Abstract
Mobile gaming is an emerging concept wherein gamers are using mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, to play best-seller games. Compared to dedicated gaming boxes or PCs, these devices still fall short of executing newly complex 3D video games with a rich immersion. Three novel solutions, relying on cloud computing infrastructure, namely, computation offloading, cloud gaming, and client-server architecture, will represent the next generation of game engine architecture aiming at improving the gaming experience. The basis of these aforementioned solutions is the distribution of the game code over different devices (including set-top boxes, PCs, and servers). In order to know how the game code should be distributed, advanced knowledge of game engines is required. By consequence, dissecting and analyzing game engine performances will surely help to better understand how to move in these new directions (i.e., distribute game code), which is so far missing in the literature. Aiming at filling this gap, we propose in this article to analyze and evaluate one of the famous engines in the market, that is, “Unity 3D.” We begin by detailing the architecture and the game logic of game engines. Then, we propose a test-bed to evaluate the CPU and GPU consumption per frame and per module for nine representative games on three platforms, namely, a stand-alone computer, embedded systems, and web players. Based on the obtained results and observations, we build a valued graph of each module, composing the Unity 3D architecture, which reflects the internal flow and CPU consumption. Finally, we made a comparison in terms of CPU consumption between these architectures.
- UNITY 3D. 2015. Unity: The Leading Global Game Industry Software (accessed August 2015).Google Scholar
- Saeid Abolfazli, Zohreh Sanaei, and Ejaz Ahmed. 2014. Cloud-based augmentation for mobile devices: Motivation, taxonomies, and open challenges. IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials 16, 1 (2014), 337--368. Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Eike Falk Anderson, Steffen Engel, Peter Comninos, and Leigh McLoughlin. 2008. The case for research in game engine architecture. In Proceedings of the 2008 Conference on Future Play. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Grenville J. Armitage and Amiel Heyde. 2012. REED: Optimizing first person shooter game server discovery using network coordinates. TOMCCAP 8, 2 (2012), 20.Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Paul B. Beskow, Andreas Petlund, and Geir A. Erikstad. 2010. Reducing game latency by migration, core-selection and TCP modifications. International Journal of Advanced Media and Communication 4, 4 (2010), 343--363. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Will Brooker. 2012. Hunting the Dark Knight: Twenty-First Century Batman.Google Scholar
- Eliya Buyukkaya, Maha Abdallah, and Gwendal Simon. 2015. A survey of peer-to-peer overlay approaches for networked virtual environments. Peer-to-Peer Networking and Applications 8, 2 (2015), 276--300. Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Sharon Choy, Bernard Wong, Gwendal Simon, and Catherine Rosenberg. 2012. The brewing storm in cloud gaming: A measurement study on cloud to end-user latency. In Proceedings of the 11th ACM/IEEE Netgames Workshop. Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Sharon Choy, Bernard Wong, Gwendal Simon, and Catherine Rosenberg. 2014. A hybrid edge-cloud architecture for reducing on-demand gaming latency. Multimedia Systems 20, 5 (2014), 503--519. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Seong-Ping Chuah, Chau Yuen, and Ngai-Man Cheung. 2014. Cloud gaming: A green solution to massive multiplayer online games. IEEE Wireless Communications 21, 4 (2014), 78--87. Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Mark Claypool and Kajal Claypool. 2009. Perspectives, frame rates and resolutions: It’s all in the game. In Proceedings of the 4th ACM International Conference on Foundations of Digital Games. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Mark Claypool and Kajal T. Claypool. 2006. Latency and player actions in online games. Communications of the ACM 49, 11 (2006), 40--45. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Mark Claypool and Kajal T. Claypool. 2010. Latency can kill: Precision and deadline in online games. In Proceedings of the 1st Annual ACM MMSys Conference. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Brent Cowan and Bill Kapralos. 2014. A survey of frameworks and game engines for serious game development. In Proceedings of the 14th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT’14). Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Michael Deering, Stephanie Winner, and Bic Schediwy. 1988. The triangle processor and normal vector shader: A VLSI system for high performance graphics. In Proceedings of the 15th Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH’88). 21--30. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Wu-chang Feng and Wu-chi Feng. 2003. On the geographic distribution of on-line game servers and players. In Proceedings of the 2nd ACM Netgames Workshop. