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WPI (Worcester Polytechnic Institute)

Computer Science Department
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Drizzle: Design and Implementation of a Lightweight Cloud Game Engine with Latency Compensation

Jiawei Sun

Advisor: Professor Mark Claypool

M.S. Thesis
Interactive Media and Game Development, WPI
December 2017

Abstract

With the rapid development of the Internet, cloud gaming has increasingly gained attention. Cloud gaming is a new type of cloud service that allows a game to run on the cloud servers, and players interact with the game remotely on their own light-weight clients. There are many potential benefits for both players and game developers to deploy a game on a cloud server, such as reducing the need for clients to update the game, easing development of cross-device games and helping prevent software piracy. In this work, I developed a cloud game engine, Drizzle, with a time warp algorithm for latency compensation, and implemented a new transmission method that reduces the network bandwidth. Using Drizzle, I also developed a simple cloud game to evaluate the functionality and performance. Experiments with this game in a controlled laboratory environment provide objective measurements of game performance and subjective measurements of user performance. Analysis of the results shows Drizzle with time warp did not reduce noticeable latency but helped players get higher game scores compared to Drizzle without time warp. Moreover, Drizzle reduced network bitrates compared to some conventional cloud transmission methods.


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