Virtual Party Space Devlog #13: Server-side architecture

Today I start looking into server-side architecture to support a large number of simultaneous users, and also put in pathfinding for other players' avatars.

Log

• More research into scalable architecture, looks like 150 participants is stretching the capabilities of Jitsi
  • https://community.jitsi.org/t/maximum-number-of-participants-on-a-meeting-on-meet-jit-si-server/22273/31
  • https://community.jitsi.org/t/whats-the-number-of-the-maximum-users-in-the-same-video-conference/82998/16
  • https://community.jitsi.org/t/multi-shard-auto-scalable-kubernetes-setup/64685
  • https://community.jitsi.org/t/support-for-large-100-user-conferences-timeline-and-contribution/32247/13
  • https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/getting-started-with-jitsi-an-open-source-web-conferencing-solution/
  • load testing tutorial

Architecture conclusions

• to be in same conference, all users need to hit same jicofo instance (can only scale vertically)
• prosody is single-threaded and may also be a blocker https://community.jitsi.org/t/site-slowing-down-on-concurrent-connections/80822/17
• jvb can be separate, and can load-balance multiple servers for same conference using Octo
• limitation is bandwidth/client bandwidth
  • last-n is probably required if most people sending video
  • need to come up with distance-based-n solution

Interface

• started putting pathfinding in to allow for other-player movement and also mouse-based movement
  • pulled in easystar
• started changing gridphysics/player code to work with additional sprites
  • looked into improving isometric math, but it might actually be as good as it gets?
  • removed some extra Vector object creations from methods that get called every draw cycle
    • don’t know that this actually makes a difference but creating 60 objects/second must add up?

About this series

Back in mid-December I started an ambitious project to create a custom platform for a virtual birthday party in February. I kept notes on my progress, both for personal reference and to turn into a series of blog posts. It quickly became apparent that I did not have time to both do the project and blog about the project. I have retroactively decided to post my raw notes as a dev log.