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Hua-Jun Hong, De-Yu Chen, Chun-Ying Huang, and Kuan-Ta Chen. 2015. Placing virtual machines to optimize cloud gaming experience. IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing 3, 1 (2015), 42--53. Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Chun-Ying Huang, Kuan-Ta Chen, De-Yu Chen, and Hwai-Jung Hsu. 2014. GamingAnywhere: The first open source cloud gaming system. ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications, and Applications (TOMM) 10, 1s (2014), 10.Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Greg Humphreys, Mike Houston, Ren Ng, Randall Frank, and Sean Ahern. 2002. Chromium: A stream-processing framework for interactive rendering on clusters. ACM Transactions on Graphics 21, 3 (2002), 693--702. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Michael Jarschel and Daniel Schlosser. 2011. An evaluation of QoE in cloud gaming based on subjective tests. In Proceedings of the 5th Conference on Innovative Mobile and Internet Services in Ubiquitous Computing (IMIS’11). Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Teemu Kämäräinen, Matti Siekkinen, Yu Xiao, and Antti Ylä-Jääski. 2014. Towards pervasive and mobile gaming with distributed cloud infrastructure. In Proceedings of the 13th ACM Netgames Workshop.Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Atta Rehman Khan, Mazliza Othman, and Sajjad Ahmad Madani. 2014. A survey of mobile cloud computing application models. IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials 16, 1 (2014), 393--413. Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Blazej J. Kot, Burkhard Wuensche, John C. Grundy, and John G. Hosking. 2005. Information visualisation utilising 3D computer game engines case study: A source code comprehension tool. In Proceedings of the 6th ACM Conference on Computer-Human Interaction (CHI’05).Google Scholar
- Kyungmin Lee, David Chu, and Eduardo Cuervo. 2014. Demo: DeLorean: Using speculation to enable low-latency continuous interaction for mobile cloud gaming. In Proceedings of the 12th ACM MobiSys Conference. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Yeng-Ting Lee, Kuan-Ta Chen, Han-I Su, and Chin-Laung Lei. 2012. Are all games equally cloud-gaming-friendly? An electromyographic approach. In Proceedings of the 11th ACM Netgames Workshop.Google Scholar
- Michael Lewis and Jeffrey Jacobson. 2002. Game engines. Communications of the ACM 45, 1 (2002), 27.Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Yusen Li, Xueyan Tang, and Wentong Cai. 2015. Play request dispatching for efficient virtual machine usage in cloud gaming. IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology 25, 12 (2015), 2052--2063. Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Yao Liu, Sujit Dey, and Yao Lu. 2015. Enhancing video encoding for cloud gaming using rendering information. IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology 25, 12 (2015), 1960--1974. Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Meng Luo and Mark Claypool. 2015. Uniquitous: Implementation and evaluation of a cloud-based game system in unity. In Proceedings of IEEE GEM Conference.Google Scholar
- Stefan Marks, John A. Windsor, and Burkhard Wünsche. 2007. Evaluation of game engines for simulated surgical training. In Proceedings of the 5th ACM International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (Graphite’07).Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Farouk Messaoudi, Gwendal Simon, and Adlen Ksentini. 2015. Dissecting games engines: The case of Unity3D. In Proceedings of the ACM Workshop on Network and Systems Support for Games, NetGames. 1--6.Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Vlad Nae, Alexandru Iosup, and Radu Prodan. 2011. Dynamic resource provisioning in massively multiplayer online games. IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems 22, 3 (2011), 380--395. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Rasoul M. Nasiri, Jiheng Wang, Abdul Rehman, and Shiqi Wang. 2015. Perceptual quality assessment of high frame rate video. In Proceedings of the 17th IEEE International Workshop on Multimedia Signal Processing (MMSP’15). Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Magy El Nasr, Maha Al-Saati, and Simon Niedenthal. 2008. Assassins creed: A multi-cultural read. (2008).Google Scholar
- Beatrice Ng, Antonio Si, Rynson W. H. Lau, and Frederick W. B. Li. 2002. A multi-server architecture for distributed virtual walkthrough. In Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology (VRST’02). 163--170. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Peter Quax, Anastasiia Beznosyk, Wouter Vanmontfort, and Robin Marx. 2013. An evaluation of the impact of game genre on user experience in cloud gaming. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Games and Innovation Conference (IGIC’13). 216--221. Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Kjetil Raaen, Ragnhild Eg, and Carsten Griwodz. 2014. Can gamers detect cloud delay? In Proceedings of the 13th ACM/IEEE Netgames Workshop. Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Kjetil Raaen and Andreas Petlund. 