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Testing Multiplayer over the network - recommended practice?

Community General Discussion
#1

Hi ,
Maybe this is not the right forum place, but I could not find a section dedicated to Networking in the forum (or I am blind and haven’t seen it), but - I want to test my multiplayer game with some friends, and as I understand the way to do that, is:

  • I should create a dedicated server and open the UE4 port , then have my friends run the client and connect to my dedicated server - is this the recommended or best practice?
  • is there some other way that Epic provides, an easier way to test over the network? I am thinking of a sandboxed environment for multiplayer over the network, would be great. Maybe there is such a thing?

Best regards,

#2

Epic doesn’t provide anything at the moment. Yes, you have to host the dedicated server(s) on a PC and have your friends connect via “open IP:port”, with the port being the one you set in your NAT/router’s configuration settings.

#3

You don’t need a dedicated server at all to test multiplayer, running multiple instances of the game and connecting via IP is enough.

#4

thank you both very much!

#5

I usually test with PlayInEditor with “number of players” set to 2 (or more) to develop multiplayer stuff.
but also I use shootergame as a base for projects along with a steam direct ($100) access, and simply feed my steam appid and I’m good to go. With this I can use ShooterGame’s integrated “find game” menu option and actually playtest multiplayer through steam with other players