or actor changed and the server tickrate is how often this info will be sent to the clients?

2 - If this is true then does net update frequency not affect bandwith at all? It only affects cpu usage?

3 - what is the default server tickrate and can it be changed from the editor?

4 - is there an option to change the upload frequency and download frequency inside the editor? By this i mean something like the player sends 60 updates per second while the server only 30, is this a premade thing or do i have to do it myself?

Thanks :slight_smile:

2

I am relatively new to UE4 so you might want a second opinion on that.

  1. I think the Net update frequency controls how many times the server replicates a value to the clients. It is adaptive (by default) so it varies. source The server TickRate controls how often actors and components are ticked on the server. I don’t think it has anything to do with network traffic. All the data from the server ticks still waits Net update to go to the clients.
  2. I think TickRate does not affect bandwith. The Net update frequency does especially if you have many changing replicated variables.
  3. The tick rate is changed from the Engine.ini file. Search for NetServerMaxTickRate and LanServerMaxTickRate.
  4. I don’t think you can change the frequency of the client and the server separately, however you can modify the maximum net speed of a client with MaxClientRate in the Engine.ini.

Here is one quick and outdated 12 year old reference post: Tweaking your server ini (UT) - UnrealAdminWiki

The values discussed are still present in BaseEngine.ini in UE4

I hope this helps.

3

According to this talk:

  1. I think the Net update frequency controls how many times the server replicates a value to the clients. It is adaptive (by default) so it varies. source The server TickRate controls how often actors and components are ticked on the server. I don’t think it has anything to do with network traffic. All the data from the server ticks still waits Net update to go to the clients.

This is not correct, the “Net update frequency” controls how often the actor updates but it is clamped by the MaxTickRate anyway