2015. How much delay is there really in current games? In Proceedings of the 6th ACM Multimedia Systems Conference (MMSys’15). Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Andreas Sackl, Raimund Schatz, and Tobias Hossfeld. 2016. QoE management made uneasy: The case of cloud gaming. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Communications Workshops (ICC’16).Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Takafumi Saito and Tokiichiro Takahashi. 1990. Comprehensible rendering of 3-D shapes. In Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH’90). 197--206.Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Mahadev Satyanarayanan, Zhuo Chen, Kiryong Ha, Wenlu Hu, Wolfgang Richter, and Padmanabhan Pillai. 2014. Cloudlets: At the leading edge of mobile-cloud convergence. In Proceedings of MobiCASE.Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Simon Schneegans, Felix Lauer, Andreas-C. Bernstein, and Andre Schollmeyer. 2014. Guacamole - An extensible scene graph and rendering framework based on deferred shading. In Proceedings of the 7th IEEE Workshop on Software Engineering and Architectures for Realtime Interactive Systems (SEARIS’14).Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Mehdi Semsarzadeh, Abdulsalam Yassine, and Shervin Shirmohammadi. 2015. Video encoding acceleration in cloud gaming. IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology 25, 12 (2015), 1975--1987. Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Ryan Shea, Di Fu, and Jiangchuan Liu. 2015. Cloud gaming: Understanding the support from advanced virtualization and hardware. IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology 25, 12 (2015), 2026--2037. Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Ryan Shea and Jiangchuan Liu. 2013. On GPU pass-through performance for cloud gaming: Experiments and analysis. In Proceedings of 12th IEEE/ACM Netgames Workshop. Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Jouni Smed, Timo Kaukoranta, and Harri Hakonen. 2002. Aspects of networking in multiplayer computer games. Electronic Library 20, 2 (2002), 87--97. Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Mirko Suznjevic, Jose Saldana, and Maja Matijasevic. 2014. Analyzing the effect of TCP and server population on massively multiplayer games. International Journal of Computer Games Technology 2014 (2014), 2. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- James Tulip, James Bekkema, and Keith Nesbitt. 2006. Multi-threaded game engine design. In Proceedings of the Interactive Entertainment Conference (IE’06).Google Scholar
- Maxime Véron, Olivier Marin, and Sébastien Monnet. 2014. Matchmaking in multi-player on-line games: Studying user traces to improve the user experience. In Proceedings of the 13th ACM/IEEE Netgames Workshop.Google Scholar
- Steven Daniel Webb, Sieteng Soh, and William Lau. 2007. Enhanced mirrored servers for network games. In Proceedings of the 6th ACM Netgames Workshop. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Lars C. Wolf (Ed.). 2002. Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Network and System Support for Games (NETGAMES’02). ACM.Google Scholar
- Amir Yahyavi, Kevin Huguenin, Julien Gascon-Samson, Jorg Kienzle, and Bettina Kemme. 2013. Watchmen: Scalable cheat-resistant support for distributed multi-player online games. In Proceedings of the 33rd IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS’13).Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Amir Yahyavi and Bettina Kemme. 2013. Peer-to-peer architectures for massively multiplayer online games: A survey. ACM Computer Surveys 46, 1 (2013), 9.Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Youhui Zhang, Peng Qu, Jiang Cihang, and Weimin Zheng. 2016. A cloud gaming system based on user-level virtualization and its resource scheduling. IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems 27, 5 (2016), 1239--1252. Google Scholar
Digital Library
Index Terms
Performance Analysis of Game Engines on Mobile and Fixed Devices
Recommendations
GameFlow in Different Game Genres and Platforms
Theoretical and Practical Computer Applications in EntertainmentThe GameFlow model strives to be a general model of player enjoyment, applicable to all game genres and platforms. Derived from a general set of heuristics for creating enjoyable player experiences, the GameFlow model has been widely used in evaluating ...
How computer gamers experience the game situation: a behavioral study
Theoretical and Practical Computer Applications in EntertainmentVery little is known about computer gamers' playing experience. Most social scientific research has treated gaming as an undifferentiated activity associated with various factors outside the gaming context. This article considers computer games as ...
Game Jam Natives?: The Rise of the Game Jam Era in Game Development Cultures
ICGJ 2021: Sixth Annual International Conference on Game Jams, Hackathons, and Game Creation EventsGame jams bring all kinds of creators together to make games from scratch in a relatively short time, often based on shared design constraints. The most influential game jam, Global Game Jam (GGJ) was established in 2009 as an annual event connecting ...






Comments