Game Streaming Level Switching With Preloaded Server Instances
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing game systems experience interruptions in gameplay due to the time-consuming process of transferring game assets between slow and fast memory during level changes, which negatively impact the user experience.
Innovation Solution
A game streaming system that concurrently executes multiple instances of a game program on different servers, each loaded with different game levels, allowing seamless transitions by transferring player state information and pre-loading assets to reduce loading times.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If game assets are transferred from slow memory to fast memory during level changes, then the virtual environment can be fully loaded, but gameplay is interrupted by loading screens
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-loads game assets for upcoming levels into fast memory before the player actually needs them. When a level change is triggered, the assets are already available in fast memory, eliminating the need for loading screens and allowing seamless transitions.
Solution Approach 2:
The virtual environment is divided into discrete levels, each with its own set of game assets. This segmentation allows the system to load only the necessary assets for the current or upcoming level into fast memory while keeping other assets in slow memory, optimizing memory usage and reducing loading times.
2Speed
If all game assets are stored in fast memory, then asset access is quick, but the system requires excessive memory capacity
Solution Approach 1:
Game assets are segmented by level and stored in a hierarchical memory structure. Only the assets for the current level and potentially upcoming levels are loaded into fast memory, while assets for other levels remain in slow memory. This segmentation enables quick access to needed assets without requiring the entire game to reside in fast memory.
Solution Approach 2:
The system anticipates future asset needs by pre-loading assets for upcoming levels into fast memory before they are actually required. This preliminary action ensures that when the player transitions to the next level, the assets are already available, maintaining fast access speeds without permanently allocating excessive memory capacity.
Data Source
AI summary
A game streaming system concurrently executes different instances of a game program, each instance employing a different set of hardware resources, including different local memory, such as the hardware resources of different servers or different GPUs. Based on a game state, the game streaming system streams rendered frames from a first set of hardware resources associated with the game level to a client device wherein the rendered frames, depicting a portion of a virtual environment. In response to an indication from the game program of a game level change to a new game level, the game streaming system transfers a player state to another set of hardware resources, and begins streaming rendered frames to the client device from the other of hardware resources.